Years ago I crossed the Arizona border into the village of Sasabe, Sonora. The public statuary that marked the plaza was not of Father Kino, Coronado or Pancho Villa. It was a nose-dived Cessna 182 nestled in a pile of rubble. I don't know if the drug smuggler walked away from the crash, but he left an indelible monument. The other thing that added to the bucolic scene was a crossbred bony heifer grazing on a cardboard box under the wing.
I had d?j? vu when I saw a photo of goats walking through garbage on an Egyptian street. The headline read: "A little late, Egypt discovers the flaw in killing all its pigs."
Apparently, swine were a major factor in Egypt's garbage disposal industry. Goats were a poor substitute.
The whole mess is the result of the government's decision to eradicate all the nation's pigs to protect the people from the Swine Flu. It must have seemed like a "no-brainer" for the "no-brains" in charge.
There are plenty of examples of "no-brains" enacting "no-brainers"; Hawaiians importing mongeese to kill the rats and ended up wreaking havoc on the native birds. Nobody looked to see that mongeese were diurnal and rats were nocturnal. Or how 'bout the "no-brains" who imported Kudzu and starlings? Or the "no-brains" trying to protect some endangered plant or insect or snail, not caring if it eviscerated whole towns and communities.
But who knew that pigs were a part of Egypt's eco system? What a wonderful example of the recycling cycle. People eat pigs... pigs eat garbage... people eat pigs.
I'm wondering if this is something we could incorporate into our own "green movement?" Fermenting landfills are one of the biggest emitters of methane. Instead of bulldozing billions of tons of organic matter underground to ferment, why not fence the area with hog wire and start running pigs?
The millenia's old practice of slopping the hogs was replaced by modern pork producers. Maybe it's time to reconsider. Think of it as the next green foodstuff.
Undoubtedly, government regulations would make the landfill/garbage dump/hog farm more difficult. Pigs would need to be vaccinated against printer's ink and rated PG... raised on porcine garbage more than 13 days old. Run them under hot wire, build shelters out plastic water bottles which could serve as solar roofs for water tanks. And of course, export the product to Egypt as all natural, free range, garbage raised pork.
Then again, some might suspect that it's just another pyramid scheme.
Baxter Black, author, cowboy poet and former large animal veterinarian, lives in Benson, Ariz.
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Swine recycling
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