SWINE OF THE TIMES: Aurora porker heads to the pen after 3 days on the ham

AURORA | A multi-day crime spree ended in captivity for a 400-to-600-pound hog suspected of uprooting greenery, stopping traffic and making a sty of Aurora last week.

As of Wednesday, employees at the Aurora Animal Shelter said the free-spirited swine was making the best of its enclosure at the facility, which includes a trough and a childrens’ swimming pool for wallowing.

“He’s actually a super nice pig,” Aurora Animal Services field supervisor Augusta Allen said. “Wherever he came from, somebody had paid attention to him and given him lots of love, because he certainly likes people.”

The city has so far been unable to find the owner of the animal, which shelter employees have nicknamed Fred, after a prankster called the city to report that a “very sensitive” pig of the same name had gotten loose.

Allen said the city got its first call about a pig in traffic late in the afternoon of Sept. 24. Animal control officers were not able to locate the boar, which was reported to be in the 600 block of Telluride Street. Over the next few days, callers spotted the pig near First Avenue and Chambers Street, and then on South Evanston Way.

Allen said members of the public mostly reported the animal trotting near traffic and digging up landscaping. When police finally found the pig near the intersection of Alameda Parkway and Chambers, it was trailing a lasso around its neck — evidence of a previous attempt to wrangle the animal, though not by animal control officers.

“I don’t know if somebody else tried to capture him, like a concerned citizen or something,” Allen said. “I really don’t know. He didn’t have it on the first three days.”

The Aurora Police Department contacted Aurora Animal Services about the pig at about 4 a.m. on Sept. 27. An animal control officer surveilled it until backup arrived later that morning.

It ultimately took five Aurora Animal Services employees, three Aurora Parks, Recreation and Open Space workers and at least two bystanders to make an “alley” out of wooden panels and cajole the hog into a trailer owned by the city, Allen said.

“He was not having any of us telling him where to go,” she said. “Somebody grabbed the lasso and was pulling, and someone else got behind him and pushed until we finally got him into the trailer. He was being loud and a little dramatic.”

But Allen said Fred has since warmed up to shelter employees, who have waited in vain for the past week for his owner to come forward. City spokesman Michael Brannen said that, if the animal wasn’t claimed by the end of the day Wednesday, the shelter would look for a livestock rescue to adopt the animal.

Fred does not have tags or branding that would mark him as part of a commercial livestock operation, though Allen said he is a Large White pig, which are often bred commercially. She said they even scanned Fred for a microchip — no such luck.

While the shelter says Fred weighs between 400 and 600 pounds, this is only an estimate, since the facility does not have a scale capable of weighing animals of his size.

Allen said the city hasn’t ruled out the possibility that Fred was deliberately abandoned.

When Aurora considered allowing small pigs on some residential properties last year, one of the potential downsides was said to be the phenomenon of people buying pigs without understanding how large they can grow to be as adults, only to turn them over to shelters or release them into the wild when they grow beyond expectations.

Erin Brinkley-Burgardt — who along with her husband, Andrew, co-founded Hog Haven Farm in 2014 — said many of the pigs that have ended up at her rescue in rural Deer Trail have come from Aurora.

She said prospective pig owners should make sure they have a backyard with enough space for fully-grown animals to roam freely.

“They really do thrive with outdoor time,” Brinkley-Burgardt said. “They like to sunbathe. They like to graze. They like to root. So having ample space outside is really important for their mental stimulation and to encourage natural behaviors.”

Pigs are still forbidden on the majority of residential properties in Aurora, along with other traditional livestock animals. Brinkley-Burgardt also said that a farm pig of Fred’s size would be “very difficult to keep in a suburban environment.”

Allen said the Aurora Animal Shelter receives about 20 livestock animals each year but that Fred is the first pig of his size that she’s seen in her three and a half years with the city.

“And so we’ve started looking for an appropriate place for him to go. It obviously needs to be a farm, and we don’t want him to go to a meat-market farm, if you will. We’re looking for someone who will take good care of him and keep him around. He’s a nice pig,” Allen said.

Information about animals available for adoption through the Aurora Animal Shelter is available at https://ow.ly/gV3y50PTbej