Germans Can't Get Enough of 'Pig Brother'

For weeks now, Germans have been glued to their TV screens for the third season of "Big Brother," which offers an unvarnished look at the exploits and sexploits of a depraved crew of casted starlets. But a new Web site is threatening to eclipse its bigger budget TV brother as a magnet for viewers. The latest craze in Germany is "Pig Brother," a Webcam that follows the lives of a pack of wild boars in the Eifel Mountains near Cologne. Since the site was launched by the German Hunting Association in March, it has drawn more than 1.5 million visitors a week.

Hidden cameras gaze 24 hours a day at three male and three female pigs and their offspring. Sometimes things can even get a little out of ham, er, pornographic, on the site -- this is nature, after all. The Berlin newspaper Tageszeitung wrote this week that many users are logging in to follow the sexual adventures of Kalle, the group's alpha male. The site's producers told the newspaper Kalle has a macho tendency to attack other males in his posse and a penchant for what they described as "dirty sex."

In other words, the site differs very little from its older sibling on the airwaves. You can tune in to see Kalle and the rest of the pig pen at http://www.wildtiere-live.de through the end of May.