On Wednesday morning, after a month on the lam, Snowdrop the pig returned safely home.
Snowdrop is one of three pigs raised by Katrina Nevin, a Falmouth resident who uses them to clear invasive plants in her yard. In July, she brought the pigs to her parents’ Edgartown house to complete the same task.
That is when Snowdrop escaped, and for a few days was spotted wandering through nearby yards before disappearing for several weeks.
On Tuesday, Ms. Nevin received word from Kaitlin Dore, the animal control officer of potential pig activity: hoof prints, digging and trenching at the Lily Pond water station.
Local hunter Clinton Fisher arrived on the scene with grain, corn husks and belly scratches for Snowdrop. Then Mr. Fisher roped the pig, who kept trying to escape, according to Ms. Nevin.
Ms. Nevin’s sister brought more grain for Snowdrop, and Julie and Laine Scott of Slough Farm showed up with a trailer. The team hogtied the 250-pound pig and pulled him into the trailer.
At 9 p.m., the impromptu team had completed their rescue mission and Snowdrop was safely in the trailer, where he spent the night parked at Slough Farm.
When he arrived home the next morning, he ran straight into his pen, said Ms. Nevin.
Snowdrop was dehydrated, tired and covered in ticks, but otherwise okay, she said. The real trouble began when he returned his pen, and his brothers chased him around, nicking him with a tusk — it got Shakespearean, she said.
“He did not receive a hero’s welcome from his brothers, they were really horribly mean to him,” said Ms. Nevin. “But they’re all sleeping now, and everything’s calmed down. A happy return and an amazing joint effort.”
Ms. Nevin said she thinks Snowdrop was hanging out all August in the marshes and streams of Caroline Tuthill Preserve near the Edgartown-Vineyard Haven Road.
“All of these people on Facebook are saying stuff like, ‘I would go off the grid in August too! Smart pig, running away to the woods,’” she said.
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