A Week of Hogwash: Warthogs.

How on Earth could this blog possibly do a week of pigs without covering the warthog (Phacochoerus africanus)? Outside of the wild boar, warthogs are among the most famous of wild swine. I'm amazed this pig wasn't covered already, seeing as I'm a fan of Disney's Lion King. Consider this entry an insight into Pumbaa's secret life.

Talking meerkat not included.

The team behind the Lion King was not as collectively stupid as some generic "jungle animal" film producers and actually picked a wild pig that lived in Africa. Warthogs are the only pigs adapted to savannah life, being able to graze and eat darn well anything they come across (including insects - the movie got that right, too). They are so named for the "warts" on the sides of their very odd-looking faces, which are at the very least a lot stranger than the wild boar's. No prizes for beauty contests, but impressive nonetheless. There are a few species of warthog spread across the savannah of Africa, making the whole species not threatened.

Wild pigs always have very impressive heads, and warthogs are no exception. The namesake "warts" are globs of fat used for surviving tough weather and added protection when fighting fellow male warthogs. The tusks of a warthog, which curve in crescents over the snout, are sometimes used to make tourist trinkets instead of elephant ivory. The lower pair of tusks is constantly rubbing against the upper pair, whetting them like little daggers all the time. Woe to any predator in the mood for pork chops.

The warthog is more than just a not-so-pretty face. They are also quite adaptable, despite having no protection from extreme heat or cold. A warthog is able to go up for a week without water. Those fatty warts are good if food ever becomes scarce. Speaking of food, a warthog can "kneel" on its front legs to get the lowest little bits of grub. They are pigs that can go without excessive food and water - neat.

As opposed to the downright vicious wild boar, warthogs would rather run than fight. They usually flee into a burrow - either their own or someone else's - and effectively block the entrance with their visages. Four tusks are a pretty good threat. Cowardly? Maybe. Effective? Well, considering that wombats do the same thing with their butts, a head armed with pointy tusks is a step up. Good on you, Pumbaa.

Newsflash: U.S.A. Going Hog Wild.

Oh, hey, speaking of feral superhogs, wild pigs just hit a new record. They have been problematic in the Unites States for a long time, being fertile, intelligent, adaptable omnivores (sound familiar?). Bacon lovers rejoice: soon, you will be able to hunt your own. 

"Digging up fields and lawns, killing livestock and spreading disease, wild pigs have gone from a regional nuisance to one rapidly spreading across the nation.

The animals have razor-sharp tusks, a bottomless appetite and no natural predators, and experts say the invasion of the feral pigs has become a major problem that is moving north.

“This truly is becoming a national crisis,’’ John Mayer, the manager of environmental science at the Savannah River (S.C.) National Laboratory, told TODAY on Friday.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that wild hogs, which can weigh more than 200 pounds, are responsible for more than $1.5 billion in agriculture damage and destruction every year. TODAY’s Kerry Sanders took a ride in a helicopter to see them firsthand, watching dozens on the run across the 2,000-acre South Fork Ranch in Okeechobee, Fla.

“It’s like having a rat in your house,’’ Southfork Land and Cattle Company’s Bill Wallace told Sanders. “They’re just not a good thing.”

In 1987, there were an estimated two million wild pigs in about 20 states, primarily in the South and concentrated in Texas and Florida. Now there are an estimated six to eight million wild pigs roaming 47 states.

“This increase that we’ve seen in wild pigs is unquestionably dramatic,’’ Mayer said. “We don’t have another species here in the U.S. that has increased at this same rate.”

Experts say the explosion in the wild pig population is partially due to hunters transporting them across state lines, plus some escaping from hunting preserves. The animals also produce two litters a year, rapidly swelling their numbers." - TODAY News.

A Week of Hogwash: What Is It With Wild Boars?

If you look through old mythology, you'll notice one common thing: wild boars can be terrifying, awesome creatures. Boars were one of the mascots of Ares; whole war helmets have been made out of boar bits. Freyr, another warlike deity, has a metallic boar, Gullinbursti, as a pet. The Celts acknowledged the male boar's courage and the female boar's generosity and fecundity. They are pretty much universally acknowledged as badasses. As a reminder, they also spawned the domestic pig.

Source: Huntercourse.com.

This is what piggies (Sus scrofa) used to look like. Wild boar are native to Europe and Asia, but have since been turned loose in North America and Australia. Unlike the aurochs and wolves, wild boar are not under any threat whatsoever, being extremely fecund. They have also been domesticated since time immemorial, although exactly who decided taming hundreds of pounds of vicious pig was a good idea remains up for debate. They are omnivores and scavengers, just like most domestic pigs are.

Although the official size record for "world's largest pig species" goes to the giant forest hog, some populations of wild boar can outdo them in terms of size. European wild boar can get up to 700 pounds. Again, they also have razor-sharp tusks, charge swiftly, don't back down, and are covered in tough bristles as opposed to the relative hairlessness on domestic swine. As huntercourse.com put it, "boars will circle a human adversary, charge rampantly and attack from behind." Put a few hundred pounds onto that and you have something terrifying.

And now the part at least some of you have been waiting for: yes, wild boar hybridize freely with domestic swine. "Hogzilla" is the most famous example of a boar-pig hybrid, weighing 800 pounds and growing roughly 8 feet long. Thus far, this is still the biggest hybrid out there - and likely the biggest pig on record. Feral swine can get massive and retain all their wild behaviors; the pig is far less removed from its wild relative than, say, the dog or cow. You will never see ham the same way again.

The wild boar remains probably the most intimidating wild beast with a domesticated counterpart. A boar, male or female, will fiercely protect its piglets and charge with surprising vigor. The Year of the Pig is frequently changed to Year of the Boar in the wild counterpart's honor. The boar can still be seen on heraldic crests because it is one badass pig.

They Actually Eat That/A Week of Hogwash: Head Cheese.

Originally, this entry was going to be dedicated to Hormel. Not only are they probably awful factory farmers, depriving piggies of their natural well-being, but they will put everything and anything ham-related into a can. That includes canned bacon and taquitos. Look it up if you're curious; I'm just going to sigh, say "oh, Hormel," and move on to something even more disgusting than canned bacon. 

This is commonly known in the U.S. as "head cheese." It is also called "souse" or "brawn" if one simply must make it sound more classy to offset exactly what sort of meat is in question. As one can probably guess, it is made from the head of the pig, sheep, or calf. It has been around since the Middle Ages as a European peasant food. Gee, I wonder why?

Let's think about that for a moment.  There are plenty of meaty parts on an animal's body. The head is not one of them unless the animal in question happens to be a whale or dolphin. Feel your own head for a minute and imagine someone thinking, "hey, there might be meat, there." You'd probably think they were the stupidest, sickest people on earth, right? So, how does that relatively thin skin even remotely qualify as food?

Hey, remember aspic? How about gelatin? Head cheese is usually in a meat gel like that. The meat around the skull naturally gels that way to some degree. Head cheese can look like perfectly OK loaves of mystery meat (see also: meat glue), or it can look like modern food/art gone horribly wrong. Some people think it looks really beautiful; while I can see why they think that, I do not necessarily agree.

OK, this one from the Houston Press does look nice.

Who would do such a thing? Everybody. China does it, every country in Europe does it, and America does it by default. It's a good way to use up parts of a pig that nobody would otherwise eat, even if it happens to be from the 2nd ring of Hell. If a culture eats pigs, it has head cheese in some form. Now enjoy your 4th of July barbeque if you happen to be in the United States. :)

Bio-Art/A Week of Hogwash: Tattooed Pigs.

Whew, back on track! For the record, me collapsing on Monday nights is indeed normal. Luckily, this week promises to be fun. It's a whole week of hogwash, or awesome pigs you never thought you'd meet.

Belgian tattoo artist Wim Delvoye has found new meaning in life: tattooing pigs. He started tattooing pig carcasses while working at a slaughterhouse, then proceeded to tattoo live, sedated pigs in 1994. There is now a massive gallery of tattooed swine. They are found only in Art Farm China and, occasionally, in museums. 

So, why pigs? "They grow fast and are so much better to tattoo than fish," says Delvoye. It's also nice that we can see the ink on the pigs because their hairs are so fine. As the artist points out, it is also fascinating to see a tattoo on a young pig blossom into a massive artwork on a full-grown hog. Then, when the pig's time has come to go to the sty in the sky, the tattooed skin remains.

