
Pigs recorded using tools - rising-sky
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2019/10/first-tool-use-pigs-visayan-endangered/
======
austincheney
Finally this is proven. It is by no means surprising. Wild domestic pigs,
which I know are a different species, are a plague in much of North America
and Australia partially due to their intelligence. Half the North American pig
problem is in Texas where an estimated 2-2.5 million pigs roam the country
side. Because they are such a threat to the environment and their population
is so out of control there is no limit on hunting them in either season or
quantity.

Pigs are particularly challenging to control because of their intelligence and
lack of predators. Because of their size, intelligence, and aggressiveness
they have no natural predators in Texas. They are quick to learn of hunting
traps and will either avoid or disarm them. A herd of pigs reduced in
population by 70% can rebound within 2-3 years without continued management.

They tear up the land and are a serious threat to the natural ecology and food
supply. Their damage to commercial agriculture is estimated at $50 million per
year, but their damage to property and the environment is estimated at close
to half a billion each year. Because of their high intelligence they are
adapting their range from rural areas to suburbs and urban areas. Unlike
coyotes, which have also adapted from rural to urban areas with great success,
they are often not afraid of people are known to hurt people in attacks.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_pig](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_pig)

~~~
mikelyons
I found it interesting that many of these things you could also say about
humans. Massive populations, no predators anymore, environmental damage,
intelligence ...

~~~
WaxProlix
There are a ton of cool similarities, including compatibility of tissues in
transplants! Also according to cannibals we taste similar (hence 'long pig' as
a term for human flesh). Smart, deeply interesting animals.

[https://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/stories/pigs-
and-h...](https://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/stories/pigs-and-humans-
more-closely-related-thought-according-genetic-analysis)

~~~
war1025
Reminds me of this:

[https://phys.org/news/2013-07-chimp-pig-hybrid-
humans.html](https://phys.org/news/2013-07-chimp-pig-hybrid-humans.html)

------
lordnacho
A friend of mine is a farmer. He supplies all kinds of meat to butchers in the
local area, except pig.

I wondered why, and he told me that after he had kids he decided pigs are
about as intelligent as a 3 year old, and he simply couldn't bring himself to
kill them anymore.

~~~
yummybear
This is my personal view, but that is nonsense. I understand intelligence is
not all these things, but 3 year olds can follow instructions, do pretty
advanced problem solving, speak, do basic math, understand logical problems.
I'm sure you can find some aspect where a pig and a 3yo are on the same
"level", but as a general comparison, it absolutely fails.

~~~
Smithalicious
I think it's impossible to compare human and animal intelligence because
there's a "hard-coded" part to intelligence. I don't think being unable to
understand human language says anything about the general intelligence of a
non-human animal since humans are at least partially hard-wired to understand
language.

That pretty much precludes any animal from ever being able to "follow
instructions", "speak", "understand logical problems", etcetera. Even if they
would have the general intelligence to do the things we want them to do, it's
very difficult to encode that information in a way that they would understand.

------
userbinator
For those stymied by the ambiguous parse in the title: Pigs using tools,
recorded using cameras.

~~~
throwaway_bad
I initially read it as we are using (even better) tools to record pigs.

This is in part because an article about pig facial recognition frontpaged on
HN before:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19277846](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19277846)

------
war1025
I listened to a podcast today where they guy being interviewed said something
to the effect of:

"We like to say that humans are the tool-using animal, but we've found that
lots of animals use tools. What I think is the actual advantage of humans is
that we are the mimicking animal. We see what works for other animals and find
ways to do the same thing without having to evolve those traits"

I thought that was a really interesting way of thinking about it.

~~~
chr1
There is no single thing having or not having which distinguishes people from
other animals, the difference is in the degree at which we can use
tools/mimic/create mental models etc.

~~~
Dwolb
Is your claim there exists no uniquely human trait as compared to other
animals?

That’s interesting I feel like there is but I’m not so certain. How about the
Sapiens take on gossip?

~~~
chr1
There are many traits that become available only when some other trait gets to
a high enough value.

For instance gossip requires speech or some other method of communication so
only very few species get a chance to it (maybe dolphins? but not likely).

There are traits that are definitely unique, like building rockets, but they
are usually complex things.

------
gsaga
>One of the Visayan warty pigs—a critically endangered species

It's a rare species, what they saw might be genetically coded behaviour,
previously unseen because not much behavorial data is available.

