Posted on 03/07/2019 3:33:02 PM PST by Responsibility2nd
The Wild Hog Explosion has been called off by the Bandera County Library’s board of directors after a Bandera treatment center backed out of an agreement to operate the annual fundraising event in the face of angry criticism and reportedly threats from an animal rights organization that was protesting the show.
John Pearce, the vice president of the library’s board of directors, said the board met on Monday, March 4, and decided unanimously to cancel the Wild Hog Explosion because Warriors Heart had advised it by letter that it was withdrawing from a one-year agreement to host all but one event at the show and the board did not think it had the time to pull the event together itself or find another organization to step in for Warriors Heart.
The Wild Hog Explosion, which features contests pitting wild hogs against teams of youngsters who try to catch the fleeing animals in a small ring, place them in a sack and carry the past a finish line in the shortest time possible, is a major fundraiser for the library. The event was scheduled to be held at Mansfield Park on March 16 in what would have been its 17th year of operation but with someone other than the library as its prime operator.
“(Warriors Heart’s) decision will stand. There’s not enough time for us to do it,” said Pearce. “We’ve very disappointed it won’t happen.”
Josh Lannon, the founder and president of Warriors Heart, a treatment facility for military veterans and members of first responder organization, was out of the country but was available to comment about the situation by text.
He said his organization got involved in the event to help the library and the Bandera community by putting on a needed fundraiser that the library board was having a difficult time putting on itself.
“After really getting into it, we began to see how much anger and confusion there is around the event, especially with the hog sacking portion,” Lannon said in one of his texts.
He said Warriors Heart chose to withdraw from the agreement “after a chain of events,” and the final decision came after Warriors Heart officials talked to “fellow
business owners who were being threatened by animal activist.”
Lannon had texted on Thursday, Feb. 28, that Warriors Heart was “getting death threats from the activists” as well.
The Bandera Bulletin mistakenly reported in the Wednesday, Feb. 27 edition of the newspaper that Warriors Heart was excited to be part of the event and instead was “very concerned” about the explosion, which critics in the activist group were calling “animal cruelty,” wrote Lannon.
“This is something that Warrior Heart will not be part of,” Lannon said in text on Saturday, March 2, that confirmed his organization would not be supporting the event.
“(The) Warriors Heart mission and focus it to bring healing to our nation’s warriors and the community. The Wild Hog Explosion was now in conflict with our purpose and creating more harm to our community than good,” the center’s president said in a text on Monday, March 4.
Pearce said he had not received threats from the protesting group called Unparalleled Suffering and he was not aware of any other sponsoring agencies that had been threatened.
The library board official said last week that he thought the protestors had been misinformed about how the event was run. The hogs got plenty of water to drink during the contest, were kept in the shade before being released into a pen and were only used once during the show, Pearce said.
The board’s decision to cancel the show was not significantly influenced by the complaints and allegations of Unparalleled Suffering, which has been organizing its protest and commenting on other animal rights issues on its Facebook page, Pearce said. He said the decision was primarily the result of Warriors Heart’s decision not to be involved in the activity.
With less than two weeks until the event was scheduled to be held and without being able to identify another organization capable of pulling the event together in that time, the board chose to shut down the event this year.
Pearce did say the library board will still hold the one event it always had planned to operate – the Bacon Bingo, raffle-like event – though it will not be operated like it was before.
Instead of selling numbers on 300 squares that are laid out on the ground and awarding a $1,000 prize to the holder of the number where a pig first deposits his load, the library will hold a drawing for the winning ticket at the library on March 16, Pearce said.
Only a few tickets remain available for the event. Pearce said anyone interested in buying a ticket should make an inquiry at the library at 515 Main St. in Bandera or by calling 830-796-4213.
Attempts to obtain a comment from a representative of Unparalleled Suffering were unsuccessful.
On its Facebook page, it had called the explosion a festival “centered around disrespect and abuse of wild pigs” and urged its supporters to call the library, the Bandera County Chamber of Commerce and other local officials or send them emails or texts expressing their outrage at the event.
It mounted a petition drive against the event and encouraged supporters to turn out for the show to protest if it was not cancelled. A Feb. 26 post on the group’s Facebook page said nearly 10,000 people had signed the petition protesting conditions at the show.
Unparalleled Suffering also said its protests had shut down a similar hog sacking event planned at the Rio Frio Fest.
By Chuck McCollough Bulletin Staff Writer | Posted: Wednesday, February 27, 2019 12:00 pm
The popular Wild Hog Explosion fundraiser will go through a change this year while it also copes with a barrage of criticism from a loose-knit animal rights organization that sees it as inhumane to the pigs at the center of the show and wants it closed down.
“The Wild Hog Explosion is a festival in Bandera, Tx centered around disrespect and abuse of wild pigs,” reads an account of the festival by a group called Unparalleled Suffering that organized a petition drive against the festival on Facebook and through the online site change.org.
“Pigs are trapped in the wild, have their tusks ripped out and are then brought into and used and abused for this event – babies, children and adult pigs,” the account continues. “This event desensitizes children to violence and teaches them that might makes right and that we can discriminate against and harm others if they are a different species than our own.”
“In 2019, how are humans still abusing animals for entertainment. Please ask the Bandera Chamber of Commerce to help cancel this event by signing this petition and writing them an email and/or giving them a phone call,” the organization encourages it supporters.
The organization started bombarding the chamber, the City of Bandera, Bandera County Library officials and others with calls and emails arguing that the event was cruel and should be stopped, but it hasn’t found much support locally.
Bandera Mayor Suzanne Schauman said she had received about 40 emails from protestors who argued the pigs in the show were being abused, but she said she disagreed with that assessment and believed the community did as well.
