The cause is known: "Blue tissue and flesh can be a sign of rodenticide ingestion, which can occur by eating bait – which often contains dye to identify them as poison."
The tipoff is that people usually write it as one word, "clickbait," when talking about a sensationalistic title designed to simulates clicks generating ad revenue.
OK, so maybe that person's joke wasn't so successful, but it seems like a fairly gentle attempt, which shouldn't be punished.
Seems wordy.
The dyes are large, planar aromatic molecules designed to resist rapid breakdown in the environment or the animal’s digestive tract.
"Wild pig flesh turns neon blue after eating rodent poison"
California, Authorities, and Alarm are all unneeded
That is the worst imaginable headline. No part of it is news, it is trivia.
How about:
"California's wild pigs being poisoned: Authorities are sounding the alarm"
Eh, too much news, boring.
Could there be a way to mix the two headlines to make the story both interesting and informative?
> How are feral pigs destructive? Let us count the ways.
They are invasive and cause millions of dollars in agricultural damage each year, rooting and trampling through a wide variety of crops. They prey on everything from rodents, to deer, to endangered loggerhead sea turtles, threatening to reduce the diversity of native species. They disrupt habitats. They damage archaeological sites. They are capable of transmitting diseases to domestic animals and humans. In November, a woman died in Texas after being attacked by feral hogs—a very rare, but not unprecedented occurrence.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/feral-pigs-are-inv...
"Processing" usually means taking the meat out for consumption, the skin for leather, etc.
Any idea why the meat of a wild pig was being processed in CA? What would they have done with it?
From the article:
Burton said his company discovered the affected animals when it was hired by an agriculture firm in late February and March to trap wild pigs that were going into the firm's fields.
His company traps the pigs and then euthanizes them according to state law, he said. He usually donates the carcass and meat of the pigs to low-income families.
ipsum2•2h ago
bombcar•1h ago
Wow - noticeable at least!
DavidPeiffer•1h ago
The blue is sufficient but not necessary for the animal to be impacted by the poison. It is a very vibrant blue though, and anyone would be concerned if they opened an animal and saw that.
zahlman•1h ago
> Diphenadione is a vitamin K antagonist that has anticoagulant effects and is used as a rodenticide against rats, mice, voles, ground squirrels and other rodents. The chemical compound is an anti-coagulant with active half-life longer than warfarin and other synthetic 1,3-indandione anticoagulants.[3][4] ... Rat poisons with diphacinone are often dyed bright blue to signal toxicity.[8]
timcederman•58m ago
zahlman•48m ago
Huh, thanks.
wantlotsofcurry•1h ago
beefnugs•57m ago
SoftTalker•39m ago