India, Aug. 12 -- Chester Zoo in the United Kingdom recently recorded the birth of a critically important babirusa, the so-called "pig-deer". The birth comes at a critical moment as African swine fever is threatening to wipe out the species found on just four Indonesian islands.

Until recently, they were considered vulnerable to extinction by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), but they will shortly be uplisted to Critically Endangered.

Since African swine fever reached the islands around five years ago, wild populations have gone into rapid decline and if action is not taken, the babirusa could become extinct, fear experts.

'A very special birth'

'Rana' as the baby babirusa has been named, was the size of a...