PIGS can’t fly but they do have other talents. In fact, they perform rather well on a task used to test the mental faculties of chimps, dolphins and parrots.
Donald Broom at the University of Cambridge placed food where it was only visible in a mirror, while a fan wafted its scent away from the pigs. Seven of eight pigs tested took less than a minute to learn how to use the mirror to find the food ().
This shows how aware they are of their surroundings, Broom says. “Pigs are keenly aware of what is happening around them,” agrees Marc Bekoff of the University of Colorado, Boulder. The findings should be factored into welfare assessments of farms, he says.
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