Thousands of tourists visit the “island of the piglets” every year

A Romanian mushroom forager based in the British city of Preston, located in Lancashire, north of the Ribble Estuary, has shared his visit to Atokos Island with his more than 200,000 Facebook followers. The page, named “Funghi porcini/Boletus edulis mushrooom,” specializes in searching for mushrooms and fungi.

The island of the swimming piglets

We are referring to the Greek island of Atokos, in the archipelago of the Ionian Sea. On its main beach, wild pigs approach the shore to interact with tourists. They even swim in the water alongside visitors.

In this footage, tourists can be seen landing on the beach while several people on another boat film the pigs bathing and throw bread into the sea for them, despite this practice being prohibited.

Atokos can be reached by boat, including from the island of Lefkada, which is connected to the mainland. Oral tradition and local legends mainly offer two theories about how the pigs came to the island.

The most widespread belief is that sailors brought the animals to the uninhabited islet as a live food reserve for future voyages. Another version suggests that they come from herds that survived after some ship sank in the area.

The Ministry of Tourism of Greece recommends respecting the environment and not touching the animals.

Beaches with feral pigs

The chance to interact with wild suids has become the biggest tourist draw at destinations such as Pig Beach, an uninhabited island in the Exuma archipelago, in the Bahamas; Porto Marie Beach, located on the southwest coast of the island of Curaçao, in the Caribbean Sea; or Pig Beach, in Progreso, Yucatán, at Yucalpetén Beach.