Vietnamese Potbelly Pig
In the Jardim Zoologico de Lisboa in Lisbon
|
|
| Conservation status | FAO (2007): endangered |
|---|---|
| Other names |
|
| Country of origin | Vietnam |
| Distribution | Red River Delta |
| Use | meat |
| Traits | |
| Weight |
|
| Height |
|
| Hair | black |
|
|
Vietnamese Pot-bellied is the exonym for the Lon I (Vietnamese: Lợn Ỉ) or I pig, an endangered traditional Vietnamese breed of small domestic pig.
The I is uniformly black and has short legs and a low-hanging belly, from which the name derives.The I is reared for meat. It is slow-growing, but the meat has good flavour. The I was depicted in the traditional Đông Hồ paintings of Bắc Ninh province as a symbol of happiness, satiety and wealth.
The I is a traditional Vietnamese breed. It is thought to have originated in Nam Định province of Vietnam, in the Red River Delta. It was the dominant local pig breed in most provinces of the delta, and was widely distributed in Nam Định province and the neighbouring provinces of Hà Nam, Ninh Bình and Thái Bình, as well as in the province of Thanh Hóa immediately to the south, in the North Central Coast region.
Until the 1970s the I was probably the most numerous pig breed in northern Vietnam, with numbers running into millions. From that time, the more productive Móng Cái began to supplant it. The National Institute of Animal Husbandry of Vietnam started a conservation programme, with subsidies for farmers who reared purebred stock, but this had little benefit – there was some increase in numbers, but at the cost of increased inbreeding. In 1991, the total population of the I was estimated at 675 000, and by 2010 the estimated number was 120. In 2003 the National Institute of Animal Husbandry listed its conservation status as "critical"; in 2007 the FAO listed it as "endangered".
...
Wikipedia