Research into pig intelligence has advanced dramatically in recent decades. Understanding what pigs can do and feel is essential for evidence-based welfare standards in the largest farmed animal population.
Research findings on pig intelligence have profound implications for how we assess welfare conditions in intensive farming. A species capable of empathy, long-term memory, and complex learning experiences boredom, social deprivation, and environmental impoverishment in ways that are genuinely comparable to what would be recognised as welfare harms in dogs or chimpanzees. The cognitive gap between pig capability and standard intensive farming conditions represents one of the most significant unaddressed welfare challenges in animal agriculture. Enrichment studies demonstrate that pigs given access to rooting substrate, manipulable objects, and positive social choice spend hours engaged in these activities — evidence that their deprivation in barren systems is a chronic negative welfare state.