Behold, for the Hog Revolution Is Nigh

Two items of news have come to my attention today that make me all but certain our near future will be dominated by a race of massive, vindictive, technologically advanced hogs.

First, consider this: scientists in China have begun to breed massive hogs. Bloomberg reports that this stunning development is a reaction to mounting demand for pork in the country. A likely story. I suspect this may be playing directly into the hogs’ hands (hooves):

In a farm deep in the southern region of China lives a very big pig that’s as heavy as a polar bear.

The 500 kilogram, or 1,102 pound, animal is part of a herd that’s being bred to become giant swine.

While Pang’s pigs may be an extreme example of the lengths farmers are going to fill China’s swelling pork shortage problem, the idea that bigger is better has been spreading across the country, home to the world’s most voracious consumers of the meat.

They are slaughtering these gigantic pigs en masse. Someday soon they may rise up. Which brings us to our second point: now they can use tools.

National Geographic reports that a species of pig—Visayan warty pigs, to be exact (and rude name, if you ask me… not wise to insult the hogs)—have been observed using tools. To be fair, “tools” is a bit generous here: the pig is merely using a stick to improve its mud-digging abilities. But where they once only dug mud they may soon pierce flesh.

You may still feel secure. The pigs with tools are in the Philippines, very small, and endangered as well. The polar bear-sized hogs are in China. And yet: we have large hogs in the United States as well—larger, even, than the ones in the East. And while these domestic swine still seem very much pre-Animal Farm, their wild brethren are fomenting revolt on the Canadian border.

“Pigs are smart and kind creatures,” is what I tell myself every time I order bacon, to increase the guilt that I feel at all times. This is true. And some day soon they may realize that nonviolence has led to only pain and subjugation upon their species, and they will come, roiling in waves of enraged pork, subsuming borders and houses, stomping humankind beneath their delicate cloven hooves. They are coming. It is only a matter of time.