Pumba, a 200-pound pot-bellied pig who escaped from farm, captured by police

WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP, N.J. — This ham is no longer on the lam.

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Pumba, a 200-pound pot-bellied pig who escaped from a New Jersey farm, was caught by police after roaming around “a quiet, serene neighborhood,” according to a Facebook post by the Washington Township Police Department on Friday.

Police posted photos of Pumba, a “200-pound big beauty,” asking the pig’s owner to claim him or else he would become the department’s next K-9.

The animal has lived on the same farm for eight years, belonging to a man identified only as “Jay” by The Philadelphia Inquirer. The pig’s previous owners were moving to West Virginia and were selling their horse on Craigslist, according to the newspaper.

They said if they could not sell Pumba they would be forced to euthanize him, so Jay bought the pig, the horse and several chickens thrown in to sweeten the deal, the Inquirer reported.

Jay said Pumba has lived quietly on the farm.

“When I go in there to feed him, I talk to him, even though he ain’t talking back,” Jay told the newspaper. “I let him live his life out there. Whatever a pig’s life is.”

The pig’s life became more adventurous when Jay’s 2-year-old grandson, who lives next door, may not have closed Pumba’s gate properly. The pig escaped and the hunt was on.

Jenn Birney, a managing member of Green with Envy Landscape & Design, had seen that pig on Jay’s property the week before, and told police that “we know where the pig belongs,” the Inquirer reported.

At first, Jay did not believe Pumba was missing.

“My neighbor told me, ‘Your pig’s on Facebook.’ I said, ‘The pig ain’t on Facebook, I was just out there a half hour ago, and the pig was in the yard,’” Jay told the Inquirer.

But then he looked online. “I saw it and said, ‘Man, that’s my pig!’”

In a series of photographs, Washington Township Police Department officers are shown tying Pumba up in the grass and later trying to heft the hefty pig onto a small trailer.

The officers located Pumba in the Heatherwood neighborhood, according to WPVI-TV.

“Let me tell you something, they don’t tell you how to wrangle pigs as a police officer,” Officer Frank Cicalese told the television station. “I reverted back to my college football days like I was a linebacker coming through the middle hitting a running back. I just jumped on top it, tackled it. We tied it and that was it.

“It wasn’t the typical day on the job to say the least.”

“It was a change,” Officer Victor Rossi told the television station. “We deal with some unsettling things in this job, and I think it was fun.”

Jay was relieved that Pumba was safe.

“Somehow the gate might have been left open, and he decided to go for a little walk,” Jay told WPVI. “Thank God we got good officers here in Washington Township.”

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