Happily Ever Esther

by Steve Jenkins

  We had been at Pig Beach for close to an hour when the captain said it was time to leave for our next stop. I went to get Derek, who was gathering garbage on the beach to distract himself from the scene around us. He had tears in his eyes as we got on the boat to pull away. I think we both felt as if we were letting the pigs down; we had inadvertently become supporters of something we knew was wrong. Paula spoke to the captain during the ride to our next stop, and the captain came over to me as they tied off the boat so everyone could go ashore. There was nothing at this spot. It was a tiny island with a big hill, the highest point in Exuma, and cliffs dropping off into the ocean on the other side. It was just a beautiful photo opportunity.

  I strolled around with the captain, expressing our concerns. I could tell he was worried about what we had to say, but deep down there was also a hint of genuine concern. I could tell he loved those pigs, and in that moment, I actually started to feel bad for him. I now knew firsthand how expensive food was down there. Nobody can afford to spend $1.50 on an apple, especially if you’re buying 250 to 300 apples a week. And that’s just piggy snack food, never mind getting your hands on nutritionally balanced pig meals. It costs us about $10 for a twenty-five-kilogram bag of pig food. In Exuma, it would be quadruple that.

  The captain told me about issues with the local government, about getting permission to build appropriate shelters. It was starting to seem like he was doing the best he could, but that he had very little support from local officials. The resorts were bringing in huge amounts of money as a direct result of these pigs, but it was too much work for them to ensure donated food got separated so the pigs wouldn’t be eating pigs? And the Bahamas Ministry of Tourism had posters all over the islands, in magazines, and online, but it couldn’t assist with the construction of shelters, or even help persuade other governing agencies to grant permission to the pigs’ caretakers to build them? And what about the Humane Society? Where was it in all of this? And why was it that these pigs, who brought money into the islands hand over fist, couldn’t even get an appointment with a veterinarian?

  These agencies were all super happy to advertise and promote their Pig Beach tourist attraction, and had no issue taking the money the pigs brought in, but they didn’t ask anyone to take some of that money and use it to properly care for the pigs. There was also the issue with copycat pig islands popping up. None of these groups spoke to each other. So it was a total free-for-all, and none of them would help any of the others.

  While I was expressing my frustration to Paula later that day, she referred to the concept of Black Crab Syndrome—you might have heard it just called crab mentality. When two or more crabs get trapped in a hole, they drag down other crabs around them in an effort to save themselves, instead of helping each other. Because they’re incapable of cooperating, they all end up dead in the hole. Paula said that was basically what happened in the Bahamas, specifically among the various islands with pigs. They were all competing, and it was like the Wild West with no one enforcing any welfare rules or safety precautions.

  Thinking about the pigs consumed the rest of our day. Derek and I wound up sitting on the patio at the restaurant in the villa complex late into the night with Paula. We expressed our concerns and brainstormed ways we could help.

  We discussed arranging a visit from our vet and his team. We thought perhaps we could get them down to the island to neuter all the males, which would immediately deal with overpopulation concerns. They could do a health check on every pig and address any urgent medical issues. They also could provide the caretakers with a basic understanding of pig health and show them how to administer medical treatment for abrasions, questionable moles and lumps, and the various injuries that can occur no matter how well you care for your pigs. From there, we could work to get the relevant government agencies involved regarding construction of suitable weatherproof shelters. We could hold the Humane Society accountable for providing the required ongoing and emergency medical support currently unavailable to the pigs.

  We also needed to stop the lies about pirates having left the pigs on the islands in days gone by. They may have been historically accurate, but none of the current pigs had anything to do with the pirate pigs. They were put there for the sole purpose of telling a legend. The true story was that some of the pigs were, allegedly, rescued from commercial operations in Miami. Fine. So say so. Tell tourists so they know that these beautiful swimming pigs were bred to be dinner but were rescued.

  Considering the number of people who visit the beach, the opportunity to educate them in meaningful ways was astonishing, but it got completely lost in folklore and misinformation. Instead of taking advantage of everyone’s enthusiasm for these pigs to provide information about their intelligence or social structure, they hand you a hot dog and tell you to pick up only the little pigs because the big ones might bite. I mean, really?

  We flew home a couple of days later, disappointed but enthusiastic about the possibilities to help make things better.

  Everything at home was fine. Well, “fine.” Kim was miserable, but the house was intact. Esther apparently wanted to go outside every ninety minutes, and Kim got no sleep and also couldn’t get the fire going. We have no idea how she survived, but she did. And she even agreed to watch Esther on our next vacation.

  Just a few weeks after we arrived home, a news report appeared about the swimming pigs and the situation that was unfolding down there. Someone else with knowledge of pig care had seen exactly what we had, and that person wrote about it!

