Table of Contents
Pygmy Hog
- The smallest member of the pig family, the pygmy hog (porcula salvania), is a critically endangered species
- it was thought to have become extinct in the 1960s.
- But in 1971 it was “re-discovered” with a small population in the Bornadi Wildlife Sanc
- They used to be widespread in the tall, wet grasslands in the southern Himalayan foothills from Uttar Pradesh to Assam, through Nepal and north Bengal.
- However, human encroachment has largely destroyed the natural habitat of the pygmy hog by development, agriculture, domestic grazing, and deliberate fires.
- Only one viable population remains in the Manas Tiger Reserve, but even there, threats due to livestock grazing, poaching, fire, and tigers persist. Even then the numbers have kept declining. They are estimated to be less than 200 pygmy hogs, half of what was estimated in the mid 1990s.
- A two-decade long effort to conserve this 25- cm tall animal has however turned the tide –
the 110th captive-bred Pygmy Hog was recently reintroduced in the wild in the northeast Indian state. - The pygmy hog is one of the very few mammals that build its own home, or nest, complete with a ‘roof’, but maybe more important than its own attributes, is the fact that it is an indicator species.
- Its presence reflects the health of its primary habitat, the tall, wet grasslands of the region.
- A number of other endangered species like the one-horned rhino, tiger, hog deer, eastern barasingha, water buffalo, hispid hare, and the Bengal florican, are also dependent on the
grasslands. - Wet grasslands also serve as buffer against floods in the monsoons, while maintaining high
groundwater level in the dry season, thereby benefitting agriculture and the farming community that live on its fringes. - It was essential, therefore, that the Pygmy Hog Conservation Programme (PHCP) follows a twopronged action plan: conservation breeding of the animal against possible early extinction and re-introduction in selected sites, and habitat management.
- The biggest challenge to grassland degradation, it was found, was indiscriminate grass burning in the dry season and livestock overgrazing..
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