TINY TEACUP PIGS' AND HUMAN FOLLIES

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Humans appear to have a fascination for small animals that can be held in the palm of one's hand and so potbellied pigs were introduced into the United States in 1985 and promoted as the perfect house pet.  Correctly, it was claimed that they were easier to house train than dogs and did not carry fleas but, in the interests of sales, essential information was omitted.

            The average "tiny teacup pig" weighs 80 kg on reaching adulthood – so it was not long before they were abandoned, much like puppies purchased on a whim at Christmas time.  They can also become extremely aggressive and, following their natural instincts, root up carpets as well as your garden.  This craze has now reached South Africa and is already creating a problem for animal welfare societies country-wide that have had  to deal with the consequences of their being dumped as they reach adulthood.

            It does rather seem as if the new about-to-be-promulgated animal by-laws do not make specific provision for potbellied pigs as pets, or about their limitation per household, as is the case with cats and dogs, leading to unintended consequences A question directed to Alan Perrins, CEO of the Cape of Good Hope ope SPCA, about whether these would fall under the classification of farm animals or pets, elicited the brief response: "semantics."

            According to Cora Bailey of Community Led Animal Welfare (CLAW), they have been dealing with this problem in Gauteng for some time.

            People are dumping their formerly cosseted "tiny teacup pigs" in townships to be slaughtered in which-ever way people see fit.

            Clearly there is a serious gap in the by-law here.

THE JOY AND TRAGEDY OF PIGS

 

Winston Churchill said: Dogs look up to you cats look down on you, but pigs treat you like equals.

             Pigs resemble human beings in many ways.  Like dogs and other animals they share many of our feelings - compassion, fear, and their need for companionship and intelligence.

They are able to solve problems and have been shown to excel at video games that would be hard for a young child, and sometimes perform better than primates.

Karl Schwenke points out in his 1985 classic, In a Pig's Eye:  "Pigs are gregarious animals. Like children they thrive on affection, enjoy toys, have a short attention span and are easily bored.  Much like children, piglets do not develop in a normal way when they are deprived of the opportunity to engage in play. They are at least as intelligent as dogs and have been known to rescue their owners from drowning.

They also dream and see colours like us. It is now recognised that they know when they are going to be slaughtered. Like dogs, they are individuals.

            The one big difference between pigs and dogs is the way we treat them.  We play with our dogs, take them for walks - we rarely do the same with pigs. It is difficult to understand why they receive such a raw deal. 

            George Orwell's classic novel, Animal Farm, is generally considered to be a political fable about totalitarianism and Russia.  However, as Jeffrey Masson points out, Orwell himself saw it in another light, explaining in a preface written for the Ukranian translation, that the story came to him when he saw a little boy, perhaps ten years old, abusing a carthorse.    

            He was struck with the force of a revelation "that men exploit animals in much the same way as the rich exploit the proletariat" and proceeded to analyze Marx's theory from the animals' point of view.

            In the beginning of the book, as Major tells the animals on the farm, "No animal in England knows the meaning of happiness or leisure after he is a year old. No animal in England is free. The life of an animal is misery and slavery: that is the plain truth."

            And so, as farm animals, pigs now live in a world that has become very far removed from nature -  and where the purpose of their existence is almost entirely defined by their death or exploitation, where animals are seen as objects and have to earn their keep  along the world view of  if it pays it stays.  We confine pigs in factory farms in sheds where they are constantly impregnated, and where they stand on slats, not even able to move around.  As piglets their tails are docked without anaesthetic and in the end, like the old horse in Animal Farm, their fate is the slaughterhouse.

            But a visit to the Rustler's Valley community, near Ficksburg in the Free State, demonstrated again the symbiotic relationship between human- and non-human animals, where the pigs' keen sense of smell and natural inclination to root is used to the benefit of all.

The Rustlers' Valley community practices permaculture, a sustainable way of agriculture which is about "caring for the environment so that the environment can care for us." The use of  pesticides and other chemicals is dispensed with by the inter-planting of  crops with herbs that heal the soil and keep away harmful pests.   In working with nature mechanical devices are dispensed with.  New veggie patches are prepared by making use of 'pig tractoring.'  A sty is erected over a patch of veld which is to be cleared.

