« African Field Notes: The Leopard | Main | African Field Notes: Birds »
February 15, 2006
African Field Notes: The Warthog
Warthogs are fun to watch. Disney's Pumba is really quite like the warthogs of the wild - skitish and very round. And while its difficult to call them nice looking, they have a sort of ugly charm, you know?
When scared, their tail sticks up straight in the air like an antennae as they run away. When they run, they sortof prance along on very delicate hooves. They are a favorite food of the leopard.
Female warthogs only have four teats, so litter sizes usually are confined to four young. Each piglet has its "own" teat and suckles exclusively from it. Even if one piglet dies, the others do not suckle from the available teat.
Latin Name: Phacochoerus africanus
Check out our Safari South Africa podcast - an audio program and a video that features this animal!
Also on Perlgurl.Org:
Photos: San Diego Zoo & Wild Animal Park: Warthogs
Tag cloud
Posted by sorsha at February 15, 2006 9:44 PM
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.perlgurl.org/mt/mt-tb.cgi/368
Comments
ia it still illegal to import warthogs into the u.s.a. ? not many years ago it was outlawed because of some swine disease.
Posted by: p.j. halpain | August 2, 2006 7:46 PM
The rules pretty much work like this:
Endangered species, whether they are live, dead, or just products made from them (think ivory, Chinese traditional meds, rhino horns, leopard rugs, bongo drums) generally may not be imported or exported, unless you have a CITES permit and all the proper paperwork. Even if the country of origin will sell it to you legally.
The US Fish and Wildlife Service is charged with regulating what comes in and out of the country. They've got permits and customs forms for just about anything you'd want: FWS Permits.
Antiques are a special case of importation. If the items are guaranteed (stamped, with papers) to be over 100 years old, you may be able to import them. This would be stuff like antique ivory boxes, tortoise-shell combs, etc. Funny enough, the only kind of ivory allowed for import without a permit is warthog ivory. You still declare it.
Trophy hunting is another sometimes exception. You generally have to go through a specific port, and have all the proper paperwork in advance.
Another weird factoid: Urine and feces are not considered products of the animal, but by products. So you can import/export it to your hearts content. At first I was like, uhhhh, ok. But the more I think about it, the more I see why: (1) it is of interest to researchers for a variety of purposes and (2) it's also of interest to hunters - think of all the elk hunters of the Northwest that spray themselves with eau de doe-in-heat.
I think the disease you're talking about is African Swine Fever (ASF). From what I can tell, if you have the proper paperwork, your animal will go through the normal quarantine process upon arrival. I have found no mention of specifically not allowing import of these animals, but they are certainly checked for a variety of diseases. This is to protect the local pig species from catching something and making the price of a BLT skyrocket.
Clearly, some warthogs and other pig species get through, as many zoos certainly have various exotic species. What I don't know is if this is a matter of knowing the paperwork process, or whether customs give preference to zoos over commercial and personal wildlife importers.
Posted by: Lauren Darcey | August 13, 2006 1:50 PM