Someone abandoned more than a hundred pet pigs along Mesa Grande Road outside Santa Ysabel last week.
“They say there’s like between 100 and 150 of them,” said Julian resident Denise Bendl as she filled a children’s play pool with two bags of pig feed.
Bendl is one of a handful of East County residents who have been keeping tabs on the pigs.
“I can’t imagine not helping them,” she said.
Get San Diego local news, weather forecasts, sports and lifestyle stories to your inbox. Sign up for NBC San Diego newsletters.
Animal Stories in San Diego
She said the theory is the pigs simply got too expensive for someone to feed.
“A lot of people with farms are having trouble making ends meet. So, with 150 pigs, you can imagine,” Bendl shrugged.
The County of San Diego said the pigs appear to be a breed that’s sold as pets. A spokesman said each pig could be sold between $800 and $3,000. Bendl said a few pigs have already been killed by passing vehicles along Mesa Grande Road.
“It kind of breaks my heart that these pigs are dying this way,” she said.
“They’re living creatures that absolutely do not deserve to be abandoned,” said Ryan Valverde as he watched a mother pig and her two piglets resting in a crate.
“You could tell she just needed help,” Valverde smiled.
Valverde and his wife operate the non-profit Little Bitty Animal Sanctuary in Ranchita. They were able to wrangle the mother pig and her two babies into a crate. They couldn’t catch anymore.
Valverde said he wished whoever abandoned the pigs simply called a sanctuary like theirs first.
“This certainly wasn’t the right option, and it wasn’t the humane option,” he said.
“I pray that this doesn’t happen again,” added Bendl.
The County of San Diego spokesman said since the pigs are on Mesa Grande Tribal land, the County Department of Animal Services does not have jurisdiction on sovereign tribal land. The spokesman said they have offered to help wrangle the pigs but have not heard back from tribal leaders.
