BEIJING — Abby Rockefeller wants to bring the People’s Pig of the Northeast back to the people. First, she has to bring it to upstate New York.

Ms. Rockefeller, a great-granddaughter of John D. Rockefeller Sr., paid $1,400 this month to buy four of the People’s Pigs — Little Black, Little White, Little Gray and Old White — from a farm in suburban Beijing. She hopes to use them as breeding stock to restore a variety of swine once known in China for its virility, fatty meat and ability to endure cold. Today, by one estimate, there are only 2,000 left.

“I would very much like to get these remarkable, unusual pigs that are now rare,” Ms. Rockefeller said in a telephone interview from Cambridge, Mass. “These pigs matter to me, and they would be a symbol if I can get them to the United States.”

If she succeeds, it will be a happy ending for four animals caught up in the peculiarities of modern China. Chinese efforts to spur urbanization and modernize farming may deprive them of their current home. Health restrictions mean they can’t be moved. Chinese conservation experts want to save them. Local officials have threatened to bury them alive.