WATCH: Vancouver Island SPCA workers are heartbroken after a pet pot-bellied pig that had recently been adopted out of the Cowichan SPCA was killed and eaten. However, no charges will be laid against the pig’s owner and now, owners of other pot-bellied pigs are outraged and urging people to know just what they’re getting into with an adoption.
At several hundred pounds, four-year-old Donald the pig is unrecognizable from the tiny pot-bellied piglet Brandy McKee was given.
“He was just a little baby,” she said cupping her hands into the size of a cup of coffee. “He was three pounds.”
Yet the Nanaimo woman said he will never be too big for a home with her.
“I love him,” McKee said as she handed him Cheerios. “He’s intelligent, he’s more emotional than my own kids.”
The Nanaimo woman is horrified by the case of a pot-bellied pig named Molly that was adopted as a pet from the Cowichan SPCA on Jan. 19, then killed and eaten just weeks later, despite her new owners signing an agreement not to use the animal for food.
“Devastation,” said McKee. “Like, just outrage really.”
“The pig most recently being killed, it just broke everybody’s hearts,” said Manager of the Nanaimo BC SPCA Branch Leon Davis.
Molly was one of 57 pot-bellied pigs that were surrendered by a Cowichan resident into the BC SPCA’s care last summer, with many of them pregnant. Finding good homes for them all took many months and fanned out to branches including Nanaimo, so word Molly was eaten by her new owners is upsetting many.
“We’re still kind of shaking our heads and trying to regroup from that,” said Davis. “And like I said all we can do now is look to the animals we have like Jack and make sure that we get them into a forever home,” he said.
Jack, a pot- bellied pig, is currently up for adoption at the Nanaimo SPCA. Naturally, Leon Davis is now extra cautious about finding him a new home.
“And hopefully, we’ll find him a new home soon,” said Davis. “It’s hard with pigs. We’ve had so many pigs over the last year.”
The person who adopted then ate Molly the pig is now on the BC SPCA?s database and will not be allowed to adopt any animal at any of the province?s 36 branches.
While no charges will be laid, it’s a small reassurance to pot-bellied pig enthusiasts like McKee that what happened to Molly won’t happen again.
Skye Ryan
