Bobo, an escaped 700-pound boar that has eluded police for a week, is back with its owner and soon will head to a meat processor.
It took about a half-dozen police officers, two animal control officers and a few workers with the city’s public works department to finally catch the pig Tuesday afternoon behind a day care on Alabama Street, Police Chief Joseph Daughtry told The Dispatch. It had wandered more than 12 miles from its home on Concord Road southwest of New Hope.
Animal control responded to the day care after a worker there reported seeing the pig lying in a plastic pool on the playground, Daughtry said. After Bobo proved too much for the animal control officers to handle alone, others in the department came to either assist or video the experience for posterity. Footage Ward 4 Councilman Pierre Beard posted on Facebook shows Daughtry among those using a cell phone to video the chase.
“We have some country boys who work for the Columbus Police Department who grew up doing this kind of stuff,” Daughtry said before noting he hails from south Louisiana. “If it had been an alligator, it would have been right in my wheelhouse. We’d have had it wrapped up quick.”
No one was injured, Daughtry said.
Bobo’s owner, Rev. Joe Peoples, pastor at Stephen Chapel Baptist Church in Columbus, said Bobo escaped through a fence on his property Oct. 8. The boar isn’t castrated, and Peoples believes it was searching for a mate.
In the ensuing week, the boar became something of a local sensation on Facebook, with residents posting photos of Bobo sightings. Bobo also became something of a headache for CPD, Public Information Officer Bryan Moore said.
“We’ve been chasing him for a couple of days,” Moore said. “People would tell us where he was, but when we’d get there, he’d run. … He was staying in the same area (around Airline and Eastwood roads and Alabama Street).”
Moore said there had been no reports of property damage from Bobo’s exploits.
Peoples said he has raised pigs for about 20 years and has had Bobo for the last six years. The boar escaped one other time, Peoples said, but “came right back.”
“This time he got out and wanted to ramble,” Peoples said.
He said an animal control officer called him at 9 a.m. Tuesday to tell him Bobo had been found. It took until about 1 p.m. for officers to catch the boar and return it to Peoples.
Peoples said he borrowed a neighbor’s horse trailer to corral the boar until its next, and final, road trip.
“Another week or so, and I’m going to be eating pork chops or bacon off of him,” Peoples said.
Zack Plair is the managing editor for The Dispatch.
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