“I don’t want to seem like I don’t care about the pigs, but I don’t think they are being abused,” she said.
The event, being held in 2019 for the 17th time, is a major fundraiser for the Bandera County Library. It will continue to be involved this year but has signed a one-year agreement with the Warriors Heart treatment center for veterans, military personnel and first responders to manage most of the event this year.
It is planned for March 16, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., at the Mansfield Park, 2886 Highway 16 North outside of Bandera.
The event involves a pig being released into a ring where several youngsters if they are young enough or teams of two when they get older try to catch the fleeing animal, put it in a burlap bag and drag it across the finish line in the shortest amount of time they can.
John Pearce, vice president of the library’s board, said he and other library officials have gotten calls and emails from protestors but believe those callers have been misinformed about how the event is run.
The pigs get plenty of water, are kept in the shade before they are released into the pen and never are re-released into the pen after being used in the contest the first time.
“They are handled with as much respect as farm animals, if not more,” said Pearce.
He said the 13 protestors who have contacted library officials were from out of state and had never attended the event.
He actually talked to two of the protestors, and they did not want to have a conversation about how the event was handled. They just repeated the basic talking points that the protestors laid out originally, Pearce said.
He said he had not heard of anyone locally who endorsed the protestors’ claims. Pearce said he hoped to see another successful fundraiser this year.
That will be with Warriors Heart as the operator of all the events at the festival except Bacon Bingo, which the library will continue to operate and benefit from financially.
The amount of labor involved in putting on the festival convinced the library to see if a partner could help with the event. It decided that Warriors Heart, which has been a sponsor who helped with the event in the past, was the best group to offer management duties to.
The one-year agreement between the two parties commits Warriors Heart to paying a consultant-like fee to the library to take advantage of its experience in running the Wild Hog event.
Warriors Heart will keep the proceeds from the hog catching event, the Hog Calling Contest and other events it runs at the festival.
Warriors Heart Founder and President Josh Lannon said his organization is excited to be involved.
Genie Strickland, a professional event planner who is working with Warriors Heart to put on the Wild Hog event, said she is an animal lover who has heard the complaints raised by Unparalleled Suffering.
But she too does not see the way the hogs are treated at the event as abusive. They instead are treated like many hogs raised on farms are, Strickland said.
Some local news from my neck of the woods. Basically, out of state agitators have bullied some snowflakes. Well, to be fair, if I were getting death threats, I might back off too.
“The Wild Hog Explosion, which features contests pitting wild hogs against teams of youngsters who try to catch the fleeing animals in a small ring, place them in a sack and carry the past a finish line in the shortest time possible, is a major fundraiser for the library.”
Sick!
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See, this is what happens when ya let those libs in downtown Austin venture outside the donut hole.
People who threaten like that need to be found out and prosecuted. Way too much of that in this country.
Sick?
A wholesome outdoor fundraising event is sick?
Explain, please.
They are not to released.
I guess it depends upon where one is born and raised as to the sickness.
We have enough wild hog population here, to assure it will never be eradicated.
Nobody smart gets in a pen or truck with wild hogs. No kind of protection can help you. Baby pigs? May be.
Russet hogs here often go over 400 pounds. We have made a lot of sausage out of some of them. They are very lean. I’d steer away from Large Boars, if you want to eat the meat they need preparation.
They are smart, It is legal to hunt them from the air in helicopters and that has not put the needed dent in their numbers.
All I can say good about wild hogs and raccoons? They both are know to eat rattle snakes. But the real snake killers are the Badgers. It is a big piece of their diet. I leave badgers alone. we have one who lives around our shops at the farm. No way would I run him off he devours too many snakes.
That’s okay-my neighbors and I have been talking about this for awhile-and we know those who sided with the misinformed “animal rights” fools will probably experience a shunning from most county residents-this is an agricultural/ranching area-not a city full of people who think food is grown at a grocery store by magic...
some people trap wild hog piglets or sows and pen them in with their domestic pigs for either breeding or eating-but if they are breeding in the wild and out of control, like they are now, they destroy crops, dig up gardens and compete with livestock for food-I’m more afraid of a feral hog than I am of a mountain lion-they are totally unpredictable and a costly menace.
Those hogs used in the event are not mistreated/hurt in any way-never have been...
By next year the event will have more sponsors who have a set and the PETA ass**** will go bother someone else...
“I guess it depends upon where one is born and raised as to the sickness”
True,I guess-——but using children for this is not nice.
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No it isn’t-it is just some fun for country kids-no animal or person is hurt. I’d rather see the kids here chasing after a pig than hanging out and up to no good in the city at a mall-or attending a public school there, being told all the transgender crap is “normal”-now that IS sick-this event is perfectly normal and in rural communities...
The sponsor of this fundraiser was Warriors Heart A type of Wounded Warriors program that benefits vets with PTSD and similar ailments. Why they would do this is beyond me as they are a vital part of the Bandera community, yet this will not be good PR for them. Not good at all.
Thanks,I get it now.
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So how do they feel about shooting them from helicopters with assault rifles?
You’ll never eradicate them with hunting. You have to trap the entire sounder.
The problem is that there are people who don’t want the wild hogs eradicated and who interfere in trapping and import wild hogs into places where they don’t exist.
https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article86654827.html
https://mdc.mo.gov/conmag/2016-09/sounder-approach-feral-hog-control
The kids are not being “used” in any way-this is a rural area where kids are used to caring for/working with livestock, including chasing animals around, etc-except for in the town of Bandera and the gated enclaves out here, people live on acreage lots and damn near everyone has livestock of some kind-from chickens and other poultry to goats and cattle-lots of pigs, too-some are pets, but most are not-they are walking pork chops...
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