Police Investigate Thefts of Hundreds of Pigs From Farms

Hundreds of pigs vanish after break-ins at at least ten factory farms across the country

Thieves (or liberators?) entered this factory farm by cutting through mesh siding.

Police are looking into a wave of pig “disappearances” at factory farms across the U.S. In the last month, there have been overnight thefts of pigs reported at as many as ten pig farms in Minnesota and Iowa. In one incident, nearly 600 pigs were taken.

Neither police nor the media have openly speculated the thefts could be the work of animal rights activists or the Animal Liberation Front. Instead, theories have focused on theft-for-profit. However each of these “thefts” fit the model of an ALF action, and they raise the question about the possibility these break-ins are a coordinated series of unclaimed Animal Liberation Front raids. It’s an unlikely scenario given the scale and volume of the break-ins, but any wave of animal thefts at factory farms is worth a closer look.

To explain how anyone could get away with such large-scale theft and not be caught, the media has commented on the reality of most pig factory farms: the buildings that often house thousands of pigs are often off gravel roads, “far from most houses and busy towns”.

As many as eight factory farms have been hit in Iowa, with 20 or 30 pigs disappearing at a time. One Iowa sheriff who stated he had rarely heard of pig thefts in his decades on the job, remarked –