I really don’t understand how people can eat animals. Any animal. I truly believe that anything living has the same right to be alive as me. Pigs, for example, are very smart and loving animals. They sing to their babies when they are scared and they feel fear.
Please never say to me, “I would go vegetarian/vegan, but bacon is so good.” I can’t hear that anymore; it’s very insulting to me. You have to be aware of the life you are ending just to have a quick meal. That animal that is “so good” feels fear and does not want to die. He remembers his mother and loves her because she raised him and sang to him. He does not want to die.
Here’s a story about one pig who tried to not die. Please do me a favor and read it all the way through.
Please, PLEASE make a change.
One day in June 1990, a nameless hog was doomed to die. The big pig was taken to the C-A Meats slaughterhouse in Red Deer to be turned into $150-worth of bacon and chops. He was loaded off a truck towards the killfloor, but suddenly made a run for it. First the 240-pound, pure white hog jumped a 1.2-metre fence, then he tiptoed through the sausage-making room, pushed the back door open and ran for it, making his way down into the Red Deer River valley.
There, over the next six months, he carved out a life, living in a number of dens in the bush and foraging for food. When people were out for early morning jogs, the massive pig would suddenly rumble across their path. Some folks claimed they saw coyotes go after the pig, but he fought off the predators.
One day, the pig got hit by a car and most likely suffered severe injuries, but he kept going. Soon enough, the media got hold of this story. As It Happens, the renowned CBC current events show, did a segment on the pig. Callers swamped the radio station with calls of support for the animal. His biggest fan turned out to be Edmontonian, Antje Espinaco-Virseda, a vegetarian and pig lover, who was the one who gave the pig its name, Francis, after the Catholic saint, Francis of Assisi.
Espinaco-Virseda’s love for pigs had pushed her to become a vegetarian eight years earlier. “How can anyone eat a beautiful, intelligent animal?” she asked.
In late October 1990, Espinaco-Virseda sent a cheque for $200 to Dick Huizing, the butcher at C-A Meats, so that if Francis was caught, he would not be butchered. She believed the pig’s daring and bravery had earned him his freedom. “My husband is from Spain and he says that particularly brave bulls are sometimes spared death in the bull ring,” she told The Journal’s Tom Barrett.
By that time, Huizing was getting tired of the pig story, as reporters were constantly calling him. He hoped the pig would disappear. “I tell you, I just want it all to end. … I think it’s crazy the way people get carried away by such little things.”
In early November, a local farmer, Al Marshall, took it upon himself to try to track and capture Francis. He realized Francis wouldn’t be able to forage in the coming deep snow of winter, nor could the pig withstand extreme cold. There was talk of finding a place for the pig in a Red Deer park, so all Marshall had to do was bring in Francis alive, and the pig’s future would be secured. “The pig can’t be killed. He’s gathered up a bit of sympathy,” Marshall said.
Several times, Marshall found Francis’s nests and flushed him out, only to have the pig evade capture. Once a nest had been found, though, Francis never returned to it. Marshall came to respect his target’s intelligence.
On Nov. 29, Marshall again spotted Francis, shot him with a tranquilizer dart, then watched in astonishment as the pig just kept going. “He led me on one of the merriest chases, through deer country, over coulees and through trees. He played me out,” Marshall said.
Marshall put a second dart into Francis but still the pig kept going. Finally, after a third dart hit home, Marshall was able to chase down the pig in his truck and net him. “The ordinary guy it would kill, but it never even put him down,” Marshall said of his darts. “I’ve never seen a pig with so much power in my life. He never did fall asleep. He’s probably ready to go again.”
Marshall took Francis to the barn of a Red Deer-area farmer, Doug Smith. Smith reported that the pig was still wild. “Right now he’s not safe to anybody. He’s like an alligator. If you walk past him, he’ll tear your leg off.”
But then, only a few days later, came tragedy. One of the darts had punctured and ruptured one of Francis’s internal organs. The pig had also been damaged by the earlier car accident, had lost many pounds while in the wilds and had been stressed by Marshall’s chase. In the night, Francis died.
A rueful Marshall said the stress of the capture had just been too much. “If I had to do it again, I would build a live trap. But the vet assured me that the (tranquilizer) stuff wouldn’t hurt him. So you got to take his word for it.”
Many spoke out in remembrance of the pig. “He was some pig,” wrote a Red Deer newspaper.
In Edmonton, Espinaco-Virseda said she was sure that Francis had a soul, and that he had gone to heaven. “Jesus said, ‘My Father’s house has many mansions.’ I know there’s a mansion for pigs.”
In the Alberta legislature, Red Deer MLA Stockwell Day rose legislature to deliver a semi-serious testimonial. “I think it’s fair to say he’s been an example for all of us of our own province’s motto: strong and free,” Day said. “I think Francis does reflect the strength of the genetic pool of the Alberta hog industry.”
The hoopla over Francis was too much for some, including J.B. Gurba, who wrote a letter defending the pig industry. “Farmers, and most of us, support the right of animals to humane treatment. However, we also realize that Francis and other pigs end up as pork chops, roasts and bacon.
"The real world is not Disneyland; most of us prefer bacon with our eggs."
And so Francis’s story might have ended, but the people of Red Deer refused to forget. In 1997, Francis was immortalized in a life-size bronze sculpture by Edmonton sculptor Danek Mozdenski in downtown Red Deer. Even Dick Huizing, the butcher who would have gladly slaughtered Francis, put in a good word in the end for the pig. “He was kind of like a freedom fighter.”
Espinaco-Virseda saw the statue for the first time this past week, and while she said it was very beautiful, she noted it incorrectly suggested that after his six months in the wilds, Francis had lived out his life on a farm. In fact, he was killed by the dart that was meant to save him.
