Over ten years ago the pig rescue community was a tight nit group and although we were spread all over the United States with a handful here in Canada we all knew each other. Back then i was one of the firsts on Facebook and was about 10-12 years behind the leaders who created out of need " pig sanctauries".
After finding my first pig Willy and getting on line with those rescuers during reserach for that pig i came accross a name ,one i found to be respected in the pig communtiy. She was well known for her vast veterinayr knowledge due to her late husband who was a vet and for her large contrutions to the usa recuers. The fact i would later learn was her knowlesge came from dispicable actions, as well as her money. In fact i had reached out to her when i needed help for Willy and spoke to her on the phone. I remember her telling me she was a breeder and had over 200 pot bellied pigs. The years went by and there were pig shows , huge educational pig events , pig get togthers and the thought came to me one day that i had never heard of anyone having one of this breeders pigs. What the hell did she do as a breeder with over 200 pigs?
In the USA a pig registry formed and a medcal data base in order to follow blood lines , to register purebred pot bellied pigs and to share medical knowledge.
One day i spotted an ad in our paper looking to sell a family of pet pigs. A mom pig and her three babies were for sale and the ad stated they were purbred. Knowing only one registered breeder in Canada at the time i needed to get those pigs to safty and then find out if that breeder had shipped a pregnunt mom pig accross Canada for profit . This act of shipping a pregnunt pig was also against the guidlines of this newly formed registry. It also disgusted me as no one needed to be shipping pigs anywhere as there were plenty of them in trouble where we were already. I also had to aquire the papers for those pigs in the sale for proof of where they came from . When reading those documents i recognized the name of one of those male pigs to be one 'rescued" by a Sanctaury in Wisconisn. Over time i had also come to realize this rescuer was also friends to this New York breeder with over 200 pigs . Were these guys all in cahoots??
The mom and her babies were safe now and away from the buyer who had also killed a teeny baby for being agressive and who wondered as she spoke to me what they tasted like. I fired off a letter in anger to that Ontario breeder , my gawed did she sell to just anyone? Then after some research and questionable links I requested documents from the USDA , under the freedom of infomation act for the shipping documents of pigs being moved from the address of the New York breeder.
An Ontario Breeder and a Wisconsin sanctuary were breeding a rescued registered male pig and selling litters. The Wisonsin rescue kept showing us pictures of these beautiful babies telling us she saved them from the local market . We could tell the offspring had the same markings of that rescued boar so it wasn't hard to put two and two toether and now I had proof. I also noted she was freinds with that New York breeder who i found out to be shipping 200 pigs at a time to China to be used in medical reserch labs.
It took a year to get those docuemnts and they went public. The respect was lost for all of them and it tore both rescuers and breeders apart not wanting to believe what they were all doing to our precious pigs. I was no one , i had about a dozen rescue pigs at the time , way up here in Canada but uncovered so many wrong doings by shear gut instinct and then proved it with documentation. It was a scary time but i did what had to be done. None of them deserved our respect and to think they were profitting from the breeding of rescues and then another shipping them to China where they would be tortured to death.
If something doesn't look right or feel right it is up to you to act on it. This crazy notion based on some unwritten golden rule that if we interfere it will only hurt the animals could be the differnce in life and death for all of them. Look at the countless petting zoos who ship there animals at season end no longer wanted. EARTH the Sancturary made famous for its founder singing to a very sick little blind pig, That little movie went viral , she was also rseponsible for the death of over 600 rescued animals left in her care. Thousnads and thousnads of dollars of donations received . Defunct Sanctuaries leaving behind 100's of pigs in Texas, 400 pigs at a defunct Florida rescue were gassed to death , over 200 farm animals starving at another and one in Mexico had all of hers shot by the police until rescue stepped in. She sent me pictures of them doing it while it was happening. Dead pigs laying about , rifles sticking out of windows . And i had actually warned a friend in the states about this rescue that somenthing was not right but no one expected this . Its on and on ... open your eyes people as all of these rescues had visitors and facebook pages and even if authorities can't touch them rescuers can and will step in. Question actions if they are asking for money, its your right to get answers and if they have nothing to hide they will provide the anwsers and prove it to you. As a rescuer and a charity it is my duty to be transparent in all that i do . As a professional rescue in all that is pig for over 25 years now , i see red flags. A shout out to the ill exeperinced or wanna be heroes who support wrong doing and close your eyes when someone like me speaks up on what is right in front of you, well the shame is on you and so will there lingering deaths.
