Arkansas: Neighbors Angry Over Small Pig Shot, Killed by Animal Control Officer

ARKANSAS -- Several people in a Pine Bluff neighborhood are upset after an animal control officer shoots and killed a small pig.

Animal rescuer, Carey Webb, was all ready to help the pig.

"The pig posed no threat to anyone. it was off in a side area. it was living in some bushes," said Webb. "Wasn't harmful, wasn't trying to bite anybody."

Webb had just met the small pig, Bacon, on Tuesday.

"He was kind of behind this fenced area, around this fence line," said Webb.

He called a wooded area near Dollarway and Bryant home, after he escaped from a nearby yard last week.

"If you go in there, you can where it's head kind of bedded down, rooted around," said Webb.

No one seemed to want him. So, Webb's friend asked her to find him a home.

"We actually had a lady who has a hobby for him, out in the country in White Hall," said Webb. "She was going to take the pig immediately."

Wednesday, she got word that animal control had him cornered and she headed that way -- ready to take him to his new home.

"He wasn't wild," said Webb. "So. I figured we can catch him pretty easy by placing some food in the traps."

While en route, a friend told her an animal control officer had either tranquilized or shot and killed Bacon.

"It was a tiny little pig. It couldn't have been no more than 4 months old, maybe 30 pounds," said Webb. "He was obviously someone's loose pet. I never in a million years thought they would shoot it."

She made her way to the animal shelter and found out Bacon, was indeed dead.

"Animal control told me it had already been taken to the city landfill," said Webb.

Police said animal control had every right to shoot the pig, since it was not tagged and considered wild and a nuisance under Arkansas Game and Fish Commission regulations.

"I can understand," said Webb. "There are rules and if it was a wild, feral pig, who was harming out in the street, causing problems in traffic, threatening the neighborhood. I get that, but that wasn't the case."

Arkansas Livestock and Poultry Commission said it is illegal to own feral pigs in Arkansas and that the animal control officer was in the right.

How do they know he was feral? It says right in the article the little pig escaped from its yard the prior week.

(KARK- May 19, 2016)