Kama the Paddleboarding Pig

Babe. Porky. Miss Piggy. Wilbur. These are all some of the most renowned pigs in American culture.

Well it’s time to add Kamapua’a to that list—the stand up paddleboarding pig from Hawaii.

Known as “Kama” for short (“pua’a” is the Hawaiian word for “pig”), owner Kai Holt figured out he could swim when he was walking around his pool with this little pork buddy and Kama slipped into the water. Not only did he find out that his pet pig could swim, but that he was actually very good at it.

Kai says his pig “motors through the water” and seems to enjoy himself in the meantime.

After discovering this pig’s talent, Kai, Kama, and Kai’s son Braiden ended up on Oahu’s Sandy Beach to test Kama’s affinity for the water. That eventually led to Kai jumping on a paddleboard with his owner.

In this video made by CBS News, someone sings a song written for the Holt’s family pet, “Kama the Surfing Pig.”

Could a pig actually like riding on the waves? His owner thinks so.

“I think he really enjoys it, you know,” Kai says. “He gets off on it. It seems like he’s having a good time when he’s out there. I think it makes him happy.”

We’ll take your word for it.

A little internet scouring showed that Kama isn’t the first surfing pig out there although he does seem to enjoy it more than his New Zealand counterpart, Zorro. Kama seems to have his sea legs under him a little more than Zorro and doesn’t panic when he falls off the board. Kai’s son Braiden observed, “I think he’s gonna drown but he just pops right up out of the foam.”

Whenever Kama surfs, he draws attention from the people on the beach who take pictures and watch him ride the waves all the way to the beach. He’s a much more interesting spectacle than the other experienced surfers enjoying Sandy Beach’s famous waves.

In Kai’s mind, “surfing is Hawaii’s gift to the world.” In turn, Kama's surfing is a gift of joy to the world, too.

Kai and his pig enjoy time together like any other pet owners—spending the day on the beach and even sleeping in the same bed together. He found Kama one day when the piglette wandered onto his campsite and the rest is history.

Kai keeps Kama on a vegetarian diet to keep his weight down so that he doesn’t have to get a bigger board any time soon.

Kama is becoming his own kind of celebrity, boasting his own Instagram account, KamaPigHI, which has almost 1,000 followers. He also gets free boards from Costco, clothes from Local motion, and received a GoPro camera from the Bike Factory.

Kai said that Kama is family now and that he’ll never be on anyone’s dinner plate.

I think Charlotte would agree: this is “some pig.”