James Cromwell, who saved a loving piglet in “Babe” (1995), has just rescued a real one — and named it Babe.
The young animal was in the midst of being fattened for its meat in preparation for slaughter when it fell off a truck, Variety reported. Cromwell, who serves as an honorary director at PETA, is now helping to transfer Babe to the Indraloka Animal Sanctuary in Pennsylvania.
“Having had the privilege of witnessing and experiencing pigs’ intelligence and inquisitive personalities while filming, the movie ‘Babe’ changed my life and my way of eating, and so I jumped at the chance to save this real-life Babe,” Cromwell told the outlet Friday.
PETA told Variety the piglet was found “scraped, bruised and covered in mud” this week before Cromwell met the animal virtually and decided to adopt it. The actor played farmer Arthur Hoggett in “Babe” and its sequel and has been an animal rights activist for years.
“Every pig deserves to live in peace and joy at a sanctuary, choosing when to frolic, where to forage, and how to spend their time, yet few do,” Cromwell told Variety.
PETA told the outlet that the meat industry “slaughters 129 million pigs every year.” In addition, the animal rights organization added, “Their tails are chopped off, their teeth are cut with pliers, and the males are castrated — all without painkillers.”
Cromwell’s piglet will join countless other rescue animals in Pennsylvania at Indraloka Animal Sanctuary, spanning nearly 100 acres. The sanctuary’s guiding principles are that “the earth herself, and all life, is sacred” and “we are all related.”
While Cromwell rescuing a pig from slaughter is an example of life imitating art, the effort is similar to the film — as all the whopping 48 pigs used to shoot “Babe” were reportedly sent to farms afterward to live out their lives in peace.
“Each pig was released with a signed document that (the people getting them) understood these pigs were not meant for the table,” Karl Lewis Miller, whose Animal Action company trained the pigs for “Babe,” told The Chicago Tribune at the time.
Luckily for this particular babe, it’ll join pigs, chickens, cows and alpacas at Indraloka.