Auckland pig problem: Council catching more runaways

One of the nine pigs impounded in Auckland Council animal shelters since July.

These little piggies need to stay home.

Auckland Council animal management teams are dealing with a rash of runaway porkers, impounding more pigs in the past four months than for the entire previous financial year.

Nine errant pigs - including Kevin Bacon, the road hog that infamously disrupted traffic near the city’s Te Atatū offramp - have been rounded up since July 1. During the previous 12 months, there were just seven porcine impoundments.

Aaron Neary, the council’s animal management west team leader, said “we can only assume that more people are keeping pigs”.

Call-outs tended to be to semi-rural areas including the Wāitakere Ranges, Te Henga (Bethells Beach) and Henderson Valley.

“I can’t speak to why people are keeping them, but they’re not feral. They can be used for food, but they’re actually quite good companion animals, they’re very intelligent.”

Kevin Bacon aka the motorway pig is now known as "Reggie" and has been rehomed in Taranaki.

Impoundment statistics included repeat offenders, Neary said. And, with the exception of the headline-grabbing “motorway pig” that evaded authorities for more than two weeks back in August, most were easily recaptured.

“They’re generally just focussed on what they’re doing, which is usually rooting around trying to find food. You’ve just got to distract them . . . and persuade them onto a trailer.”

Pigs could be “really destructive” to fences, Neary said.

“And if anyone has a garden, especially a vege garden, they’ll just annihilate that pretty quickly as well.”

Impounded pigs are kept at council-run animal shelters for up to seven days, and if their owners can’t be traced, they are rehomed.

“Generally, they are claimed. As long as they are friendly, they can be adopted, similar to dogs.”

The runaway pig caused traffic to come to a halt on Auckland’s Northwestern Motorway in August.

Kelsey Purcell, Silverdale animal shelter manager, says Kunekune pigs have particularly strong personalities.

“People have them like dogs, just rocking around on their decks, or sometimes even inside.”

She said one pig, which was nicknamed “Candice”, had recently spent three months at the Silverdale shelter before eventually going home with a staff member.

In the 2022-23 financial year, Auckland Council animal shelters housed 26 impounded sheep, 21 poultry, 11 goats, seven horses, seven pigs, six cattle and two rabbits. In 2021-22, sheep also topped the table (45 impoundments), followed by cattle (43), poultry (26), goats (25), pigs and horses (14 each) and rabbits (2).