School that sent pigs to slaughter targeted by animal rights activists

A RURAL secondary school has been the target of animal rights activists after a newly vegan parent raised concerns about its pig rearing project.

Priestlands School, in Lymington, Hants, had allowed four female piglets that were destined for the slaughterhouse next month to be cared for by pupils.

Their meat was to be sold to the school and served in its canteen in order to teach children about the food chain.

However, the project, which had been conducted every year for a decade without complaint and had won the support of the Prince of Wales, angered the father of an 11-year-old pupil so much he started a petition which garnered more than 36,000 signatures.

Vincent Cook, 45, also found an animal sanctuary that would take the Tamworth and Gloucester old spot piglets and look after them.

Chris Willsher, the school’s executive head, declined to meet Mr Cook’s demands, telling him in an email: “I was a vegetarian for 25 years and still struggle to accept the practices of the meat industry.

“When one speaks to Year 7 students who believe sausages are vegetables, there is clearly work to be done educating some members of our community about where food comes from. The pigs we have in school are borrowed from a farm. They are already destined for the food chain.”

He told The Daily Telegraph that he decided to return the piglets to the farm when staff received phone abuse.

“We could have kept them and fought the good fight, but we had to ask was it worth it? We will consult the school community, send a letter to all parents and give them the opportunity to have a say about what we do in the future...we have not had a single other parent contact us to say they are unhappy with what we are doing.”

Mr Cook, who is understood to have turned vegan a few months ago, said he started the petition when Mr Willsher told him the animals would be slaughtered to teach children about where their food comes from.

“We should be teaching children compassion towards animals,” he said. “The pig programme may have had its place in the past but we live in a more enlightened world now and it has to end. We can teach children where meat comes from without engaging them in the slaughter process.”

He said the school was “endorsing the act of killing animals” when it “should be teaching how bad eating meat is for you and the environment”.

Mr Cook, who runs his own yachtbuilding company, had hoped to have the pigs sent to Tower Hill Stables Animal Sanctuary – a farm run by Fiona Oakes, a vegan ultra-marathon runner, and Martin Morgan, her partner.

A spokesman for the 1,200-pupil school, said: “We respect the vegan philosophy but Priestlands School is proud to serve the whole community.

“We want to educate our students about where their food comes from and to do this in a sustainable way.

“Our preferred outcome was for this year’s cohort of pigs to enter the food chain as planned and for us then to sit down and have a rational discussion about whether or not we continue to have pigs in the future.”

In 2008, Prince Charles gave the project his seal of approval by placing an order for sausages made by pupils from pigs reared at their farm.