When Is Slamming a Terrified Piglet to the Ground Kid-friendly Entertainment?
A Lucky Ending for One Piglet. What about the others?
The story of Jerry, the rescue from a pig scramble.
What you can do!
Jerry was just a 12-week old piglet when he was won at a Maine fair pig scramble, where terrified piglets are chased, limbs pulled at, tackled, and bagged by young children. The family that won Jerry intended to raise him for meat, and he spent his days alone in a small, muddy enclosure, watching the world go by.
But Jerry’s story took an unexpected turn. His owners grew too fond of him to send him to slaughter and eventually listed him for sale. When MFOA Legislative Committee member Samantha B. came across his post, she knew she had to help, even without a plan in place. After weeks of searching for a permanent placement, she and her spouse decided to foster Jerry themselves to save him from a likelihood of being sold for meat.
As Samantha wrote: “We quickly learned that all Jerry wanted was connection. When we were nearby, he’d push his body against the fence of his pen to get as close to us as possible. Every time we visited Jerry, he’d eagerly run to us, plop down at our feet, and roll over to ask for belly rubs. During one of his first nights with us, my husband set up his hammock in Jerry’s pen for a sleepover so he wouldn’t be alone. Every visit, every touch, was a quiet proof that he mattered. And after some time, we noticed something in Jerry changed. He began lifting his head more often to look at us, as if realizing that he was no longer invisible. The world he had spent his life looking in on could finally see him, too.”
She added, “For the next month, we fostered Jerry and fell in love with him. We fed him grapes and bananas and freshly picked blueberries, and took him for walks to graze in the yard. We sat with him in his house during thunderstorms and sang him to sleep any night we could. And with the help of our wonderful community and the Farm Sanctuary Adoption Network, we found Jerry his forever home in upstate New York, where he now has pig friends, room to roam, and a family who will love him for the rest of his life.”
Jerry was one of the lucky ones. Not every piglet won at a fair gets the chance to live out their life in a safe, loving home. Their futures are uncertain, and we believe it’s time to end these outdated, inhumane events.
Instead of developing curiosity, care and respect for animals, pig scrambles are violent events disguised as fun, fair game for children.
Modern science shows pigs share human characteristics like creativity, self awareness, the ability to perceive the passage of time, fierce devotion to family, the ability to trick social companions, feelings of joy and disappointment, and pain. Scientists compare the intelligence of pigs to that of dogs or young children. Now envision what a pig scramble is for that animal.
Maine Friends of Animals is working with other Maine animal welfare organizations in a statewide campaign to end pig scrambles at Maine fairs. We believe the most effective path forward is to work directly with the people who make the decisions about fair events. By engaging fair directors, administrators, local government officials and sponsors, we hope to encourage humane change one fair at a time until the momentum peaks and the majority enlighten those remaining fairs that choose to continue this cruel tradition. We should not be teaching our children that this behavior is acceptable.
This winter, we’re assembling information and contact lists while preparing to reach out to fair and community leadership before the next fair season. Besides MFOA’s direct outreach, we need volunteers to help us start these conversations and build support for ending pig scrambles across Maine. We will have contact information, pig scramble fact sheets/talking points and even scripts if they help. These calls, voicemails, and follow-up emails will be organized for volunteers. Please help us with this effort; it ultimately cannot be effective without this intense outreach, so contact us now!
If you have been an MFOA volunteer or want to become a volunteer, there is no better opportunity to make a difference than by joining us in this effort to end this needless, cruel activity. Will you join us in giving piglets like Jerry a better chance at the lives they deserve? To sign up, please email Volunteer Coordinator Sally at info@mfoa.net.
