The two-hundred-pound babirussa is a wild hog found in Indonesia. It is about three feet long with a rope-like tail, is dark gray in color and has two pairs of curved tusks. The lower pair grows right out of its mouth and curls toward its forehead. The upper pair is rooted higher in the snout, but also curves towards the top of its head.
It’s not likely you would want a fierce-looking animal like this for a pet. However, its looks are deceiving, for it is actually shy and passive. It lives beside rivers and lakes where it feeds on water plants, wild fruit and other vegetation and where it likes to wallow in the mud, just as pigs do everywhere.
These animals are a member of the pig family, much like those on American farms, except for the tusks. Their short-legged, large bodies give them a bear-like shape, which accounts for the nickname “pig bear.” They have long, pointed snouts, small ears and gruesome eyes.
Females make nests in carefully hidden places and usually give birth to just one or two smooth-skinned piglets each year. Natives often capture these, taming and raising them on their farms for their meat, which tastes as good as any pork or bacon. Little children usually take care of them.
There is a difference between these wild animals and pigs or hogs raised on most farms. Domestic hogs have only one stomach and so cannot eat grass and vegetation; they need corn, soybeans and other grains. However, wild pigs have an extra part to their stomachs, like sheep and goats, and whatever they eat goes into this “sac” where it is digested before it can nourish their bodies.
Because of this, it is much cheaper to raise the wild pigs and feed them inexpensive vegetation -which the Indonesians already do. Farmers in other countries are considering doing the same, so perhaps you may someday see some for sale in your local butcher shop.
Strange as these animals are, they are just one more example of the Creator’s pleasure in placing a wide variety of creatures on the earth. But the supreme work of His creation was in making mankind, as expressed in Psalm 40:55Many, O Lord my God, are thy wonderful works which thou hast done, and thy thoughts which are to us-ward: they cannot be reckoned up in order unto thee: if I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered. (Psalm 40:5): “Many, O Lord my God, are Thy wonderful works which Thou hast done, and Thy thoughts which are to us-ward. . . . If I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered.” The principal “wonderful work” was the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ, bearing on the cross the sins of all who will admit their need to be saved and accept Him as their Saviour. Each person is invited to do this. Have you accepted this loving invitation?
ML-02/26/2006