The Whole Hog: Exploring the Extraordinary Potential of Pigs - Softcover

[Lyall Watson's] enthusiasm for pigs - the complexity of their social relationships, the keenness of their senses and, above all, their intelligence - is infectious (London Review of Books)

The Whole Hog ... treats its subject so engagingly, and contains so many surprising details, that the reader is in danger of buttonholing strangers at drinks parties and regaling them with pig facts. (Damian Thompson Mail on Sunday)

Masterly and captivating (Observer)

With The Whole Hog [Watson]has really brought home the bacon. (Damian Thompson Mail on Sunday)

A brilliant contribution to the pig cause . . . a book you can root about in and be sure of discovering unexpected ideas and delicious morsels of information. It kept me occupied for hours, snuffling and oinking contentedly. (Oliver Pritchett Sunday Telegraph)

Walking with these pigs, watching them through Watson's eyes, will convince anyone that the pig is a true wonder. (The Scotsman)

The Whole Hog is just that, an attempt to encompass everything that is known about all the pigs of the world. George Orwell was right. Pigs are unquestionably the farmyard animals most likely to succeed. But why, exactly? Science has been slow to pin down the source of their superiority. Pigs are dramatically different from their closest and more placid relatives, sheep, deer and cattle. During forty million years of evolution, they seem to have made a series of canny decisions, adapting to changing circumstances much as humans have - by becoming more versatile, more gregarious and more curious. Sixteen species of wild pigs now occupy every continent except Australia and Antarctica, filling in the environmental gaps by deploying a panoply of domestic and feral forms - pigs for all seasons. The Whole Hog is their story. The biologist Lyall Watson has tracked pigs in the wild, observed their resourceful and playful lives, deciphered their grunts and oinks - and is convinced pigs deserve new respect.