Twelve pygmy hogs (Porcu salvania) had been launched again into northeast India final week as a part of a conservation program made to resurrect the species from near-extinction within the Sixties. The pigs stay extraordinarily uncommon within the wild, with an estimated 250 persevering on the market.

The hogs are the smallest species of pig, standing at 10 inches (25.4 centimeters) tall as adults and weighing in round 20 kilos (9.1 kilograms). That makes them concerning the measurement of Scottish Terriers. They have the piggish snouts you would possibly anticipate and are mottled brown in colour, making them seem like a capybara with a boar’s head. The pigs are fairly open-minded omnivores, consuming every thing from roots and tubers to bugs and small rodents.

The animals had been feared extinct within the Sixties following the intensive growth of farmland within the pig’s native grassland habitat in northern India, Nepal, and Bhutan. The pigs’ continued survival was confirmed in 1971, however by the Nineteen Nineties, its vary was relegated to a couple stretches of Manas National Park within the Indian state of Assam. At an estimated 250, their inhabitants additionally makes them among the many rarest pigs on the planet.

In 1996, the Pygmy Hog Conservation Program was established to breed the pigs in captivity and launch them again into the wild. “This time we are releasing 12 pygmy hogs including seven male and five female,” Dhritiman Das, the sphere scientist for this system, told AFP. “In [the] next four years, we target to release 60 hogs … so that they can build their own population in the wild.” Some 142 pigs have to this point been reintroduced to their native habitat, extra than 50% of the presumed naturally wild inhabitants complete.

In the 50 years since their rediscovery, it’s truthful to say the pigs’ situation has greater than improved. They’re successful the numbers recreation outright. But reproducing piglets is simply a part of the problem. As National Geographic reported, the animals are nonetheless dealing with habitat loss; you possibly can’t simply add extra hogs to a restricted vary, irrespective of how pygmy they’re. African swine fever is a priority for conservationists making an attempt to assist the pigs. The illness arrived within the area final yr, across the identical time as covid-19.

So right here’s hoping the pigs carry on plodding ahead. And to the most recent 12 to go away captive care: Welcome to the wild.

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