Читать книгу Seventy Years of Farm Tractors 1930-2000 - Jack Byard - Страница 5

Pigs, hogs, or swine—whatever you like to call them—have been around for 11,000 years. Over the many centuries, they have provided humankind with food and, in earlier times, with bones for tools and weapons, skin for shields, and bristles for brushes. This book describes and illustrates those breeds that you have the most chance of seeing.

Pigs are considered to have intelligence beyond that of a three-year-old child. In the last few years, numbers of this bright-eyed animal have declined dramatically and several breeds have become extinct.

Whose fault is it? To my mind, national governments, loss of habitat, the EU, and food fads must all take some of the blame, along with rules and regulations created by people who know or care little about the industry. We should not discard breeds because they are unfashionable or do not fit in with our current ways of living. Organizations such as the UK’s Rare Breeds Survival Trust (RBST) and The Livestock Conservancy in the United States do what they can to protect endangered breeds, but we must all help preserve the rare and endangered animals on this fragile planet. As the T-shirt slogan tells us, extinction is forever.

Jack Byard, Bradford, 2020