Wilma the Pig-Part Two

Rain At Last-

Drought is a regular feature of life on Santa Catalina Island, punctuated with wet seasons every seven to ten years. In 1970, Inter-Varsity outgrew Campus by the Sea and moved its summer camp operations to Northern California. (They returned twelve years later.) Coincidentally, 1970 was the year the rain stopped falling in Southern California. Seven dry years later, the Island Company began discussions about hauling water by barge from the mainland to the island.

Then in December of 1977, the rains returned. Dry creek beds turned into flowing streams.It rained some more and green grass sprouted all over the island. Still more rain and the hillsides were saturated. One night of that El Nino winter of 1978 the mountain began to move. Jan was awakened by the sound of low rumbling. She called out “ Beck, Beck, I think we are having a mudslide!”. They scrambled outside with a flashlight and discovered the outhouse behind their cabin (called the Speaker’s Head) tilting 20 degrees. On March 4^th it poured again. Jan, Becky, and Rob were in Rock Cod staying dry, when Jan looked out the window and said “Man, the creek is REALLY flowing. Becky went to take a look and said “It’s even going over the volley ball court”. They suited up in their raingear and went outside. The air was very heavy with the smell of earth and the stream was a roaring river. They saw giant rocks and root balls of huge oaks going down the creek. Debris collected behind the lower bridge. In an attempt to save the bridge, Rob worked his way across the gas pipe over the creek, hopped on the tractor, and tried to pull the bridge to safety. But to no avail; it washed away. Minutes later a cabin roof floated by. Then they saw a whole cabin fall into the creek.

Later in the day they surveyed the camp. The beach was littered with debris—bed frames, mattresses, and splintered lumber. The tide pools and the gap between Rock Cod and the point were covered in gravel. Up-canyon a giant oak tree tumbled across the creek, its root ball landing directly onto the spring blocking off the water supply. It took the three musketeers, Jan, Becky, and Rob days to cut up the three-trunk behemoth, pouring buckets of water into the roots to remove gravel so that the chainsaw would not break. They used a “come-along” to move the large pieces to the side of the creek.

Losing the outhouse was the biggest inconvenience. When nature called at night, the girls had to walk halfway across the dark camp, through a creek to the girl’s outhouse. Becky and Jan discovered that it was easier to walk barefoot through the mud and wash their feet later than it was to wash muddy shoes and flip flops. When the ground dried out, they were able to use the Speaker’s Head again, though they had to get use to sitting at an angle and have a stiff wind blow through!

Wilma Becomes a Mother

During the winter, Wilma lived outdoors but continued to visit her human friends often. She owed her life to them and they supplied her with all the food she wanted! She also loved to be scratched especially on the tummy. She would fall over in contented bliss. But one morning when Rob was walking along the trail near where Wilma was resting, she charged and tried to bite him. Thankfully he had a shovel in hand. He bonged her over the head with the blade. The whack didn’t faze her but she got the message and kept her distance after that.

Wild pigs suffer a very high mortality rate especially in their first year and few live beyond ten years. By necessity they mature quickly. A female piglet is ready to reproduce within nine to eighteen months of birth. By spring of 1978, Wilma and her ”piggy sisters” had come of age. So had the young boars. One romantic moonlit night, a band of them swaggered through the camp looking for action. They found it. By dawn, all the young females were pregnant, including Wilma.

Four months later she gave birth to four babies—three girls and a boy. Jan and Becky named the quartet: Sparky, Spot, Midnight, and Blacky. Becky wrote a silly song titled, “Wilma Had Babies” and sang it to the young family while playing her banjo. They seemed to like it. The other young pig mothers hid up-canyon with the rest of the herd. Wilma, however, stayed near Garibaldi and Rock Cod where she felt most at home. Food and water were plentiful and she could interact with her human friends.

The Move to Willow Cove

As Wilma continued to grow, her cranky behavior towards just about anyone other than Jan or Becky increasingly became a problem. (In Wilma’s defense, she had been teased by some visitors.) Actually Wilma had always been a bit of a crank, but when she got bigger she became more dangerous. When weekend groups arrived for retreats that Spring, Wilma would not let them play on the volleyball courts. She had staked that out as her space. Since arming everyone with a shovel seemed impractical, Jan decided to move Wilma to Willow, a peaceful cove just up the coast past Toyon Bay. Every Friday, Jan loaded Wilma into the boat and took her to her weekend sanctuary. Jan created a trash-bag shelter in the bushes with a cardboard roof and the floor lined with Wilma’s sleeping bag. She left some food and returned Saturday to feed her and Sunday afternoon to take her back to CBS.

