Why/how are pigs used to find truffles? Do they have a natural affinity for them?
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As many other comments have said, pig’s lives revolve around their sense of smell. I want to add an example though.
Truffles are also fungi that have co-evolved with pigs to help them proliferate / spread far and wide. They developed a scent that mimics that of a female boar in heat (that scent is through pheromones or chemicals that change behavior)
Imagine if you will you are very, very hungry and you smell your favorite food in the next room over, behind a locked door. You’re starving. First you’re going to find that door and find any possible way to get around it. Then you’re going to start trying to break down the door and get at it. Once you’re at it, you realize it’s not your favorite food, but eh you’re hungry and it seems similar enough.
Pheromones produce the same visceral reaction in animals and thus the same desire to get to the source. You can picture it as that vivid memory you want to re-experience. It puts you (and them) on auto-pilot.
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