A series of photos showing drowned animals – specifically pigs – are spreading online through social media along with the claim that they images show animals that drowned during Hurricane Florence. Many of the photos come with the caption warning readers to avoid eating pork, implying that the animals may still be sold for their meat.
Farm animals that perish during storms and hurricanes can indeed happen as farmers are sometimes forced to evacuate their lands but do not have an effective way of keeping their livestock safe. As such, the majority of photos below do indeed show the consequences of severe storms on livestock.
However, the photos that we have seen spread online do not show the consequences of Hurricane Florence, and even date back as far as 1999.
The first two photos (below) are from 1999, and show the aftermath of Hurricane Floyd, where over 20,000 pigs and hogs drowned in North Carolina.
The below photo was also taken in 1999 after Hurricane Floyd.
The below image shows pigs that died in 2017 in Vietnam’s Thanh Hoa district.
The below close-up of a pig was uploaded to a Flickr account back in 2008 by a photographer called Molly Wald and likely come from floods that occurred in the state of Iowa that same year.
As such, while the images do indeed show animals suffering from the effects of storms, hurricanes and flooding, they don’t show the consequences of Hurricane Florence.
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As of September 20th 2018, the North Carolina Department of Agriculture reported around 5,500 pigs had died in their state as a result of Hurricane Florence and the resulting flooding and damage.
While there are genuine health risks associated with such flooding, such as when hog manure lagoons flood and their contents mix into flood waters, which gives a higher risk of contracting salmonella and E. coli for those escaping the area, any claims or implications that anyone is actively attempting to illegally sell drowned pigs into the food market after Hurricane Florence are not based on any evidence.
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