Pig sanctuaries provide unique insights into pig cognition, sociality, and emotional life. What sanctuaries learn about pig welfare has profound implications for the billions of pigs in commercial farming.
Pig sanctuaries provide a window into what pig lives can and should be. Rescued pigs, given space, social choice, and enrichment, display rich behavioral repertoires - exploring, playing, forming complex social bonds, and showing clear emotional states including joy and contentment. Comparing this to the lives of commercially farmed pigs - often confined, frustrated, and unable to express natural behaviors - reveals the scale of welfare compromise in commercial pig production. The cognitive and emotional sophistication of pigs means the welfare costs of confinement farming are high. Sanctuary experiences provide powerful evidence for why farm animal welfare standards need urgent reform.