Adorable tiny hog species saved from extinction

Sixteen itty bitty pigs, which belong to a species that faces extinction, will be released into their natural habitat at the foot of the Himalayas.

Sixteen of the world’s smallest and rarest pigs will take their first tentative steps in the wild today after the species was rescued from the brink of extinction.

The pygmy hog (Porcula salvanius), once common in India, Nepal and Bhutan, was thought extinct in the 1960s after years passed without a sighting of the mammal, which stands up to 30cm high and weighs a maximum of nine kilogrammes (20lb).

In 1971 four were rescued from a market in the state of Assam, in the north of India, a discovery that alerted the world to a further handful surviving in the region's tea gardens. After a 13-year captive breeding programme led by Durrell Wildlife, the Jersey-based conservation centre founded by the author Gerald Durrell, the descendents of those surviving hogs are being reintroduced to their natural habit at the foot of the Himalayas.

Link

• [richard schumacher]

  Whether they survive kinda depends on the people eating them. The tasty Oman Arabian oryx, for example, is about to go extinct in the wild again after re-introduction in the 1980s.

• [IWood]

  Mmmm…miniature bacon…

• [jennybean42]

  Yeah, wow, why does this creature make me think “mmmmm… that would be GREAT with honey mustard?”

• [hellhead]

  Bacon bits.

• [Talia]

  They’re so cute, I could just squeal.

• [alally]

  Yumm.. rock cornish game pigs!!

• [moustache]

  This little guy reminds me of the “Mystery Creature photographed in Seattle” post from last year. Although I highly doubt that one of these could have gotten from the Himalayas to the northwest United States, the resemblance is still startling.

• [Enochrewt]

  Could an animal look any more like it was going to be prey in the wild than this little guy?

• [Michael Brutsch]

  “the descendents of those surviving hogs are being reintroduced to their natural habit at the foot of the Himalayas”, whereupon they were immediately eaten by eagles, dogs, and local natives.

• [David Carroll]

  #1 an’ a #2:

  Actually becoming a popular human food source might be the best thing that ever happened to these varmints. I mean how many chickens and cows are there in the world now? How many would their be if we didn’t like to eat them?

  Now I know that livestock are commonly bred to the point that they could not fend for themselves, but co-dependency is a common survival strategy in nature.

  For you vegans out there, having pygmy hogs as much loved pets would accomplish the same thing.

  For those of you way down the bell curve who feel that having pets is a form of slavery, I guess we will have to agree to disagree…