14 DAY TRIAL // This February 5, a pig that came to weigh nearly one ton as a result of its owner's being kind enough to feed it all the right treats was publicly killed and butchered in northern Taiwan.
As surprising as this may sound, the pig was slaughtered as part of a ceremony held at a local Taoist temple. More precisely, the animal's gruesome death was intended to please the gods.
Daily Mail tells us that, each year, farmers in said country do their best to fatten up a pig of their choice, and then bring the animal over to the Sanhsia Tzushih Temple in Yingko, New Taipei City.
A total of ten pigs are chosen for the ceremony, and these animals are considered to be holy.
The not-so-lucky holy pigs, each of which is about ten times bigger and thicker around the waist than it should be, are then carefully weighed.
Based on this measurement, the owner of the animal found to the heaviest receives a gold prize meant to honor his achievement of convincing a pig to put on weight.
Eventually, all the pigs have their throats cut as a means to please and honor the gods.
According to the same source, the pig that won this year's competition tipped the scale at an impressive 936 kilograms (2,063 pounds).
A picture of the animal is available next to this article, and there is little denying that those who claimed the animal looked very much like Jabba the Hutt, a villain in “Star Wars,” were quite right.
Interestingly enough, it would appear that, as a result of protests organized by animal rights activists, the Sanhsia Tzushih Temple has at one point announced that it was considering putting an end to this annual ceremony by the year 2017.
However, it later went back on its promise, and is now merely thinking about no longer offering a gold prize to the farmer who manages to raise the heaviest pig.