Nova Scotia Provincial Exhibition cancels pig scramble

The Nova Scotia Provincial Exhibition has cancelled an event involvingchildren chasing piglets around in a pen until they catch them.

While coming up with the schedule for this year's exhibition, general manager Joe Nicholson said it was decided early on that the pig scramble would be no more.

"Every year the schedule that we have for the exhibition is reviewed in its entirety and we're doing that now because it's something that happens every year and there won't be a pig scramble this year," Nicholson said.

He said the cancellation had nothing to do with an online petition calling for the pig scramble to end.

'There's no need of it'

More than 1,700 people signed Ty Savoy's petition to end the pig scramble, an event he said is emotionally and physically damaging to the piglets involved.

"There's no need of it ... if you could ask the mother pigs if they want their babies to be used in that contest, then maybe if you can't ask them that, then maybe you shouldn't. Maybe you just should assume the answer is no and don't do it," he said.

Savoy, who started the Faceook group Nova Scotia Farm Animal Save in November,said he plans to go to the exhibition this year.

N.B. county fair ends pig scramble

The Westmorland County Agriculture Fair in Petitcodiac, N.B., voted this week to discontinue its pig scramble.

Westmorland's decision to stop its pig scramble came after complaints from an animal rights activist.

Board members voted 7-1 to end it, with many saying they wanted the bad publicity for the fair to end.

The Nova Scotia Provincial Exhibition will be held in August and an events schedule will be finalized by July, Nicholson said.

• Pig scramble game 'outrageous,' says animal rights advocate