. . . AND THEY CALLED IT PIGGY LOVE : ZOO HOPES PORKERS FALL FOR EACH OTHER.Byline: Associated Press Only a wart hog wart hog a grotesquely ugly member of the family Suidae, or wild pigs. They have large wart-like structures on the face, enormous sickle-shaped tusks, a misshapen head and run with their long tail held rigidly erect. Called also Phacochoerus aethiopicus. could love the face of another wart hog, but that will be good enough for the San Francisco Zoo The San Francisco Zoo, (previously Fleishhacker Zoo) is a zoo in San Francisco, California housing more than 250 different animal species. It is located in the southwestern corner of the city, between the Great Highway and Lake Merced. , officials said Thursday. Since Disney's animated film ``The Lion King'' made celebrities of African wart hogs, in the form of the hero's friend Poomba, they have been hot attractions on the zoo circuit. With tusks, white whiskers See metal whiskers. and a face shaped like a shovel, it took Disney to make them look lovable to human audiences. San Francisco introduced its new wart hog couple - Porky pork·y 1 adj. pork·i·er, pork·i·est 1. Of or like pork: a porky flavor. 2. Slang Fat or corpulent. and Bess - to the media Thursday, saying they should be ready to mate next year. ``They're so ugly, they're cute,'' associate curator Stephen Castillo said. San Francisco borrowed Porky from the Little Rock, Ark., zoo, and paid $20,000 to the San Diego Zoo San Diego Zoo One of the world's largest collections of mammals, birds, and reptiles, located in San Diego, Calif., and administered by the Zoological Society of San Diego. The 100-acre (40. for Bess. At 1 year old, they will have to wait before breeding, but signs so far have been positive. The two 100-pounders were introduced through what zoo officials called a ``howdy door,'' and apparently took a shine to each other. ``We put them where they could see each other through wire mesh, just an hour and a half the first day,'' keeper Dave Howe said. ``They really hit it off, and now they act like they'd been together all their lives.'' Wart hogs, which eat alfalfa alfalfa (ălfăl`fə) or lucern (l  sûn`), perennial leguminous plant (Medicago sativa , roots and grasses, are intelligent, Howe said. Maybe that's why in the movie, Poomba was the only animal that knew the stars were actually burning balls of gas billions of miles away. CAPTION(S): Photo Photo: Porky and Bess, a couple of African wart hogs, nuzzl e in their new home at the San Francisco Zoo. Associated Press |
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