Large Black Pig

A British breed of domestic pig, and the only British pig that is entirely black. It was created in the last years of the nineteenth century by merging the black pig populations of Devon and Cornwall in the south-west with those of Essex, Suffolk and Kent in the south-east; it is hardy, docile and prolific, forages well and suits extensive farming, though it is not well suited to intensive management. A successful breed in the early twentieth century that was exported to many parts of the world, its numbers declined after the Second World War when the Howitt Report discouraged rearing of all but three pig breeds thought suitable for intensive pig farming, and by the 1960s it was almost extinct. Numbers have since risen, but it remains an endangered breed.