~~~
stewbrew
What makes you believe this is a more likely explanation than imitation of
what they saw their peers doing?

~~~
banku_brougham
Electric fences haven’t existed long enough for evolution to have encoded
genetic responses to them.

------
standardUser
There's a great book called "Lesser Beasts" that dives in to the cultural
history of pigs (mostly in Western societies).

~~~
war1025
Seconded. This is a great book.

------
randall
I wonder if future species will look back on humanity like we look back on the
dinosaurs. Interesting to consider... there's also probably a short story in
there.

~~~
m0llusk
There is an interesting theory that humans are descended from pig and primate
hybrids. This may sound bizarre, but there is evidence of pig primate hybrids
in the wild and so-called humanzees have been bred. This theory is also one of
the few alternatives to the aquatic ape hypothesis that can explain why humans
have skin that is more common for aquatic mammals.

~~~
echelon
If true, there would be genetic evidence of this. I've never heard of such a
thing. It sounds ridiculous.

Do you have a source?

~~~
m0llusk
I'm having trouble finding the links as the recent humanzee hype currently
dominates everything. ... Wait, here is the main page where this is discussed
in detail with references: [http://www.macroevolution.net/human-
origins.html](http://www.macroevolution.net/human-origins.html)

However, it is critical to understand that with hybrids there may be little if
any genetic evidence remaining or it may be simply too scrambled to
understand. Hybrids from a genetic point of view are complicated and do not
necessarily leave a well defined record in their genetics.

~~~
fao_
This somehow hits most of my alarms for "bad science", hah.

------
fargle
Is the next revolution upon
us?[https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/o/orwell/george/o79a/index.ht...](https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/o/orwell/george/o79a/index.html)

------
shostack
Are they ramen yet? Or still djur or varelse?

------
bredren
> “It brings us closer to animals,” she says

It is so human to act like we are not also animals.

------
ljw1001
At least someone is making progress.

------
cm2187
The video is missing the Also Sprach Zarathustra theme.

~~~
rezonant
My thought exactly. Someone should mash it up

------
YJR
Obligatory "Cows with guns" comment

------
EU_commissioner
Intelligent or not, with tools or not, Garlic butter pork chops are my
favourite dish.

~~~
uxcolumbo
I'll probably get downvoted to hell, but hey... let's have this little
experiment:

Pigs when they are slaughtered die a horrible death [0]. Right before you have
your pork chops, or even during, could you watch a video of a pig being killed
and slaughtered (with sound on) and would you still have the same enjoyment -
knowing where it came from?

You might not care about animals, so what about the people working in
slaughterhouses. Could you work in an environment where you had to kill &
slaughter animals all day, hearing their screams, smelling the blood etc. What
do you think this environment does to ones psyche? Slaughterhouse workers
experience PTSD.

Now you might not care about these workers. How about our biosphere? Several
studies have shown the immense strain and damage large scale animal
agriculture has on our biosphere [1]

Hey look, we all (or most) love our BBQs or pork chops or whatever. But when
approaching this with a critical / logical mind - do we really think that all
the damage our craving for culinary pleasures warrants the damage it creates
on a human, environmental and animal level?

Ethan Brown provides some alternatives that are worth exploring:
[https://www.ideacity.ca/video/ethan-brown-beyond-
meat/](https://www.ideacity.ca/video/ethan-brown-beyond-meat/)

[0] This if for the UK, but I imagine it's the same for anywhere else
[https://www.viva.org.uk/what-we-do/slaughter/slaughter-
farme...](https://www.viva.org.uk/what-we-do/slaughter/slaughter-farmed-
animals-uk)

[1] [http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2018-06-01-new-estimates-
environmen...](http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2018-06-01-new-estimates-
environmental-cost-food) \- The researcher himself of this study gave up meat
& dairy completely after he completed this study/.

PS. If you raise or hunt your own then ignore the stuff above (which is mostly
about factory farmed carrion)

