Dani and Sunshine were piglets when they made their brave decision.
They were on Smithfield transport trucks, being taken from their mothers to a staging area where they would be fattened for slaughter. The trucks were travelling at 60 miles an hour. Both of them must have known they were in danger.
So they took a risk and jumped to save their lives.
What Happened
Dani jumped with another piglet named Mindy, who sadly didn’t survive.
A week later, on a different truck, Sunshine jumped with a group of pigs.
Both of them were found. Both were brought to a different sanctuary, and Rosie’s Farm Sanctuary in particular was looking for pigs who had jumped from trucks. Michele Walman of Rosie’s Farm Sanctuary calls them ‘jumpers’. Dani and Sunshine made their way to Rosie’s, where Michele and her team were waiting.
They were babies who had been assigned a different fate and defied it. Now began their second chance at life, with every bit of support available to them.
Who They Are Now
Dani and Sunshine are thriving and instantly made themselves at home in the sanctuary.
They spend their days doing the things pigs naturally love to do, such as rooting, exploring, playing, making friends, and sleeping in the mud pond. They very much enjoy each other’s company, often close to one another.
Neither of them needs to fear what tomorrow will bring. Michele makes a point of this because for most pigs, tomorrow is something to worry about. Sadly, Dani and Sunshine experience the exception, not the norm.
What They Were Up Against
Smithfield is one of the largest pork producers in the world. The trucks Dani and Sunshine jumped from were one small part of a system that uses and kills hundreds of millions of pigs every year in the United States alone. The staging area they were being taken to was one of the final stages of the journey that ends the same way for almost every pig born into these systems.
Michele says pigs are so smart that they know when something is wrong. It isn’t just Michele who observes this, but it is what activists witness when they see pigs outside slaughterhouses, wide-eyed and distressed. This is not anthropomorphism; this is how pigs express negative emotions. They have the capacity for intelligence, and with that comes an understanding of one’s situation. This means when they’re in danger, or someone doesn’t have their best interests in mind, they, on some level, know it.
What They Teach Us
Every animal wants to live. Michele offers this not as sentiment but as a lesson people can take from Dani and Sunshine’s story. They fought for their freedom and were lucky enough to have that desire respected.
Pigs are intelligent. They are curious. They are affectionate and full of personality and, as Michele puts it, really no different from the dogs and cats we welcome into our homes. The only difference is how we choose to see them.
The animals on people’s plates were individuals. Each with their own desire to live that most of them never got the chance to act on the way Dani and Sunshine did.
Michele hopes that people who discover who animals really are will make more compassionate choices.
Dani and Sunshine live at Rosie’s Farm Sanctuary. To follow their story and support the sanctuary’s work, visit rosiesfarmsanctuary.org/donate/
Watch our video on Dani and Sunshine here:
