Jeffrey Caplan
Videos by Rare
Firefighters who saved 18 piglets and two sows from a barn fire were thanked with a special gift six months later. Farmer Rachel Rivers stopped by the Pewsey Fire Station in Wiltshire, England, with a plate full of sausages. The sausages, ironically, were a product of the rescued swine.
“I’m sure vegetarians will hate this,” Rivers said. However, according to the BBC, a spokesman for the fire service said, “Our thanks to the farmer for her generosity. We can tell no porkies, the sausages were fantastic.”
PETA reportedly said the pigs were “no better off” for being rescued, as they were butchered anyway. Perhaps the vegetarians did make a stink, because pictures of the grilled sausages once posted to the Dorset and Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service’s Facebook page have been removed.
Rivers certainly didn’t think bringing the firefighters the food version of the animals they saved was a strange way of thanking of the crew. Farming is what she does, Rivers told the BBC.
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“I wanted to thank them. I promised them at the time I’d bring down some sausages for them, which they were all pleased about,” Rivers said. “I gave those animals the best quality of life I could ever give until the time they go to slaughter and they go into the food chain.”
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“You do feel sad at the end of it … but to bring them down for [the firefighters] was a good way of saying ‘thank you.'”
