FOXSYLVANIA

– – How would you like a piggy bank made from a real piggy?–No, I wouldn’t, either…

They are for sale, however, from a novelty retailer out of Vancouver, British Columbia;  yes, taxidermied piglet piggy banks for a mere $4,000 each!  Production costs are high for the item, with the taxidermy process alone taking six months.  The piglets used have actually died of natural causes.

Animal activists have called the piglet banks, “a particularly callous and demeaning exploitation of a baby animal’s dead body.”  Although no pigs are killed to make the piglet banks, the co-owner of the Canadian novelty retail establishment which has been brought much publicity feels that the real argument would seem to be about taxidermy and whether preserving animals for aesthetic appeal is ethical.

There is unquestionably value in taxidermy to the extent that it has allowed for rare and extinct animals to be displayed and studied; I personally find the display of hacked-off animal parts to be gruesome and repugnant, however…