India, July 12 -- The only known method to catch them unharmed was to flush them out of the dense cover of grass and into a line of nets. For vantage, some among the catchers needed to be on elephants, while others walked alongside to herd the tiny trotters with loud noises.

In 1996, a team caught hold of six pygmy hogs from Assam's Manas National Park, and drove them to a newly built breeding centre at Basistha, on the outskirts of Guwahati.

The shy, dark-brown wild pig, scarcely bigger than a house cat, was so elusive that experts had assumed for two decades the species was already extinct. The capture, at the time, was a roll of the dice, so conservationalists could some day introduce the world's tiniest hogs back into the wild.

Thr...