in brief: public vote on fate of live piglet
ABC’s Radio National program Bush Telegraph is giving the public the chance to determine the quality of life for a newborn piglet over the next six months.
Bush Telegraph are allowing the public to vote on Facebook about key decisions relating to various free range rearing practices which will ultimately determine how Wilbur 101, a newborn Large Black male piglet, will live his life as he moves from paddock to plate.
The bold experiment aims to start a debate about free range farming and animal welfare, allowing members of the public to ‘get a better understanding of the challenges, costs and rewards of a free range system’ and to get more in touch with the food we eat and how it is produced.
Early comments received on the Radio National website highlight the polarising nature of meat eating and animal ethics. One commenter has said: ‘I know where my food comes from and through that process am definitely more sustainable than inner city hipsters who are vegetarian through trend’ while another commentator has said, ‘This must be a joke, right? How about we just let animals live a life free of exploitation and murder? What a crazy theory’.
The public’s first decision will be whether to castrate Wilbur 101 after being provided with an overview of the procedure and a list of positives and negatives. The owners of the pig will be guided by the voters but will maintain the right to veto the vote in the interests of Wilbur 101 throughout the process.
Radio National have emphasised that Wilbur is not a pet and regardless of decisions by voters, will be killed and butchered before Christmas and sold for consumption
.
By Claire Gallagher
What do you think? Should the public get to determine how a free range pig should be reared? Is this a cruel experiment or a vital community awareness campaign?
Seems a pretty dumb idea to me. If the ABC is doing this because they reason that people want more choice over where their food comes from – and I’m sure many people do – then they should just let people raise and kill the damn pig themselves. None of this ‘choosing’ a life for the piglet at secondhand, which seems more than a little morally dubious as well as being a lame and unoriginal rejigging of a rather tired entertainment idea (the ‘reality television/vote’ show).