A Leave of Absence

Although I admit that I haven't been the most regular poster recently, I can now say with confidence that I know I won't be posting for the next month or so, as I'll be traveling quite a bit. As always, there will be lots of pig-related news that I'll miss. Just this weekend, for example, news broke (again) over the controversy (again) over the U.S. Army's shooting of live pigs in medical drills. A spokesman for the military said  "It's to teach Army personnel how to manage critically injured patients within the first few hours of their injury." A representative of PETA responded that "Shooting and maiming pigs is as outdated as Civil War rifles." You can find the AP story here. More at the end of the summer...

Pigs and Atomic Testing: Pig 311

Hot on the heels of Tirpitz, the swimming pig from World War I, comes this tale of the seemingly "indestructible" Pig 311, found swimming in the Pacific in 1946 after the testing of the atomic bomb at Bikini Atoll. This pig survived both the sinking of the Japanese cruiser Sakawa in the test and a large dose of radiation before being sent to the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. According to a July 15, 1946 article in the Los Angeles Times, the animals used in the Bikini test were generally "dying like flies," although Pig 311 was only suffering from "a diminishing blood count and other internal signs of damage." These must not have proven fatal, for the Washington Post featured a photo (far left; note Goat 315 on the right) of Pig 311 arriving at the Washington Navy Yard on September 25, 1946.

There are many files about Pig 311 in the archives at the National Zoo, but until I access them, I'm not entirely sure how this story played out. Speaking of plays, though, Dr. Jonathan Neale wrote a play about Pig 311 that apparently was performed in 1986. Some pig, indeed!

Thanks again to "Animals as Cold Warriors" website (here) for turning me on to this tale.

Pigs and Atomic Testing: Operation Plumbbob

I've been obsessed with atomic testing since our trip to the Nevada Test Site (tour info here) back in March. I've finally tracked down some of the pig-related aspects of atomic testing. For today, here are stills from the film documenting 1957s Operation Plumbbob, which used pigs to gauge the effects of both atomic blast and radiation. This image comes from the on-line version of the U.S. National Library of Medicine exhibition "Animals as Cold Warriors: Missiles, Medicine and Man's Best Friend," which you can find here. I highly recommend a look, especially for the images, such as the 1952 advertisement sponsored by a pharmaceutical company headlined "We must thank animals if good comes from the atomic bomb." The image of a Lassie-like collie under the mushroom cloud is priceless.

Tirpitz the Pig

Another pig story from the The Animals' War exhibit:

Tirpitz the pig was one of the only survivors of the German cruiser SMS Dresden. Plucked from the waters off of Portsmouth on May 14, 1915, the pig became the mascot of the HMS Glasgow, one of the ships that had destroyed his previous home. The pig was eventually retired to the Whale Island gunnery school in Portsmouth, but met his end in 1919 when he was auctioned off for charity as pork. He ultimately raised £1,785 for the Red Cross. Tim took this picture of Tirpitz's mounted head as it appeared in the exhibition.

By the way, a nice review of this show at the Imperial War Museum appeared in the Guardian (here).

Israeli Mine-Detecting Pigs

My friend Tim just returned from London, where in addition to seeing my beloved Arsenal defeat Bolton at the Emirates Stadium he visited "The Animals' War" exhibit at the Imperial War Museum. I'll undoubtedly generate several posts from Tim's comments and photos, the first of which concerns the use of pigs as mine detectors in Israel, of all places.

Tim's grainy photo of an Israeli soldier working with his demining pig led me to track down more about this story. Perhaps the best overview comes in an article (here) by Jennette Townsend in the Journal of Research, Development and Technology in Mine Action. Townsend's 2003 report charts the work of animal trainer Giva Zin, who began his career in the Israeli army training dogs to detect mines and roadside bombs. As Zin notes, "While dogs can detect landmines on the surface of the ground, they have difficulty detecting mines buried deep in the ground," making the use of pigs more logical. Zin has trained his pigs to find the mine and then sit down, although some of the time the pigs have detonated the mines (a training version, not a high explosive, thankfully) with their snouts. Clearly, though, there may be potential in using pigs in mine detection, not in Israel, really, but in other areas of the world.

While the main reason that Giva Zin's research won't likely be applied in Israel is that suicide bombing is more of an issue than mines, the fact that pigs are not very popular in Israel. As Zin notes, "Jews don't like pigs. Even Jews who are not religious have a strong aversion to pigs." He has apparently been called stupid for working with pigs, which as a food item are treif -- non-kosher. Because there no religious prohibition against looking at pigs or touching them, Zin hopes that Israeli attitudes about this use of pigs will change. As he concludes, "I believe that even God likes my idea because I am using the pig for a good reason. Maybe in the future, after pigs have been used successfully in other regions, or after research confirms that pigs can be used for demining, Israelis will accept them for use on their own land."

The photo shows Giva Zin training a pig at Kibbutz Lahav in Israel.