            The pigs then root to their hearts' content, clearing the ground of unwanted vegetation and spreading manure to feed the soil. As such, everybody is happy and the community is able to live off the land entirely.

Proposed Animal Welfare Laws for Western Cape under Scrutiny

                    

 

During October 2013 the City of Cape Town put out for public comment a draft animal welfare policy for the Western Cape.  The Animal Protection Act of 1962 still informs national welfare policy despite the changing values, norms and principles of our new non-racial society being very different from those in place all those years ago when the legislation was passed.

Owing to public pressure, the national government as long ago as 2006 put out a draft policy document called the "Draft Animal Care Policy for South Africa" but since then the trail has gone cold with no progress being made, at national level, on taking up the suggestions in the draft. It is speculated that this is due to cultural practices that are arguably a criminal contravention of the Animal Protection Act.

            "These considerations do not, however, constrain the law-makers of the Western Cape where the DA governs at both provincial and city level. Its policies are therefore those that ought to inform the laws, by-laws and regulations in place in this province and its mother city," points out Adv. Paul Hoffman SC, director of the Institute for Accountability in Southern Africa, who also referred to the fact that the DA did not have a policy on animals as disclosed by the Premier of the Western Cape, Helen Zille except that they were opposed to cruelty against animals. Zille suggested that an animal welfare forum be established, which would include all animal welfare organizations.  The subsequent draft policy was put out for public participation.

            Alan Perrins, Chief Executive Officer for the Cape of Good Hope SPCA and chairperson of the Animal Welfare Forum, feels encouraged by the draft policy which recognizes the sentience of animals and makes sterilization compulsory under certain conditions. (Mandatory sterilization of cats and dogs is a stance already adopted by other Municipalities in South Africa including Swellendam and Kannaland.)

            Sterilization as a strategy would address the cause, not just effects, of the many problems attendant upon the over-population of animals, such as the resultant burden on welfare organizations who are filled to capacity with unwanted animals.

Presently a disproportionate amount of donors' funding is being spent on euthanasing instead of re-homing and sterilization.  In this respect, the Animal Welfare Forum decries the gross underfunding of municipal pounds such as the official City pound at Atlantis.

An annual figure of, say R 250 000 – R300 000 is woefully inadequate for its efficient running, with the costs then spilling over onto other animal welfare organizations who receive absolutely no funding from the City. The Cape SPCA alone has had to spend around two million rands of donor funds on collecting animals and spaying them or euthanasing them humanely.

Still remaining also, are serious challenges to enforcing the bylaws such as animals being defined as property or possessions in terms of the law while, at the same time, the draft animal welfare policy acknowledges their sentience.

This anomaly can only be resolved by lobbying at national government level as national laws will always supercede provincial ones.

Further challenges, says Perrins, are entrenched cruel practices resulting in avoidable cruelty such as battery farming and sow crates.  Fortunately there has been a change in attitude   since a decade or so ago with consumers world-wide becoming increasingly aware and abhorrent of cruel farming practices and opting to buy ethically produced foods and goods.

The challenges described are but some of the legal loopholes in the draft animal welfare policy of which just one example is the potbellied pig (also erroneously referred to by the misnomer 'tea cup' pig .

These reside under the classification of farm animals and the problem arises when people don't do their homework properly and then take them into their homes as pets, not realizing (as with huskies) the tremendous problems which can result when the animal reaches adulthood.

The potbellied pig, raised as a four legged child in the family, then suddenly finds himself taken for slaughter in any which way as they are not even afforded the meagre legal protection of pets such as dogs and cats. Only the lucky ones land up at the animal welfare organizations.

            Perhaps the way forward would lie in creating a single Department of Animal Welfare under which all animal issues would resort, thus avoiding the current fragmentation to different  departments, such as agriculture, health, etc., of issues that are of a cross cutting nature. In this respect Adv. Paul Hoffman points out that the City of Los Angeles established such a "Department of Animal Welfare" in 1978, making them a forerunner in the sphere of  implementing and enforcing humane, modern and sensible animal welfare policies.