  The article was brought to our attention immediately, because people knew we had just been there, and everyone wanted our opinion. They forced our hand. Our plan had been to get some pieces in place to help out down there, and then tell everyone not only what we had seen but what was being done to fix it. The article changed all that, because now we had no choice but to validate its contents. We couldn’t disagree with a word of the article. But we tried to follow our confirmation of the islands’ problems with the numerous ways they could be fixed, how there was indeed potential for the proper tropical pig sanctuary that we all envisioned when we saw the pictures of Pig Beach online. That’s the one thing the article was missing. Yes, there were problems, but had anyone done anything to try to fix them? Was anyone helping to address these concerns, or had they been ongoing and ignored for years? At some point, you absolutely need to call somebody out for doing wrong. But there’s also a time to work with the person on fixing the problems from the inside in a way that creates lasting and meaningful change.

  Educating people is the only way to create change, and that’s pretty much impossible when the person in question is on the defensive. That’s exactly what happened when word of the article got back to the guy who took care of the pigs we saw. He became extremely angry and immediately blamed us, no matter how much we reassured him that we had nothing to do with it. All lines of communication were severed.

  From the minute we saw those pigs, we worried that stomping our feet about the situation would only hurt them. They were our top priority. We wanted to help, but it was becoming increasingly clear that just wasn’t going to happen. Black Crab Syndrome struck again. To the best of my knowledge, to this day those pigs have no shelter, no reliable source of fresh water, no healthy pig food, and no access to medical care. But the people who make their living off them, of course, are doing just fine.

  I truly hope that one day Pig Beach will become the paradise it could be, but I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that we’ll never go back. The people in charge need to do the right thing for the pigs, not just for their pocketbooks. If they don’t, the beach needs to be shut down.

  Our first “vacation” in years was a bust. Not that it wasn’t an incredible spot, but we just couldn’t stop thinking about the pigs. Whenever you book a vacation, you’re inundated with options for excursions or day trips, and many of those feature encounters with animals. We had never given much thought to it before, even after adopting Esthe
r and starting the sanctuary.

  Granted, we would never go to a place like SeaWorld. But the swimming pigs seemed different, much like open-water swimming with dolphins. It feels like the dolphins are wild, and like you’re in this magical place. Well, at least that’s true until the trainer blows his whistle and the dolphins return to their pen by the shore. You realize they’re no more free than the dolphins at SeaWorld. But we buy into the illusion that they are because it makes us feel better about participating. The resort presents us with a story that makes it all sound so fantastic, because if it told us the truth, no one would ever go.

  A few weeks after we got home from Exuma, we got a call from my dad, who’s a travel agent based in Scotland. He had been on a trip of his own, attending a convention, where he got to chatting with Marilisa, a rep from Carnival Cruise Line. It turned out she knew about Esther and was a follower, so she and my dad quickly hit it off. Before long, they were discussing the idea of hosting an Esther Cruise to raise money for the sanctuary. My father was extremely excited about this potential cruise, but we weren’t really feeling it at first. It was a huge undertaking, and to be honest, I didn’t think anyone would want to go.

  Regardless, I agreed to take a meeting with Marilisa, so she visited Derek and me at the farm. We spoke for a few hours about all the things we were worried about: food, fund-raising potential, bringing in guest speakers, and hosting special events. The more we talked about it, the more our heads started to spin with all the details being thrown our way. Still, we loved that it was unique, and the potential to get Esther’s message in front of a whole new audience was incredible. So we took another leap of faith and secured 250 cabins.

  We were told we’d be able to hold those cabins with no risk to us for a certain amount of time, and then release any unsold cabins back to Carnival. The financial risk was very limited, but the time commitment and organization required was another story. We knew we couldn’t sell an entire ship, but we thought if we could get a few hundred people on board by ourselves, we potentially would have a much larger captive audience to expose to our lifestyle. Think about it: around two thousand people literally trapped on the ocean, surrounded by vegans. What could possibly go wrong?

  The potential drama aside, we viewed it as a huge opportunity to show those people how fun we (vegans) are and how amazing the food can be. We could promote conversation with people who might never have heard of Esther, and we could correct their misconceptions about what it actually means to be a vegan.

  There’s always a method to our madness. The cruise wasn’t just about making money for the farm; it was about broadcasting our message to a whole new audience. We also saw opportunities with Carnival. We were having meetings and phone calls with reps at the head office, so we had our foot in the door. If we played our cards right, we’d have the opportunity to build relationships and ultimately ask for a meeting with someone higher up the chain. On our particular cruise, Carnival was going to expand its “Esther-Approved” offerings. If we could get other cruisers to take advantage of these options, perhaps we could get Carnival to make lasting changes on its menus moving forward.

  Carnival is the largest cruise company in the world, and getting its executives to take a meeting at some point was (and is) a very important aspect of our master plan. We weren’t going to demand that anyone change anything—we were just going to show them why increasing vegan options was the most logical, sensible decision they could make.

  Things came together pretty quickly. In addition to the “Esther-Approved” menu for our guests, they’d make available a special “Esther Cocktail” at the bars, and even stock their pizza bar with dairy-free cheese. We arranged to bring along guest speakers and even planned a beach party on one of the islands. It would feature little piggy floaties and coolers full of beer, followed by a pub crawl on the ship later that night.

