Boaters shocked to find land-dwelling creature mysteriously swimming in Hawaii waters
A family was enjoying a relaxing boat ride in Hawaii when they spotted something unusual in the water, video posted to Instagram shows.
At first the Mellor family couldn’t tell what it was. It looked like an obscure black shape in the water, June Mellor told McClatchy News in a text message.
When they got closer, it looked more like a log floating by — until they saw it move.
They figured maybe it was a dog that had fallen off someone’s boat, so they headed toward it slowly and realized it wasn’t a dog at all. It looked like a pig, though they’ve since learned it was a boar.
“We were stunned,” Mellor said. “We wondered where it came from and how long it had been out there in the water. One thing’s for sure, we knew we had to help.”
Mellor posted video of the chance encounter to the family’s Instagram account on Oct. 17.
“Imagine taking a nice boat ride out in (Kaneohe Bay) and coming across a pig or boar swimming out in the ocean!” she wrote in the post’s caption. “We saved this sweet little soul!”
The video shows the moment they first spotted the all-black boar swimming a pretty good distance from shore off Oahu.
“We couldn’t believe our eyes! A pig or boar out here in the middle of the ocean!” a caption on the video reads.
Eventually, the video shows the desperate boar swim toward their boat. Mellor said they were “praying she would trust us and let us help her.”
“Its eyes were pleading for help,” June Mellor told KHON2.
Mellor’s husband and son tried multiple times to get a rope around the boar to hoist it up into the boat, Mellor said. Eventually, her son was able to reach down and hold onto it enough to get a rope around its belly.
They didn’t know how the boar might react to being in the boat with them, and they worried it might be afraid of them. But “the minute she was on the deck she just collapsed” from exhaustion, Mellor said.
Mellor covered the boar’s sunburned skin with her sarong and stood over it as the creature recovered to keep the sun off its face. She tried offering the boar fresh water and tangerines, but it was only interested in sleep, Mellor said.
Mellor kept watch over the boar while the family stopped at a sandbar.
“By this time I had named her Miracle because it was a miracle she survived for who knows how long and a miracle that we saw her and could help,” she said.
Miracle even snored a bit on the boat, and Mellor took a peek inside her open mouth and couldn’t see any teeth, but noticed two tiny little tusks poking out on either side of the boar’s mouth.
Mellor said she started to worry when Miracle wouldn’t wake up to eat or drink anything. They took her to shore and released her in a wooded area leading up to the mountains, and “as soon as her feet touched the grass, she perked up.”
“She suddenly was alert and sniffing all around. We watched her sniff the ground and leaves, and saw her tail move swiftly. I took it to mean she was comfortable,” Mellor said. “She didn’t run, she just slowly walked into the wilderness and that was it.”
Mellor included a photo of Miracle meandering into the woods in the Instagram video.
“She’s safe back on land and in the wilderness where she belongs,” she wrote in the video.
Some in the comments described how terrible boar are for ecosystems, but said they understood wanting to help an animal in need. Many also praised the family for their compassion.
“Way to go saving a life! That poor thing must’ve been so tired!” someone said.
“The kindness shown to this creature by these people is refreshing,” another said. “The world needs more like them.”
Others shared their knowledge about boars’ swimming skills.
“Pigs are actually really good swimmers and if you’re in the Bahamas there’s an island of pigs that will just swim with you, but yea she was definitely a little ways from her next destination,” someone said.
Some simply questioned how the boar got there in the first place, the same way the Mellor family did.
“You’ve heard of why did the chicken cross the road, but never why did the pig (swim) the ocean,” someone joked.
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