The Strong-Willed Pig (; April 2007 – June 16, 2021), was a

pig The pig (''Sus domesticus''), also called swine (: swine) or hog, is an omnivorous, domesticated, even-toed, hoofed mammal. It is named the domestic pig when distinguishing it from other members of the genus '' Sus''. Some authorities cons ...

originally belonging to Wan Xingming, a villager in Tuanshan Village, Longmenshan Town, Pengzhou City, Chengdu City. On May 12, 2008, the

Wenchuan earthquake An earthquake occurred in the province of Sichuan, China at 14:28:01 China Standard Time on May 12, 2008. Measuring at 8.0 (7.9–8.3 ), the earthquake's epicenter was located west-northwest of Chengdu, the provincial capital, with a foc ...

occurred and the pig was buried under rubble for 36 days but amazingly survived on just

charcoal Charcoal is a lightweight black carbon residue produced by strongly heating wood (or other animal and plant materials) in minimal oxygen to remove all water and volatile constituents. In the traditional version of this pyrolysis process, ca ...

and

rainwater Rain is a form of precipitation where water droplets that have condensed from atmospheric water vapor fall under gravity. Rain is a major component of the water cycle and is responsible for depositing most of the fresh water on the Eart ...

. On June 17, 2008, the pig was rescued and its weight was found to have dropped from 150 kg to 50 kg. The pig became a symbol of hope, fortitude and resilience. He was "revered for his heroism".

Biography

After the Wenchuan earthquake, Jianchuan Museum adopted the pig, and the

curator A curator (from , meaning 'to take care') is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the particular ins ...

, Fan Jianchuan, gave it two names: the

nickname A nickname, in some circumstances also known as a sobriquet, or informally a "moniker", is an informal substitute for the proper name of a person, place, or thing, used to express affection, playfulness, contempt, or a particular character trait ...

"36 Wa'er" and the formal name "Strong-Willed Pig". In September 2011, Chinese

scientist A scientist is a person who Scientific method, researches to advance knowledge in an Branches of science, area of the natural sciences. In classical antiquity, there was no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. Instead, philosophers engag ...

s cloned the Strong-Willed Pig.

In the late stages of its life

On May 1, 2021, Fan Jianchuan stated that "the situation of Strong-Willed Pig is terrible". On the 10th, the Jianchuan Museum said that the pig had entered the final stage of its life.

Death

On June 16, 2021, Strong-Willed Pig died at

Jianchuan Museum Cluster The Jianchuan Museum Cluster ( zh, s=建川博物馆聚落) is located in Anren Town, Dayi County, Sichuan province, China, about one hour's drive from the provincial capital Chengdu. It consists of 26 museums which showcase China's largest priva ...

at the age of 14 due to old age and exhaustion. On

Weibo Weibo (), or Sina Weibo (), is a Chinese microblogging ( weibo) website. Launched by Sina Corporation on 14 August 2009, it is one of the biggest social media platforms in China, with over 582 million monthly active users (252 million daily ac ...

there were 430 million views of the

hashtag A hashtag is a metadata tag operator that is prefaced by the hash symbol, ''#''. On social media, hashtags are used on microblogging and photo-sharing services–especially Twitter and Tumblr–as a form of user-generated tagging that enable ...

"Strong-Willed Pig has died".

References

{{Reflist 2007 animal births 2021 animal deaths 2008 Sichuan earthquake Individual animals in China Individual pigs