  It was all coming together, but something was missing: animals. Esther couldn’t be with us, but how could we incorporate animals into our trip in a way that was consistent with our overall message? Then it hit us: Why weren’t we looking for a sanctuary to visit? That would be perfect, but what were the chances of finding a proper animal sanctuary on a Caribbean island? Not very good, we figured. But after a little research, we were happily proven wrong.

  We found a donkey sanctuary in Aruba, which happened to be one of the islands the cruise was going to visit. We contacted the managers to see if they would be open to having our group come for a workday instead of just a tour, so we could actually help out. We didn’t just want to go scratch a bunch of asses; we wanted to do something meaningful.

  With the sanctuary on board, we had nailed down our itinerary and were ready for the First Annual Esther Cruise. The reaction was amazing. We managed to sell almost all of our cabins by the time we sailed. From the time we decided to try the cruise idea until we actually set sail, about one year passed. So we had plenty of time to work out all the details to make it extra special for our guests.

  We made Esther cruise shirts, brought along plenty of giveaways like jewelry and books, and brought a bunch of little inflatable pigs that we would leave lying around the ship. By the end of the week, there were sixty of them floating around—you could see some sitting in windows when we got off at our last port of call. It had literally become the Esther Cruise. We had taken over the ship. Everyone on board wanted to know, “What’s the deal with the pig group?”

  We had people joining our events and chatting up members of the group left, right, and center. People naturally want to be part of the fun crowd. Our group brought a party with them everywhere we went, and it was infectious. We had an absolute blast, and aside from the odd minor mix-up, the trip went off without a hitch.

  It’s hard to say what was the best part, but I think many would agree that our visit to the donkey sanctuary was the highlight. We spent the day cleaning up, painting a storage shed, and meeting all the animal residents. The sanctuary now has a mural we all had a hand in painting. If you look closely, you’ll find Esther on it.

  We left our mark in Aruba in a really beautiful way. We were able to donate a few thousand dollars to the sanctuary, thanks in part to a suggested $20 donation we requested from each guest, but also thanks to the amazing bus company that drove us from the ship to the sanctuary. We explained why we were going, and they were so incredibly supportive, they offered to stop on the way so we could get fresh fruit and veggies for the donkeys. They even reduced the rental rate so we could donate our savings to the donkeys. A few guests actually “adopted” donkeys, in a financial-support sense, so they could support the facility post-visit. The cruise turned out so wonderfully that we immediately started planning the second one. We hope to make it an annual event and to make it bigger and better every year. Who knows, maybe one day we will take over an entire ship, and we’ll get to help a whole lot of animals by doing it.

  EPILOGUE

  By the time you read this, we’ll be approaching our fourth anniversary at the farm. It feels like a lifetime. That’s in part because of the pace at which we’ve been moving since a so-called mini-pig came into our lives, and partially because of how drastically our lives have changed in what ultimately has been a very short amount of time.

  And it was all due to Esther.

  Since Derek and I got together almost eighteen years ago and before Esther came along, we had been working our asses off to build our version of the perfect life. We hadn’t achieved it yet, but we had the vision and were on our way. We had our house, our fur family, great jobs, and the freedom to do what we pleased. We had fallen into a very comfortable routine, and if not for Esther, we probably never would have changed it.

  The world is huge, and it’s often scary, so it’s easy to sit back and just keep doing what you do. It can take something drastic to give you that initial push, to force you to take that first step. For us it was a smiling pig named Esther. Getting to know her ignited a fire from embers I’d like to think we always had ins
ide us but just hadn’t yet been sparked.

  The first step for us was going vegan and realizing that didn’t necessarily mean we needed to pick up signs and start marching in the streets. As someone who hadn’t thought burgers were burgers without bacon, I was making a departure of monumental proportions from my earlier lifestyle. I didn’t think I could do it, but seeing Esther’s face every morning was a reminder that it wasn’t just about me. There’s more to life than what makes me happy. Especially when that happiness comes at the expense of animals like Esther.

  There I was, doing something I would have told you was impossible just a few years earlier. If Esther hadn’t come along, we never would have realized the potential we had to make a meaningful impact on the world. You know how it goes. But we found ourselves stepping outside of our little bubble when we started the Esther the Wonder Pig Facebook page.

  For the first time in our lives, we were on the receiving end of messages about how we had impacted someone else’s life. Two men from a little town in Southern Ontario were influencing the lives of people on the other side of the world. Realizing that you have the ability to do something you never thought you could is unbelievably empowering in its own right. Finding out you can help someone else do the same thing just takes it to a whole new level! This was what allowed us to follow a path that seemed impassable, even to the people who knew us best. Leaving behind everything we thought we wanted? Starting a brand-new life we knew nothing about—specifically, running a sanctuary? Some friends laughed at us, and some left us, but much to our surprise, the majority stayed with us. They became the most amazing cheerleaders as we set off on this new adventure.