DELTA When it comes to bringing home the bacon, Jamison Stone, 11, has the right hunting skills. Armed with only a pistol, he chased a huge hog, right, through Alabama woodlands for three hours, shooting it eight times before firing a fatal bullet from point-blank range.

The alpha boar, which weighed 75st (477kg) and measured 9ft 4in (2.8 metres), has been declared the new Goliath of the hog world, making Hogzilla, a 57st specimen killed in Georgia in 2004, look like Piglet by comparison. It has now been turned into sausages – 2,800 of them.

Jamison’s conquest is the talk of the hunting fraternity, whose chat forums are crackling with superlatives on the Monster Pig and the “fine young American” who slaughtered him.

Feral hogs are a problem in many US states because of their large appetites and cause damage to agriculture estimated at £414 million a year. But animal sympathisers and antigun campaigners have expressed disgust at the slaughter, branding the child a “red-neck hillbilly” and sending vitriolic messages. “Too bad the pig didn’t have a gun to make it fair,” read one of the more moderate postings.

Jamison said: “It’s a good accomplishment. I was a little bit scared, a little bit excited.”

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