It is surprisingly difficult to find a place in Cape Town to leave a 60kg pig to rot. It cannot be close to water, in a residential area or anywhere near agricultural land – there are certain biohazard requirements.
It also has to be secure, so that none of the accompanying R46 000-worth of weather-monitoring equipment is stolen.
“This has been the most difficult part of my project,” says Devin Finaughty, a PhD candidate at the University of Cape Town (UCT).
Finaughty is investigating how human bodies decompose in the Cape, and a pig’s body is the closest to an actual human body when the latter can’t be used. He is quick to point out that his project has undergone rigorous ethical clearance.
For more, find the article — originally published in Mail & Guardian — here.