Even if you put fashionable tattoos on a pig, it's still a pig.

Interested in having a pig as a pet? How about an inked pig? Art Farm does indeed intend to sell its swine, probably for a pretty piggy penny, somewhere down the line. For now, however, it is possible to buy an inked pigskin or stuffed pig. They are also occasionally on display in various art galleries, so be on the lookout for tattooed pigs in a museum near you.

Or not! Some people have amazingly strong reactions to these pigs, calling the inking a violation of animal rights. Delvoye claims that the pigs actually feel less pain than humans on the skin - in part because pigs were wild at one point and aren't known for having flimsy skin in the first place (think "football"). Regardless, the topic of tattooed swine tends to carry mental outrage in its wake. Unless every single protestor has never touched bacon, however, they are probably just as "hypocritical" as the vegetarian artist is; you do not wanna know what goes on at pig farms where the porkers aren't inked.

Newsflash: Airborne Ebola?

Remember when I cited Ebola as a sign that there was not a loving God? It turns out that it was a lot worse than I thought. Thanks in large part to conspiracy theorists believing that the elite are using human populations in Africa to test out biological weapons, this little gem found its way onto my screen:

"Canadian scientists have shown that the deadliest form of the ebola virus could be transmitted by air between species.

In experiments, they demonstrated that the virus was transmitted from pigs to monkeys without any direct contact between them.

The researchers say they believe that limited airborne transmission might be contributing to the spread of the disease in some parts of Africa. They are concerned that pigs might be a natural host for the lethal infection.

Ebola viruses cause fatal haemorrhagic fevers in humans and many other species of non human primates.

Details of the research were published in the journal Scientific Reports.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the infection gets into humans through close contact with the blood, secretions, organs and other bodily fluids from a number of species including chimpanzees, gorillas and forest antelope. 

The fruit bat has long been considered the natural reservoir of the infection. But a growing body of experimental evidence suggests that pigs, both wild and domestic, could be a hidden source of Ebola Zaire - the most deadly form of the virus. 

Now, researchers from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and the country's Public Health Agency have shown that pigs infected with this form of Ebola can pass the disease on to macaques without any direct contact between the species. 

In their experiments, the pigs carrying the virus were housed in pens with the monkeys in close proximity but separated by a wire barrier. After eight days, some of the macaques were showing clinical signs typical of ebola and were euthanised. 

One possibility is that the monkeys became infected by inhaling large aerosol droplets produced from the respiratory tracts of the pigs.

“What we suspect is happening is large droplets - they can stay in the air, but not long, they don't go far. But they can be absorbed in the airway.”- Dr. Gary Kobinger, Public Health Agency of Canada." - Source. More there.


So, basically, it turns out that pigs can carry Ebola too, and they might be able to get it through minimal contact with exhaled bodily fluids. Bear in mind that pigs are also very susceptible to respiratory infections.

This is another reason why one should watch where one's meats come from. Pigs can carry a lot of human diseases, not just Ebola, because they are so biologically-similar to humans. We eat them and make medicine out of them. We also ship them everywhere - not all farms are in the U.S. Pigs are already pretty bad environmentally; this is one nasty addition to the damage they can do.

That said, I do wonder why this hasn't been publicized more. Ebola's kind of a big deal.

Creature Feature: Red River Hog.

You know what else is in Africa, but nowhere near as well known as white lions? A lot of things. They have lots of cool birds, millions of not-so-huge herbivores, and even some smaller carnivores that get slighted in favor of larger animals. A lot of animals get pushed to the side in favor of rip-roaring big cats or, for lack of a better catch-all, pachyderms. After all, who would care about something as obscure as red pigs?

 

Meet the red river hog, a type of wild pig native to southwest and central Africa. Its habitat centers around the rainforests in Guinea and Congo. As its name indicates, it favors areas around rivers. It will eat anything that is remotely tasty and can fit in its mouth. Even roots are not off limit with its nose and excellent digging capabilities.



The boars of this species are only slightly bigger than the females. Like many pigs, they have tusks. They also have harems; these pigs roam the night in groups of up to 20, and the dominant boar will viciously defend his harem. Leopards are the pigs' main predator, so it really benefits them to be in a huge group!

