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That little piggy went to market, but this one … took a selfie?
A “picture problem” has popped up in the New Forest National Park in southern England, where villagers are complaining that an increasing number of overeager tourists have gotten too friendly with the over 600 pigs who roam the park.
Visitors are vying for selfies with the swine to post on social media — though some locals have also gotten in on the trend in a respectful manner.
Tourists, on the other hand, have taken extreme measures to get good shots, pinning the animals “against hedges” and putting cameras “within three inches of their snouts,” New Forest animal safety campaigner Gilly Jones told the Daily Mail.
“My issue is the constant, and I mean constant, plaguing they are suffering by the ‘piggy tourists’,” Jones told the Daily Mail.
She also said she’s witnessed tourists leaping out of cars and following piglets down a “stupidly busy road.”
The domestic pigs — which include native breeds like Tamworth and Gloucestershire Old Spot — are released into the park by locals in a yearly ritual called “pannage,” where the swine eat up all the fallen acorns and nuts that can be toxic to the park’s ponies and cattle who traverse the ground year-round.
This year’s pannage season started in mid-September and is set to go until January 4, 2026. The ritual was extended this year due to a heavier-than-usual acorn crop, which has further alarmed Jones that the selfie issue will only continue to grow.
Jones is concerned about the animals’ wellbeing as tourists’ moves to get aesthetically pleasing shots of the New Forest pigs for their online feeds become bolder and more dangerous.
Jones has also asked local businesses to stop promoting pannage and voiced her concerns to the Verderers Court, a longstanding New Forest Court which regulates the park.
Andrew Parry-Norton, the New Forest Commoners’ Defence Association chairman, has noted that while tourists should absolutely leave the pigs alone and admire them from a distance, locals “have to be realistic” when it comes to expecting these interactions.
He also noted that tourists taking pictures of the pigs during pannage is “not illegal.” He just asks that they become educated about the pigs, “stay well back” and “use the zoom on (their) camera to get a closer shot.”
“People are going to keep coming to the Forest, it is a National Park,” Parry-Norton told the Daily Mail. “You know, we say don’t touch them, don’t feed them, don’t pat them…They’re doing a really important job.”
