The pygmy hog is a grassland specialist, dependent on tall, dense, wet alluvial grassland in the foothill terai of the Himalaya. That habitat has been almost entirely lost to agriculture, settlement and dry-season burning, which is why the species collapsed from a range once spanning the terai belt to a handful of sites in Assam. It is also an indicator species: because it builds nests in undisturbed tall grass and cannot survive where the grassland is degraded or annually burnt, its presence signals that the grassland ecosystem as a whole is intact. Conservation breeding and reintroduction have been the main tools used to bring it back from the brink.