I mean, they were there because a building was on fire. Saying they rescued pigs is how you attemp to create a controversy over the farmer gifting the sausages these pigs were always destined to become 6 months after the fire was put out.
Sure. But if you tell someone that pigs were saved from a fire, they'll be happy, because they value the lives of pigs, and they would assume that the people saving them did as well.
As a society, we praise saving animals, because we value non-human lives.
However, as a society, we also treat animals as objects, so killing them and offering them as a reward is appropriate.
The dissonance is why people are uncomfortable. Living in a society that values animal life but also values killing animals to eat them requires a disconnect that most people don't like to see bridged.