KABUL, Afghanistan — “Exotic species” are different in Afghanistan. For example, the Kabul Zoo is home to what’s thought to be the nation’s only captive pig, really a big boar. Pork is haram, or forbidden, in Islam, hence the lack of domestic swine.

A sign outside the enclosure seems to say the boar’s name is Sarkozy, like the former French president, but the zoo’s director, Aziz Gul Saqib, insists that the animal has no name.

The boar was a gift from China and a favorite of Karl Eikenberry, a previous U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan,who grew up in North Carolina, where the campaign to revive the Kabul Zoo began. Eikenberry visited the Kabul Zoo several times, including on the day before he left the country in 2011. During a recent interview, Saqib gleefully showed off a photo of Eikenberry hand-feeding sugar to the boar.

The boar’s odd status in Afghanistan was underlined in 2009, when it was briefly taken off exhibit in the middle of a swine flu scare. The animal posed no threat, but Afghans didn’t really understand the disease and visitors to the zoo worried that they might be exposed, Saqib said.

Front Section, Pages 3 on 02/24/2013