Red river hogs are pretty snazzy-looking pigs. Along with the red fur, they have a sleek white stripe running down their backs. Their faces look like they belong to some sort of old, wise mythical creature - those of you wishing for a pig dragon for some reason, try using this hog as a basis for the face. If hogs had fashion shows that allowed wild contestants, we would be expecting to see these guys on the runway.

Red river hogs are by no means endangered. Unlike wild bovids, it is hard to find a species of pig under threat. We humans may think of swine as meat, but they are actually really hardy survivors. The biggest threat to these piggies comes from human encroachment upon their habitat. The second? Pigs will eat anything, including garden crops.  The good news is, red river hogs can be clicker trained, so maybe this proximity will have a happy ending.

Happy endings include piglets.

(Note: This one is short because tomorrow's going to be a little special. :3)

Creature Feature: Swine Flu.

It seems like there's always some nasty disease threatening the world thanks to mankind's increased air travel capabilities and our own infestation of the planet. SARS, bird flu, and swine flu were all characterized as "OMG DEADLY" diseases that could whack even those in industrialized nations at any time. These scares are often blown out of proportion. Soon, we will not even be able to get colds without having a news story about it.

CALL THE PRESSES! (From iStockphoto.)

 

Viruses are great survivors. We could debate about whether viruses are alive or not until the mad cows come home with their non-living prions, but as one of the most primitive life forms, viruses have an amazing capacity for mutation. They swap DNA more often than bacteria, which should be enough to give most people shivers. That the common flu can evolve around vaccines is enough to make Walgreen's offer them every single year. Heaven help us if viruses ever find ways to cross the species barrier.

Oh, wait. Viruses cross species pretty regularly. Rabies is a good example, infecting many mammalian species with the same disease, but swine flu puts it to shame. Strains like H1N1 really gets around when it comes to infecting other species. 

Swine flu (in recent memory, H1N1) is notorious for not only infecting pigs, but also infecting humans and chickens. Pigs, uniquely, can get avian sicknesses. Several pig farms in China and other parts of Asia tested positive for avian flu half of the time. Swine flu crosses not only the species barrier, but also the wall between mammals and birds. Careful of "when pigs fly" statements; you may find yourself doing the impossible once these crazy viruses start giving pigs wings.

Like this, only with better graphics.

 

So is swine flu really that dangerous? (Wiki says it's worse than smallpox.) 

The short answer is "not anymore." The World Health Organization ("WHO") declared the 2009 pandemic officially over. Even then, most of the people who died from it had some conditions beforehand, such as pregnancy, leukemia, and lymphoma, that compromised their immune systems. Most 'normal' people will treat swine flu exactly like they would the regular flu - by staying in bed, developing antibodies, and watching TV shows online. Most cases of swine flu are very mild. In other words, it still sucks, but was not really worth the hysteria the media put into it.

I lov-ed you, piggy! I lov-ed YOOOUUU!

 

Swine flu is more harmful to pig farmers than it is to people who do not work with pigs on a regular basis.  This may be common sense, but any animals that are packed together in one place are prone to getting sick from each other. The humans are not the only ones at risk. Some farms have lost over 65 million dollars from swine flu outbreaks; consider that karma.

Swine flu epidemics resurface every time humans think they're on the top of the world and lose their immunity to the virus. Expect it to pop up again. If we ever have a rabies epidemic, however...I TOLD YOU SO. The Chihuahuas did it!

"They Actually Eat That:" Truffles.

Forgive my lateness. Had to stay up at campus a little later on Wednesday, but don't worry, I would never miss a chance to show you all some seriously weird food. This is a little bit hard during Breed Week - whoever would admit that certain breeds are good for food? Even if they are, most of them are not remotely weird. (The Belgian Blue is an obvious exception.)

So this is something different and tangentially-related to domesticated animals.

 

Connoiseurs of my blog have probably heard of the fungi called truffles. Besides being a delicious chocolate treat, truffles are a type of fungus usually found near the bases of various trees, particularly oak, beech, hazel, and pine. The European black and white truffles are delicious, but very, very expensive. Chinese truffles are often used as a cheap substitute.

