Jorhat, April 5: The Assam State Zoo-cum-Botanical Garden in Guwahati will have a second go at what it had failed earlier, along with London and Zurich.

The zoo will reintroduce the world’s smallest pig, once a proper facility is put in place.

The pygmy hogs at Zurich Zoo in Switzerland and London Zoo also met with a similar fate in 1998 and 1876 respectively.

“The idea behind reintroducing these rare animals in the zoo is to make people aware of the animal,” Gautam Narayan, Guwahati-based project director of the pygmy hog conservation programme, told The Telegraph today.

The pygmy hog population at the state zoo earlier died out in 1991.

The animal was thought to have become extinct in the 1960s as its habitat disappeared as a result of human encroachment, grazing and grass burning.

In 1971, the species was rediscovered at Manas National Park. Subsequently, the Pygmy Hog Conservation Programme was launched in 1995.

Six wild hogs — two males and four females — were captured from Manas in March 1996 and brought to the Basistha breeding facility.

The programme is sponsored by the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust.

The breeding programme was a significant success and within five years the captive population rose to 77.

A young wild hog rescued from a river in Manas was also added to the stock in 2001. This was the only captive population of pygmy hogs in the world.

In 2008, 16 pygmy hogs were released at Sonai Rupai wildlife sanctuary in Sonitpur district. These have been breeding successfully as well.

Altogether 35 captive-bred hogs were released at Sonai Rupai wildlife sanctuary between 2008 and 2010.

A few hogs were later released at Orang National Park from the breeding facility.

Narayan said another batch would be released at Potasali in Nameri tiger reserve next month and at present, these hogs are being acclimatised at a pre-release facility there.

He said it would take some time for a few hogs to be introduced at the state zoo, as a proper facility would have to be installed first.

“The process is on to reintroduce these tiny hogs in the state zoo,” he said.

A state zoo official said special care would be taken for the survival of the pygmy hogs if introduced for the second time.

“It will be much easier for us to look after these rare animals this time. A lot of studies have been done since captive breeding began. Earlier, we did not have much of an idea about them,” he said.

Although Assam is home to the world's smallest and rarest wild pigs (Porcula salvania), these are rarely seen because of their size and a small population.

Bullet-shaped, standing just 25cm tall, they were once widely found in the wet grasslands of the Himalayan foothills stretching from Uttar Pradesh to Assam, through Nepal Terai and Bengal Dooars. Today, they are confined to a few pockets along Assam’s border with Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh.

In fact, its only viable population exists in the Manas tiger reserve.