Credit: Screenshot from WCPO

A semitrailer carrying thousands of pigs overturned yesterday evening near Xenia, OH causing more than 2,000 animals to escape and and hundreds more to be killed on site.

Officials say the truck was en route from South Carolina to Indiana on U.S. 35 at around 7:30 p.m. when the driver took a curve too quickly causing the semi to roll. The driver was unharmed, though his passenger was taken to a nearby hospital for minor injuries.

300 – 400 pigs were estimated to be killed on impact, and thousands more broke free and fled from the crash site. “They’re in the woods,” Xenia Township Fire Chief Dean Fox told WCPO last night, “So I don’t think we’ll ever get all of them — I really, really don’t. We’ll try as hard as we can to retrieve all of them, but we probably won’t retrieve them all.”

Local farmers also joined in to help corral the animals, while the surviving pigs were taken to the Greene County Fairgrounds to be fed and watered.

The pigs were being transported to Indiana to finish being raised and then, well, to be slaughtered.

WCPO posted this video from the hunt:
 


This article appears in Jun 3-9, 2015.

Alaina Nutile is the Web Editor who oversees all digital content and social media initiatives for Cleveland Scene Magazine and Detroit Metro Times. Before joining the staff in June 2013, she interned at Business Insider in New York City, and at La Hora in Quito, Ecuador. Alaina is a graduate of Kalamazoo College in Michigan, where she double majored in English and Spanish. Her interests include Japanese food, Breaking Bad, and career development advising.

2 replies on “Ohio Pig Truck Overturns: Thousands of Pigs Escape, Hundreds Are Killed”

  1. This is disgusting!!!!!!! After the trauma these baby animals just went thru, these ignorant humans grab them by the tail?????? IDIOTS!!! They are living, feeling creatures, for God’s sakes!

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