According to The Huffington Post, an animal rights activist is on trial in Ontario for offering water to thirsty pigs on their way to slaughter last summer. She faces up to six months in jail and a $5,000 fine.
Anita Krajnc was waiting for the pigs on a roadway median when the truck, hauling the animals from Van Boekel Hog Farms to Fearmans Pork slaughterhouse, pulled up. She reached into the truck with a bottle of water and poured some into the pigs’ thirsty open mouths.
The truck driver started an altercation with the activist. He got out of the truck and threatened to slap the bottle out of Anita’s hands. She replied, “Go ahead, if you want an assault charge, go ahead! Film this, film this, film this!” The angry truck driver got back into his vehicle and drove away. Anita was charged after the owner of the pig farm filed a complaint with police shortly after the incident.
In an interview with The Canadian Press last year, the farm’s owner, Eric Van Boekel, said he didn’t have a problem with Anita’s protesting; he just didn’t want her to touch his “stuff.”
Animals are not stuff. They are living, feeling beings. In fact, pigs are complex creatures who vocalize emotions. They are even reported to have higher IQs than dogs, chimpanzees, and even three-year-old humans.
Mercy For Animals’ president, Nathan Runkle, said in a statement:
Providing water to thirsty animals should be considered a moral obligation for everyone in a civilized society. Anita Krajnc should be commended for this act of compassion and love, not threatened with months of cruel incarceration.
We stand in support of Anita and are proud to join the millions of animal advocates around the world calling for these ridiculous charges to be dropped.
In addition to calling on the court to acquit Anita, we are calling on Canada’s minister of agriculture, Lawrence MacAulay, to update Canada’s shamefully outdated transport regulations.
Millions of farmed animals are crammed into overcrowded trailers and forced to endure grueling conditions in all weather extremes without food, water, or rest every year in Canada. The conditions are so deplorable that 8 million animals a year arrive at slaughterhouses dead or so sick or injured that they must be killed.