Rarest wild boar

The rarest species of wild boar (i.e., belonging to the genus Sus) is the Visayan warty pig Sus cebifrons. Nowadays known with certainty to exist only on Negros and Panay, two of the Visayan Islands in the Philippines, its population is extremely fragmented, has decreased by approximately 80% in recent years, and has disappeared from around 95% of its former distribution range. Precise numbers of individuals existing in the wild are not available, but are sufficiently low and threatened for the IUCN to categorize this species as Critically Endangered – the only Sus species so categorized.

Fortunately, a number of specimens exist in captivity around the world, including at Chester Zoo (UK), San Diego Zoo (USA), Rotterdam Zoo (Netherlands) and several additional zoological parks. In addition, there are several conservation and captive breeding programmes devoted to the saving and perpetuation of this species even if it should ultimately become extinct in the wild.