Pigs left on remote islands as castaway food were rescued 192 years later

In 1807, pigs were released on New Zealand's Auckland Islands as food for castaways; 192 years later, 17 were rescued before the feral population was eradicated

On a remote, windswept archipelago far south of New Zealand, a small herd of pigs lived out more than two centuries as one of the world’s most isolated feral populations. Their ancestors were left on the Auckland Islands in 1807, released by sailors as a living food store for any shipwrecked castaways who might one day wash up on those storm-battered shores.