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What is a Pig Worth?

May 1, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

What is a Pig Worth?

In 2017, animal rights activist Wayne Hsiung walked into a Smithfield Foods pig farm in Utah, picked up two sick piglets, and walked out. He filmed the whole thing, posted it online, and waited to be arrested. At his trial three years later, he did something that seemed to make no sense: he admitted to taking the piglets, then argued in court that they were worth less than nothing. The jury was left to decide what a pig is actually worth—and discovered that the law has no clear answer.

The Trial That Couldn't Decide What a Pig Is

Wayne Hsiung grew up in a Chinese immigrant family with a childhood dog named Vivian who "cherished every part of me and didn't care about how fat I was." When he was nine, visiting southern China, he saw a black dog caged in the back of a restaurant. He grabbed his father's legs and wept. His father told him, "You're son, this is just what they're taught. And there's nothing for us to do." That moment planted something that would surface decades later, after Hsiung became a law professor and co-founded Direct Action Everywhere, a group that uses direct intervention to expose factory farm conditions.

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What you'll learn

  • 1 (01:52) **Introducing the Story and Wayne Hsiung** - The episode begins with a personal connection: two Buddhist journalists, Jenard and Sinan, discover they’ve both been tracking animal rights activist Wayne Hsiung.
  • 2 (03:06) **Wayne’s Childhood and the Pivotal Restaurant Moment** - Wayne describes his childhood as an immigrant and the traumatic event that shaped his life: seeing a dog in a cage at a restaurant in China.
  • 3 (06:06) **From Activist to Legal Strategist** - Wayne grows up, becomes a vegan, a law professor, and co-founds Direct Action Everywhere, leading to a direct confrontation with Smithfield Foods.
  • 4 (08:59) **The Trial Begins: A Confession and a Conflict** - The trial opens in Utah with Wayne admitting he took the piglets, but his real goal is to put Smithfield’s practices on trial.
  • 5 (11:24) **The Struggle to Show the Video** - Wayne’s attempts to introduce evidence of animal suffering are repeatedly blocked by the judge and prosecution.
  • 6 (14:40) **The Value Question Emerges** - The trial shifts focus when Wayne argues that the piglets he took had no economic value, making the theft charge invalid.
  • 7 (17:30) **The Paradox of Value** - Wayne’s legal argument creates a moral paradox: he values the piglets as living beings, but to win in court, he must argue they are worthless.

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Show Notes

In 2017, Wayne Hsiung and a crew of animal rights activists from Direct Action Everywhere broke into a Utah pig farm run by Smithfield Foods, one of the largest pork distributors in the world. They were there to capture video of what they say were thousands of mistreated and abused animals kept in tiny metal cages barely bigger than their bodies. As they were leaving, they took two sick piglets out with them.

Prosecutors in Utah charged Wayne with burglary and theft. What came next was the court battle that he wanted all along. During his trial, Wayne made a truly bizarre argument that forced the jury, and all of us, to stare straight at our complicated, sometimes uncomfortable relationship with animals. This week on the show, we grapple with the impossible question at the center of it: What is the value of a piglet? 

Special thanks to Kim Nederveen Pieterse, Nathan Peereboom, Jo Eidman, Sam Kozloff, Rachel Gross, Alex Allaux, and Joan Schaffner. 

EPISODE CREDITS: 
Reported by - Sindhu Gnanasambandan and Jae Minard
Produced by - Sindhu Gnanasambandan
with help from - Pat Walters
with mixing help from - Jeremy Bloom
Fact-checking by - Diane A. Kelly
and Edited by  - Alex Neason and Pat Walters

EPISODE CITATIONS:

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