Porcine Present Part of Mercy for Animals Campaign

A few weeks ago, we told you about nonprofit animal welfare group Mercy for Animals driving a mobile billboard truck with giant images of pigs in gestation crates around Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s Bentonville headquarters.

The stunt was part of the group’s campaign to get Wal-Mart to commit to ending business relationships with pork suppliers that MFA says confine pigs in gestation crates too small to allow them to move around or lie down comfortably.

MFA spokesman Phil Letten told us the campaign would continue in different forms in coming months. The group is making good on that promise.

In honor of Wal-Mart CEO Mike Duke’s birthday Dec. 7, MFA adopted a mother pig — rescued from a factory farm — in Duke’s name. The group sent him an adoption certificate, which can be viewed at www.mfablog.org.

Duke’s new pig, “Julia,” now resides at a sanctuary for farm animals.

The group also brought its mobile billboard, along with a 10-foot-tall inflatable pig in a narrow crate, to Duke’s appearance at a Dec. 11 meeting of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

Wal-Mart spokesman Steven Restivo has told Whispers that Wal-Mart currently offers gestation crate-free pork products in many of its stores, and is working to increase that number.