Truffles are not domesticated, per se. They can be farmed (Australia has had the best luck), but are not sufficiently differentiated enough from their wild counterparts to be considered breeds. Truffle fields return to wildness easily, sending the search for easy truffles back to square one. These things are so hard to find that humans need special animals just to discover them, thus explaining the price tag...



...even though piggies can find them no problem.

The classic way to find truffles is to get a healthy sow and take her out for a little walk. Since truffles smell like a horny boar's saliva, the pig's sensitive nose will pick up the scent. Sows can smell the fungi up to three feet underground. We can only imagine that her desire would be doubled if she herself wanted some lovin'. As one might expect, pigs do sometimes eat the truffles. If your Playboys came with a hamburger inside the pages, you probably would, too.

Japan has the right idea.

Of course, pigs are not the only animals with a keen sense of smell. Dogs, specifically the Lagotto Romangolo (Romagna Water Dog) can also be trained to sniff for truffles. The Lagotto breed has been in the business for only 100 years, which is a short time compared to ancient Roman truffle hogs.

You can also tell it's hypoallergenic because of its poodle-ish fur.

For the record, yes, I have actually eaten truffles. If you want to try some good ones, they have truffles in everything in Piazza Navona, a certain square in Rome. They put truffles on pizza, in fettucine, and have a godly gelato called tartufo- no real truffles involved, just using the name. Truffles are delicious, but I personally would not go into any pig sties after eating them!

Creature Feature: Entelodonts.

Wild pigs are badass. Look at ancient epics and there will likely be something with a boar. Norse gods frequently use boars as steeds; Odysseus got gored by a boar as a child; hell, ancient Greek warriors wore helmets made of boar tusks, and one of the reasons that the Jews avoid pork might be because the Romans loved using the boar as their mascot.

The kickass wild pig came from an even more kickass relative: the entelodonts. To put its awesomeness into perspective, entelodonts are also called "Hell Pigs" or "Terminator Pigs." Those sound like good names for motorcycle gangs.

Entelodonts have similar dentition to modern pigs, thus suggesting an omnivorous diet. They were primarily carnivorous, eating either fresh or long-dead meat, as well as plant matter if the need arose. (I'm not sure where They were the biggest, baddest creatures on North America, Eurasia, and Asia during the Miocene Period, a little-known era sandwiched between the dinosaurs and the advent of man.

If you think that modern swine are big, think again. The largest entelodont,  Daeodon shoshonensis, was 6.9 ft (2.1 meters) at the shoulder. D.shoshonensis was also 12 feet (3.6 meters) long, i.e. likely bigger than one's car. It had tusks and facial bumps like a warthog, and its jaws could easily crush bone. We do not know whether an entelodont would actually eat you or not, but staring into the mouth of one, we doubt you would care.

YAH!

The larger entelodonts died out, in short, because they ran out of large prey. As time went on, other predators simply became more efficient hunters. The smaller, more scavenge-ready entelodonts lived. The result was the animal that goes into making bacon.

 

Exactly how close entelodonts were to pigs is still up in the air. Although the obvious evolutionary route judging by the hooves and skull is to swine, some scientists suggest whales and hippos as well. If it walks like a pig and eats like a pig...nah, we won't go there.

Tomorrow:  Chaaarrrlliieee...

"They Actually Eat That:" Sausage and Pork Rinds.

Every so often, you will find someone (possibly an Avatar fan) who wishes that we all were living off the land like Native Americans. Prod them enough and you will no doubt receive a speech about how the natives used every part of the buffalo to the point of using the eyes as lollipops. They will also chew you out for eating livestock simply because modern Americans do not do that.

Lies and taffy. We make use of every part of the pig. Not as majestic as the buffalo, but hey, it's still making the most of the animal.

First off, most of the pigs we eat are coming from horrible conditions. They are not happy pigs on a farm like Wilbur in Charlotte's Web. We wish that were the case - really, we do - but the food industry is called an industry for a reason.

In the U.S., there is a practice called factory farming which forces pigs into tiny metal cages. If the Simpsons Movie has taught us anything, it is that pigs, though cute, are also very unsanitary animals. Imagine what it must be like to be in a room with hundreds of sick, pooping pigs with no way out. Worse, imagine what it must be like to give birth in such an environment.



