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Zoo's new house for critically endangered pigs

Zhara Simpson
BBC News, South West
Jersey Zoo A black and white Visayan warty pig walking through mud and grass. The pig has a long brown snout and white markings around its body. There is a black tunnel inside of a grassy bank. Jersey Zoo
Jersey Zoo said the pig-house was home to their Visayan warty pigs which are critically endangered.

A brand-new home for critically endangered pigs has opened to the public at Jersey Zoo.

Durrell Conservation Wildlife Trust, which runs the site, said the new pig house was home to their Visayan warty pigs Tre, Diosa, Babs and Penelope.

The trust said the pig house opened on Friday after a two-month period to allow the pigs to "settle in their new home".

The new house boasts a large den and a series of stalls, all leading out to holding yards and a large paddock which the pigs had "wasted no time in thoroughly rotavating", the trust added.

'Habitat destruction'

It said: "The Critically Endangered Visayan warty pigs are one of Jersey Zoo's many threatened species.

"Once found across several of the Visayan islands in the Philippines, sadly warty pigs are now only found on two – Panay and Negros.

"Habitat destruction to make room for housing and agriculture drove the pigs out of their habitat and farmers view them as pests, so they were actively hunted on many islands."

CEO at Durrell, Rebecca Brewer said: "This new house gives the pigs more outdoor space to roam, as well as provides more opportunity for our visitors to get up close with the species."

Jersey Zoo The mother pig laying on its side on the right feeding its young. There are four small brown pygmy pigs feeding from its stomach. The animals are on mud wit patches of grass.Jersey Zoo
Jersey Zoo said it was celebrating 30 years of its work in India with the worlds smallest pig, the pygmy hog

The trust also said it was celebrating its 30 years of its work in India with the endangered pygmy hog, the smallest pig in the world.

It said since the 1970s, Durrell had been working in Assam to save pygmy hogs from extinction through captive breeding, release programmes and grassland restoration and management.

Between 1996 and 2024, the trust said it has enabled the birth of 877 pygmy hogs in captivity and had released them into four protected grasslands of Assam.

Ms Brewer said: "Our conservation breeding and reintroduction programme with this species was the first of its kind in India and one we are incredibly proud of.

"Through our work over the last 30 years, we have helped establish a wild population for this incredibly rare pig and provided them with a future."

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