A new home is urgently needed for a modern population of Bermuda's iconic Spanish hogs, as local farmer Tom Wadson comes under increasing pressure from costs.“It's coming down to a question of, 'how long can you keep them?'” said Mr Wadson, who is feeling the pinch feeding the animals.The closest thing to the herds of wild pigs that greeted the Island's original settlers, the Bermuda Ossabaw hogs at Mr Wadson's farm are “the real deal”.“They look just like the hog off the penny,” he said.But a year of brutal drought over much of the US has sent the cost of the hogs' organic feed skyrocketing.“A box that cost $12,000 is up to $16,000,” the Southampton-based farmer explained. “I don't want to do it, but I have to look at cost cutting measures like everyone else.”Accordingly, Mr Wadson is seeking someone in the community to adopt a piece of Bermuda's livestock heritage.“Unless I can find someone to support them,” he said, “there's going to be a lot of chourico.”The meat of the animals is “to die for”, he added.“But they're of huge historical and cultural value to us. My hope is they could end up breeding down at the Bermuda Aquarium.”The pigs left behind by passing Spanish vessels were of Iberian origin, but with some East Asian genetic influence that was probably picked up in the Canary Islands from other traders, Mr Wadson said.Among the Sea Islands off the Georgia Coast, Spanish explorers left behind pigs from the same stock — and on Ossabaw, the breed managed to persist until today.Although feral populations are under threat from a virus, Mr Wadson said he had been able to source healthy Ossabaw pigs from a private breeder in Mount Vernon outside Washington, DC.Mr Wadson's farm currently has “eight or nine of the purebreds”, he said.“But we have litters coming,” Mr Wadson added. “Something's going to have to change for us to keep them.”