Home  ›  Education  ›  Bridge of Death  ›  Lean Hogs  ›  The Central Park Pile

LH · Lean Hogs ·Bridge of Death · Question 04 of 11

The Central Park Pile

The scene

You are a Knight of the Round Table — a Launcelot, a Galahad, a Sir Robin, perhaps King Arthur himself — and your quest, as you shall shortly declare, is to seek the Holy Grail. The road requires crossing the Gorge of Eternal Peril. The only way across is the Bridge of Death. There stands the Bridgekeeper, an old man with a staff, who will ask you three questions. Answer rightly, and he waves you past. Answer wrongly, and — into the gorge you will be thrown. Good luck.

At the bridge

“STOP! Who would cross the Bridge of Death must answer me these questions three, ere the other side he see.”

, Gorge of Eternal Peril.

1Question the first

What… is your name?

“

Answer

State your name.

2Question the second

What… is your quest?

“

Answer

I seek the Holy Grail of trading.

3Question the third

What… is the depth, in feet, of the pile if every Chinese pig killed by African Swine Fever were stacked onto the manicured lawn of New York’s Central Park?

Between August 2018 and February 2020, African Swine Fever killed roughly 225 million Chinese pigs. It is the largest single-species animal mortality event in modern history. The Bridgekeeper, armed with the biosecurity reach of a USDA-APHIS field officer and the calculator of a New York City planner, asks what you get if every one of those pigs is piled onto Central Park’s 3.41 square kilometers of manicured lawn.

Select one of the five answers below. Choose carefully, and accept your fate.