Hunting and Fauna: according to a study by the IZS, the Zooprophylactic Institute of Sardinia, wild boars are to be considered victims of diseases such as swine fever rather than responsible.
Are wild boars victims or responsible for the spread of certain animal diseases? This is the question that a survey by the Zooprophylactic Institute of Sardinia (Izs) tried to answer, which crossed the epidemiological, health and environmental data of some areas affected by African swine fever and bovine tuberculosis in the last five years. In all, over 35 thousand animals analyzed by the ISS laboratories from 2007 to today and collected by hunters and the veterinary services of the ASL in the region, from Goceano to Ogliastra, from Gallura to Nurra up to Iglesiente. The results were presented a few days ago in Nuoro during the conference on "Management and conservation of natural environments and wildlife" organized by the ASL 3 and the Sardinian veterinary club.
The investigation started from a basic problem of veterinary epidemiology, that is, whether wild boars play the role of simple hosts of swine fever and TB or whether they are real tank animals capable of maintaining and spreading on a large scale. these pathologies, transforming them, as in the case of swine fever, into endemic plagues of Sardinia.
Therefore, to understand the mode of spread of these diseases, the regional surface has been divided into 32 macro-areas identified on the basis of the characteristics of the territories, the number of hunting samples made by hunters, the availability of food and other environmental factors that determine the wild boar population.
The method was also reflected in seven self-managed hunting areas in Goceano and between Villanova and Putifigari, where the veterinarians of the Institute directed by Antonello Usai have verified the effectiveness of the study model in the field.
The result was that the wild boar in Sardinia "is more a victim than a person responsible for the contagion of these diseases - explains the head of the Izs Regional Epidemiological Observatory, Sandro Rolesu -, because the numbers show that critical densities of their population, such as to favor the spread of pathogens, they are very rarely found in nature ».
As in the case of Spain, where human intervention was necessary to multiply the number of ungulates. And the attempt to raise wild boars for food purposes has favored the role of reservoir for these animals, which have contributed to the spread of bovine tuberculosis.
«Here, however, the opposite has happened - continues Dr. Rolesu - and in Goceano the proximity of the municipal pastures to the livestock farms has meant that it was the cattle that infected the boars with tuberculosis. In the case of swine fever, however, the problem is the wild pigs held illegally, which by sharing the natural habitat with wild boars cause a real epidemiological short circuit ».
"So it is necessary to keep the level of surveillance high - concludes the director general of the IZS, Antonello Usai - and hunters and breeders must continue to observe the good behavioral practices indicated by the health authorities, because wild boars, when they contract the virus, in any case they are able to infect it ».
12 October 2012
Source: SassariNotizie