Hog wrestling planned for Indiana fair prompts petition

MUNCIE — Animal lovers from as far away as England are among the thousands of people who have signed an online petition protesting plans for the annual hog wrestling event at the Delaware County Fair.

A fair official said Sunday she hadn't heard about the petition on Change.org but was unmoved.

Longtime fair board member Jane Lasater, who is also a member of Delaware County Council, said there have been some complaints about hog wrestling in the decade or so it's been offered at the modern-day fair but said the fair board has no immediate plans to discontinue the event.

"I don't think it's cruel," Lasater told The Star Press. "We just had a Kentucky Derby yesterday and we have rodeos. Those animals are for entertainment, too. This is part of farm life."

Hog wrestling is planned for Friday of fair week, which begins July 20. The annual 4-H competition begins a week earlier.

Following an April 22 Star Press story noting that hog wrestling was again planned for this year's fair, the online petition was established and requests for signatures began circulating on social media sites such as Facebook.

"We the signed ask the Delaware County Fair Board of Muncie, Indiana to cancel the 2015 (and future years) hog wrestling event, and choose another event that doesn't promote cruelty to animals," the petition reads. "Using pigs as entertainment for humans is inhumane & cruelty to animals!"

The petition includes a link to a video of a pig "squealing in fear" and goes on to state that besides the "clearly visible stress," pigs can sustain serious physical injuries during the events. The petition notes that hog wrestling is misnamed because "a pig cannot physically wrestle a human."

Hog wrestling is bad for people as well, the petition maintains, because the pigs defecate and urinate in the hog wrestling area and people can get the waste in their mouths and eyes.

"There are many non-violent forms of entertainment for humans that could be held instead, such as, human mud wrestling (two humans), mud football, bicycle races, art contests, science fair, paint ball tag, water gun tag," the petition suggests. "The numbers of other types of events are endless."

Those who signed the petition — from Indiana as well as Brooklyn, New York, Oklahoma, Canada and England — call hog wrestling "barbaric" and "cruel."

Petition signers also have a low opinion of those who watch the event.

"This is sadism," one wrote. "Only psychopaths enjoy it!!!"

Lasater said the hogs used for wrestling vary in size, according to the age of the four-person teams that try to capture the pigs. The pigs used are not animals in the fair's 4-H competition but are provided by a Southern Indiana hog farmer who takes truckloads of pigs from one Indiana county fair to another.

The owner of the hogs not only watches to make sure the human wrestlers don't mishandle the pigs, but 4-H parents also keep an eye out, Lasater said. The petition notes the video showing a pig "squealing in fear," but Lasater said, "When pigs are squealing it doesn't mean they're in distress. If you heard pigs, they squeal. Pigs are gonna squeal no matter what."

The fair has had as many as 100 teams — many of them made up of young people — participate in hog wrestling at a single fair, Lasater said. Multiple pigs are used and, unlike hogs in many 4-H competitions, are not destined for slaughter.

"All those pigs that are at the fair in the barrow show are not going home," Lasater said. "That's what we raise them for.

"The pigs that are in hog wrestling will live to see another day."

A petition signer from Oklahoma argued that the life or death of the pig was not the only concern.

"I will never understand humans need to terrorize animals for amusement, just as I will never understand 'trophy' hunting," wrote Heather Cooper. "Pigs are as smart or smarter than dogs, thinking, feeling creatures capable of sadness, depression, happiness, memory. Please stop this."

Contact Star Press reporter Keith Roysdon at (765) 213-5828. Follow him on Twitter: @keithroysdon.

Video: Hog wrestling at the 2014 Johnson County, Ind., fair