Posted on 07/27/2006 3:49:46 PM PDT by sully777
ELEANOR HALL: Is it a quirky tourist attraction or a case of animal cruelty?
That's the question being asked about a pub in Tasmania which has a pair of pigs swilling beer at the bar.
Animal liberationists say the pigs are being forced into a cruel and unnatural existence.
But the pub's owners say it's just good fun, and that the pigs are also enjoying themselves.
In Hobart, Tim Jeanes reports.
TIM JEANES: The big attraction at the Pub in the Paddock in Tasmania's north-east is its beer drinking pigs.
Even Tasmania's tourist authority encourages visitors to call in and pour a stubby down one of the pub pig's throats.
But Emma Haswell from Against Animal Cruelty Tasmania is one visitor who's decidedly unimpressed.
EMMA HASWELL: It was one of the most horrible things I've seen, to see a pig begging for a stubby and everybody standing around laughing and jeering and sort of pouring stubbies down its neck.
TIM JEANES: Ms Haswell says the practice should be stopped.
EMMA HASWELL: I mean, we've had locals tell us that the pig has drunk over 100 stubbies in a day. That is animal cruelty. And there's absolutely no reason to go letting people feed beer to pigs just because they can.
TIM JEANES: What about the argument that this is just a bit of fun?
EMMA HASWELL: Well, it might be fun to a complete idiot, but anyone with any intelligence would draw the line well before that.
TIM JEANES: The Pub in the Paddock's licensee, Anne Free, vehemently disagrees, saying her pigs are well looked after.
She says the beers are watered down and pose no threat to her stars - long-time beer drinker Priscilla and her young understudy PB.
ANNE FREE: I mean, I monitor what goes out to those pigs. If a bus comes in I will only allow four stubbies to the whole bus, of 55, and the stubbies, the bin that sits there is a whole week's bin. And of course these people say oh gee, look at all that, she's had all that, no wonder she's lying down. And I get quite irate if people come in and say oh, is the pig inebriated. You know, there's no way that these pigs would be mistreated like that.
TIM JEANES: Any indications from them that they actually enjoy it?
ANNE FREE. They do. When it's very, very quiet, I often have to go over and give them a couple of drink, 'cause, yeah, they do, they look forward to it.
TIM JEANES: Anne Free says the alternative for the pigs would be much worse.
ANNE FREE: I mean, little PB, who is only nine months, at the age of six months she would've been in someone's freezer.
TIM JEANES: That hasn't stopped Melbourne-based group Choose Cruelty Free from featuring the tourist attraction in its latest magazine.
The article's author is Cherie Wilson.
CHERIE WILSON: It's laughing at a creature because you're getting it drunk.
Certainly in intensive farms the pig would have a lot worse life, I'll give you that, but just because it could have a worse life, I mean, it's like I would have a worse life if I lived in a Third World country and I was starving, but that doesn't mean that I should necessarily put up with being put in a paddock and given alcohol.
TIM JEANES: The RSPCA has investigated the matter, with Tasmanian chief executive Rick Butler saying no action can be taken, despite his personal views against the practice.
RICK BUTLER: The conditions that they're kept in are very good. The alcohol that they're fed is highly watered down, at least the times that we go there it certainly is anyway, and that's what we're told is the case.
So whilst it's a difficult pill to swallow, a difficult thing to see happening, it's technically not cruelty, unfortunately.
ELEANOR HALL: That's Rick Butler from the RSPCA ending that report from Tim Jeanes in Hobart.
Back when I worked on the dairy farm, we fed the cattle sour mash.
The pig in the foreground looks like the type of drunk who gets in your face and pokes you in the chest looking for an argument.
I think this is the funniest thing I have read all day.
prolly illegal in chicago - like fois gras. ;)
Don't tell anyone but they drink beer and whiskey (not neat but neather do I). I'm still teaching the kitten to drink.
You don't suppose they get HAMmered do you?
Dunno about ham, but beer-marinated steaks - "drunken ribeye" - are my favorite.
Animals have been getting drunk since the first apple fell out of a tree and fermented in the sun.
Maybe it started because pigs are known to like a snort now and then.
If the pigs knew this was an issue they'd probably tell the animal rights activists to stay away from their drinks.
Now whatever happened to that case in Colorado where drug addicts were trying to get high by licking toads? The PETA folks must have had a hard time deciding what side to take there.
"Lick a toad" was a catchphrase of a comic I saw live, and it stemmed from that. :')
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