Health & Fitness
Missing Pigs at Wagner Farm
Wagner Farm: pigs gone missing, private ownership, Baconfest
Minimally referred to as "Mary Beth" and "Christine" by Wagner Farm staff, these two wonderful pigs responded to their beloved names, Leah and Rebekah, which my Wagner Farm Rescue Fund colleague, Debby Rubenstein, called them on her daily visits. She built a warm relationship with them since the day of their arrival at Wagner Farm last August, which was just about ten days after the Wagner Farm Glenview Clovers 4H sold their summer project pigs to auction at the Lake County Fair.
Debby affectionately chummed with Leah and Rebekah throughout the months until just recently on April third when she arrived at the farm to see that the pigs had been “removed”. We surmised at that point they had gone back to their “private owner”. I had talked to a woman who had phoned me and represented herself as the pigs' owner a couple of weeks prior and offered through the Wagner Farm Rescue Fund to purchase them. She told me they had "other plans" for the pigs. I then asked if there was anything we could do to change her mind. Her response was - no, sorry.
Wagner Farm has set up this private owner scenario not only with these two pigs but with its 4H animals as well. It appears this might be a technique they have conveniently employed as to circumvent rescues and humane placements for their animals. These individual owners are thus allowed by Wagner Farm to decide the fate of these animals after they are no longer wanted for Wagner Farm display or programming.
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I am bothered by some unanswered, pressing questions:
Why is Wagner Farm, a public, tax-payer purchased and supported farm hosting private animals?
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Why was Wagner Farm Rescue Fund denied purchase of these pigs at fair market price so they could be sent to humane placement at a sanctuary?
What has now happened to Leah and Rebekah?
What exactly are all the connections between these private owners of animals utilized at Wagner Farm, and the resources of the public Wagner Farm?
In one last thought, I am left to wonder about if there is any connection to these dear pigs, Leah and Rebekah, and to Wagner Farm’s upcoming Baconfest?
This article, Bacongate at Wagner Farm, by James McWilliams shines an interesting light on that event.