One Sunday when Jan returned to Willow to retrieve Wilma, she noticed a man sitting on his boat, anchored off shore watching her intently. Jan rowed to shore and called “Wilma!” As usual the pig trotted to the dinghy and did her little running-in-circles-I’m-glad-to-see-you-dance. As Jan was leaving with Wilma, the man called out. He told her that the day before another family landed on the beach to have a picnic. They sat down and laid out their food when a wild pig stormed out of the bushes, chased them away and ate their picnic. Rather than suffer the same fate, the weekend sailor stayed on his boat. He was very amused to discover that the belligerent pig was someone’s unruly pet.

The Adventures at Toyon

After her babies arrived, Wilma’s move to Willow became permanent. Jan rowed over to the cove each day to feed her and the four piglets. That arrangement worked well for a number of weeks. But then a group of students from the Catalina Island School at Toyon heard about her and wanted to visit. One morning they hiked over to see her. When they hiked back to their campus, Wilma and her children followed them home.

Wilma’s Sad Ending

The school-year at Toyon was nearing the end. Interactions between pigs and people multiplied. As they did so, Jan’s sadness at the unfolding events increased. Some students took one of the piglets and put it in their dorm room for a few days. Joe the cook, took two babies and placed them in a pen outside the kitchen. He planned to fatten them for a feast! Poor Wilma, she looked everywhere for her babies. One day as she searched, a dog attacked her and left her with some ugly wounds. It’s hard to know if Wilma had feelings about all of this but she did become more agitated. She had four piglets to feed so when food was involved, it was best to stay clear.

One evening School Nurse Marge was out feeding her geese. Wilma caught the scent of a meal and joined the party. Marge picked up a stick and tried to chase her away. Wilma charged and knocked her down. It was then that Jan realized that something had to be done, but none of the choices were good. She could ship their friend to the far side of the island, but because she had become dependent on humans for food and was blind, that option would result in a slow death by starvation. They could put her in a cage like a wild animal, but she was used to roaming freely. Jan,Becky and Rob were nearing the end of their commitment as caretakers of Campus by the Sea. That left only one other unpleasant option. Jan, who had initially nursed Wilma from near death to life first tried to overdose Wilma on sleeping pills. As said before, pigs are tough and that didn’t faze her. Rob, volunteered to help her out. He used a .22 caliber rifle. Though her entry into hog heaven was quick, it was a VERY sad day for everyone. Wilma was buried much to the chagrin of the cook who knew a nice-fattened pig when he saw one. He would get his chance later in the summer.

The Babies at Toyon

That summer a celebrity, Jean Michelle Cousteau, son of Jacques Cousteau the oceanographer, rented Toyon. Jean Michelle ran a camp called “Project Ocean Search.” On the last night of their event, the hosts threw a big party. They had a giant mixing bowl filled with fruit in a rum marinade. The next morning Jan and Becky went to clean up the mess after the party. They dumped the large amount of leftover fruit under a bush behind the building. Later the piggies found the scraps and did what pigs do—ate themselves silly. When Jan and Becky saw them later, they discovered four drunken piglets staggering around under a tree. Oops!

Later that summer, an entertainer by the name of John Davidson rented the Toyon facility to conduct his John Davidson’s Singer’s Summer Camp for aspiring vocal artists.Good Morning America traveled to Catalina to do a segment about the school. While there, the pigs caught the attention of the film crew. When the segment was later shown on television, the pigs got generous air-time, which of course upset the budding divas.

Jan and Becky kept the piglets well fed so they would not bother the human guests at Toyon. As a result, by the end of summer the four little pigs became hefty porkers. With their transformation, Jan sadly realized that they too must be put down. This time the cook got his way. They ended up as Sunday dinner at the Toyon cafeteria.

Is There a Lesson?

Despite how the story ended, when Jan and Becky reflect back, they are grateful for their friend Wilma the one-eyed pig. Their reverence and respect for God’s creation grew. And they learned that life and death are interconnected; hope and disappointment are cousins. So we trust God and do the best we can with what we have.

They also believe that Wilma’s life was enriched because of them. Wilma could have died the first night they met her. Or she could have been a domesticated pig born on a farm where the life cycle from birth to bacon is six months. And those pigs never get to ride in a boat or pop kelp bladders on the beach.

So the next time you visit Campus by the Sea, pay attention to the wild- life. Though they work hard at being inconspicuous, every once-in-while some creature may take a different path. That choice could lead to treasured memories and a wonderful story to tell.

Written by Becky McFarland and Steve Stuckey with help from Jan Rottschafer.