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 poison was coming from baited squirrel traps which the pigs were seeking out and eating from.
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?
> "California's wild pigs being poisoned: Authorities are sounding the alarm"
Well, that one would be an outright lie. Authorities are quoted in the piece. They say they're aware of the situation and it's caused by rat poison. They are not alarmed, nor do they suggest anyone else should be alarmed.
> 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...
But also...... kinda not hyperbolic, given the industry that has sprung up around this:
The other one that's wild, when they lift a bail of hay and like a thousand rats shoot out and these little terriers destroy the rats
"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.
Yes, everyone knows you don't tell sick people that enjoy poisoning animals where the poison is. But don't be a dick, do tell your normal neighbors (the vast majority unless you're extremely unlucky) so their pets aren't harmed or can receive prompt treatment.
To quote George Carlin "I am always thinking big questions like, Why is there no blue food?". This is also why most food handling gear in manufacturing is blue coloured. Easy to see.
Vaguely related,there was a small chemical spill near my house about a month back and it made it to the local creek. You could tell because they add that neon blue dye so that it is obvious when there is a spill.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jul/17/banyule-...
In many areas, cat rescues will supply food, spay/neuters, flea meds, etc. for the ferals.
https://wafcwg.org.au/information/felixer-grooming-traps/
https://thylation.com/products/
https://southwestnrm.org.au/project/felixer-cat-grooming-tra...
They identify cats and fire a goopy toxin onto the cat fur.
ipsum2•17h ago
bombcar•17h ago
Wow - noticeable at least!
DavidPeiffer•16h 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•16h 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•16h ago
zahlman•16h ago
Huh, thanks.
thaumasiotes•13h ago
Eyes can't be blue either.
delecti•13h ago
thaumasiotes•9h ago
bboygravity•12h ago
Like when rich people consumed food and beverages from pure silver plates (100's of years ago) their blood supposedly turned purple/blueish. Hence the term (at least in Dutch) that "he is of blue blood" = he rich af.
Or that's all a myth. Not sure.
thaumasiotes•8h ago
This is usually said to refer to the fact that someone's skin is so pale you can see the veins through it.
(Also, it refers to pedigree rather than wealth, in English...)
I would expect silver to turn things black, not blue.
(Although see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argyria )
goopypoop•8h ago
GLdRH•5h ago
thaumasiotes•1h ago
goopypoop•8h ago
elevated methemoglobin in human blood causes brown blood causes blue skin
efavdb•12h ago
godelski•12h ago
The blue in blue eyes (and green) is a structural property, not a pigment property. This is also why eye color changes for these people much more dramatically than people with darker colored eyes (see Hazel eyes).
It's color caused by structure, but that doesn't make it not a color. A lot of things aren't going to "have color" if you use that definition. Including the sky...
jamessb•2h ago
Have you eveer seen a blueberry? Or a Concord grape? Or a damson plum?
mr_toad•13h ago
godelski•12h ago
While I don't think the average person is going to notice or care about these "nuances" I would be pretty surprised if anyone that huts would not immediately notice. The "well I look at my veins and they are blue" argument only holds up if you don't look at the pictures in the link. Like they just look very different. Easy to sound right while being very wrong (and often hard to explain why it is wrong without sounding like nitpicking). It's not like they're hunting horseshoe crabs...
[0] https://askabiologist.asu.edu/questions/is-blood-blue
[1] Pale enough that a phlebotomist once told me I was the easiest person to draw blood from because it is so easy to see my veins.
crazygringo•12h ago
Which makes a lot more sense, since dyes can only darken right? You can turn white fat blue, while red muscle would at most turn a somewhat darker purple which might not be so obvious?
beefnugs•16h ago
dunefox•15h ago
There are several good pictures...
jamiek88•11h ago
SoftTalker•16h ago
potato3732842•13h ago
godelski•12h ago
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_Live
Am4TIfIsER0ppos•14h ago