A farmer in Wiltshire, England, decided to thank the the firefighters who saved her piglets from a barn fire in an almost twisted yet somehow fitting manner.
Back in February, officers from the Pewsey Fire Station responded to a blaze at a farm where 60 metric tons of hay had caught on fire.
The quick-acting officials ended up saving 18 piglets and two sows from what would have been a terrible death.
Months later, in a somewhat controversial move, farm manager Rachel Rivers thanked the firefighters for their hard work by sending them some sausages … sausages made from the very piglets they had saved from that fire.
“I promised them at the time when they actually go, I’ll bring some sausages for you,” Rivers told the BBC.
And it seems her ‘thank you’ was very well received by the firefighters.
The department took to its Facebook page in a since-deleted post to share a photo of the sausages as they were being grilled, writing that it “highly recommended” the meat, which tasted “fantastic.”
The fire service allegedly decided to delete the initial post after facing backlash from some animal rights groups, including People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).
“We’ll be sending Dorset and Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service packs of vegan sausages so that they can see how easy it is to truly be heroes for pigs – by sparing them all suffering,” said PETA spokesman Mimi Bekhechi.
The Pewsey Fire Station later took to its Facebook page with an apology.
“In regard to a recent post on this page,” the department wrote. “We recognise that this has caused offence to some. We apologise for this and as such have removed the post.”
Rivers also defended her actions to the BBC, saying that farming is her livelihood and that what she did was merely part of her job.
“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,” she told the outlet.
“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’.”