Before I hear "oh, they're just dumb animals that are lower on the food chain," pigs are smarter than dogs. True, they are still ungulates, but they should not be portrayed as "dumb." If you avoid dog meat because dogs are "intelligent," pig meat should be taboo as well. This is a very strange, disturbing double standard in the American mindset.

Enough about how the piggies are caged. They're going to become meat, anyways - and how!



Sausage is our first stop when talking about exactly how well we use pigs. Ham is a fairly common meat wherever there are pigs, but most people do not eat the innards (except for the ancient Greeks, who apparently relished the intestines and livers of their meals). The intestines and other miscellaneous organs that most of us recoil at wind up in sausages of all flavors and varieties.

There are millions of different sorts of sausage, and not all of them are from pigs, but they all boil down to this: Animal organs and other spare, but edible parts wrapped in either genuine intestine or a waxy synthetic casing. Some sausages have blood in them; others have "mystery meat," which is exactly what it sounds like ("we don't know WHAT'S in there, but it came from something"). They usually have a lot of spices and herbs in there to conceal that you are, in fact, eating exactly what most people would not want to eat.


Do you know what's in that? It almost looks like there's a claw on that bun...

This came about as a good way of preserving animal bits that were left on the butcher's floor. Practicality came first; then people decided to try and make sausages tasty. That they could be containing anything is still a little creepy.

So we have a good use for most of the innards of the pig, but what about the outside? Pig skin is no longer good for wearing (it was when they had fur), so people do the next best thing: Eat it.

 

Pork rinds are, well, pork rinds. They are strips of pig skin fried and puffed like potato chips. They practically are potato chips; they have very little nutritional value and a lot of fat and salt. Pork rinds, also called "cracklings" in the U.S. or "scratchings" in Britain, are often eaten as a snack food. Many varieties of pork rinds have a little bit of flesh and fat still in there after being puffed and deep-fried; therein lies the charm.

This bag is not even trying to conceal the horror.

It's probably a good thing that most people buy the pre-packaged puffed pigskins. The more one thinks about pork rinds, the weirder they sound.

 

The hooves, snouts, and ears do not go to waste, either. Okinawan, Chinese, and Korean cuisine sport dishes of pig hooves; look at one's local pet store and one will find dried pigs' ears sold as dog toys. See? We use every part of the animal for something; it's just kinda gross, so we do not talk about it much. 

Next week: SPAM deserves an article all to itself.

Creature Feature: Babirusa.

Quick. When I say the word "pig," what is the first creature that pops into your head?

More likely than not, your mind immediately jumped to Babe, Gordy, or any other number of strange talking pigs. Whichever pig came to mind, it was pink, slightly fuzzy, and adorable as all get-out. Then you might have done some homework and realized that they polluted as badly as Spider-Pig from the Simpsons movie. Still no big deal, right?

Not all pigs are cute and fuzzy. Domestic pigs originated from wild boars, bristly creatures known for charging ahead at full speed and goring people with their tusks. Pigs have a good variety of wild relatives that look like regular pigs a la H.P. Lovecraft, but even Spider-Pig will not save you from the pig that dwells in the corners of your nightmares.

As the video says, the babirusa, a unique type of wild pig (with its own genus Babyrousa), is native to the jungles of Sulawesi, Indonesia. Although the females and piglets look like normal wild boars - the ancestors of the domestic pig - the male sports the most unusual tusk display of all swine.

Besides sporting (relatively) normal tusks, male babirusa have two teeth growing, and curling, right through their skulls. This is thought to be a visible sign of strength. Since it takes balls for someone to get diamond bling on their teeth, having teeth grow through one's skull is probably the porcine equivalent.

If you think these are extreme, imagine diamonds IN your teeth. If pigs had fashion, I'm sure we'd see babirusa dentures popping up.

Naturally, the natives of Sulawesi and the few other Indonesian islands that babirusa are found on have taken notice of its strange appearance. One theory for its unusual range (Sula and Sulawesi, with no babirusa on the islands in-between) is that they were exchanged among royalty. The four-tusked rakasa present in a few Indonesian Hindu temples also have roots in one of Wilbur's most bizarre, intimidating cousins. That doesn't mean that they could not make for interesting movie monsters.

If Doctor Who can use rhino-headed aliens, why not make an alien race based off of babirusa?