“Save the pig Tina”:the online petition to avoid the culling

"In Tina's case the public administrator did not carry out an adequate investigation, reaching abnormal and reckless conclusions", says the lawyer

ROME – On Wednesday, December 13th, the hearing on the merits will be held at the Regional Administrative Court of Piedmont to establish whether the little pig Tina will have to be put down or she will be able to continue living.Tina was not taken from the wild, but she is born from a cross between a Vietnamese pig, temporarily escaped her family's control, and a boar. She was adopted when she was a few weeks old by Gabriele Zalando, resident in Castelletto Sopra Ticino, after reading an appeal on Facebook seeking adoptions for the unwanted litter.

Tina was living peacefully with Gabriele and her dogs when, probably following a report from some neighbors, the veterinary services of the ASL of Novara showed up at Gabriele's house in August 2022, ordering him to lock Tina up, separating her from the dogs she had grown up with, however biosafety reasons in the strategy to prevent the spread of the ASF virus (African swine fever).

THE KILLING ORDER

At a subsequent check, which took place in January 2023, the veterinary services, having detected the absence of a double fence, instead of prescribing it and giving Zalando time to create it, ordered him to kill it.The Novara Local Health Authority did not withdraw the felling order even though Zalando had immediately created the first double fence.Zalando then asked for the help of Rifugio Miletta who, thanks to the intervention of the lawyer Angelita Caruocciolo, lodged an appeal with the Turin Regional Administrative Court.

On 6 March the TAR accepted the suspension, subsequently reconfirming it on 19 April 2023, setting the public hearing for the discussion of the merits of the appeal for Wednesday 13 December 2023.

“The ASL of Novara sanctions with the suppression of Tina and, therefore, of a life there alleged failure to register the animal in the national database, when the law provides for a restrictive sanction and, at most, a financial penalty.The aberration of the manager's decision", explains the lawyer Angelita Caruocciolo in a note “is also proven by (negative) result of the clinical tests carried out on Tina by the same local health authority.All this demonstrates that in Tina's case the public administrator did not carry out an adequate investigation, resulting in abnormal and reckless conclusions but it demonstrates, even more, a witch hunt that the public health administrations, starting from the central ones, have declared they want to activate by picking their victims at random in order to offer public opinion the (false) demonstration of a serious project and sustainable for the containment of ASF, generating, on the other hand, terror and fear of contagion only if we talk about suicides.We don't think it's a sound management policy."

“TINA MUST LIVE BECAUSE SHE HAS THE POWER TO MAKE ANYONE'S HEART SMILE“

According to Gabriele Zalando “Tina must live because she has the power to make the hearts of anyone who crosses paths with her funny little face in search of scratches and some apples smile..There is no rational reason that justifies depriving the life of a healthy, balanced and managed animal in compliance with the relevant biosafety regulations.I hope that common sense and humanity, two increasingly rare qualities, will prevail in the courtroom on Wednesday."

The harsher are the words of Alessandra Motta, president of Rifugio Miletta:“Tina's case is the exemplification of an arrogant and retrograde public service, which fails to grasp the progress of that part of civil society which attributes moral value to all sentient living beings.Fortunately, there are also ASL vets with a decidedly different mentality and preparation, open to the change that is taking place and who respect sentient life in all its forms."

THE PETITION TO SIGN

The petition asking the General Director of the Novara ASL, Dr. Angelo Penna, to withdraw the imposition of abatement of veterinary services, has exceeded 150,000 signatures: https://www.change.org/p/tina-non-deve-morire-firma-la-petizione.