African swine fever is harmless to humans but is highly contagious and deadly in domestic pigs and wild boars. It has spread from Africa to Europe and Asia and has already killed hundreds of millions of pigs, affecting global meat markets.

Seven dead boars in were found in Fagersta, some 200 km northwest of Stockholm, and more tests are being conducted, the Veterinary Institute said in a statement.

“At present, we do not know how the infection got in, but it is a long jump from the nearest infected area in Europe, and we therefore assume that it has happened through humans and not wild boar,” it said.

While the virus does not affect humans or other animals, it can be spread via pork or by carrying it on shoes, tools or vehicles.

An outbreak of African swine fever has forced pig breeders in Serbia, Bosnia and Croatia to cull thousands of pigs since June and is putting pressure on governments to compensate farmers for their losses.

— Reporting for Reuters by Johan Ahlander.

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On Aug. 3, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada announced $944,340 in funding for Manitoba’s hog farm group. Funds were provided through AAFC’s African Swine Fever Industry Preparedness Program and were slotted for three initiatives: Squeal on Pigs, increased communication with small-scale pork producers and the development of an ASF response plan, should a local case of the virus be found.

The funding “will help protect animal health and ensure the sector remains resilient and competitive internationally,” federal Agriculture and Agri-Food Minister Lawrence MacAulay said in a release, noting the economic and psychological toll that a disease like ASF would have on the industry.

“The detection of African swine fever in Canada would be catastrophic for both the Manitoba and Canadian hog sectors and would result in not only a prolonged closure of international borders to pork, but a significant financial impact to our province and country,” the Manitoba Pork Council also said in a release.

Although the disease is not a food safety threat, Canada has watched the devastating impact ASF has had in pork industries in other parts of the world. In particular, outbreaks in China starting in 2018 reportedly wiped out a third of that country’s hog herd. The disease, which has a reputation for its mortality in pigs, was later found in other Asian counties in the region.

Europe has had its own struggles with the disease, while the U.S. and Canada (still ASF-free) were dismayed when it was found in the Dominican Republic last year.

Between 2021 and July 20, 2023, the World Organization for Animal Health reported ASF in 49 countries across five global regions, accounting for 951,000 cases in domestic pigs and 28,000 detected cases in wild swine. That includes nine countries that saw the disease for the first time, and 10 countries where ASF found its way into previously unimpacted regions.

Wild swine have also been a reservoir for ASF in various nations, so there is concern on the Prairies where invasive wild pig populations are a problem.

In Manitoba, the wild swine problem has sparked pilot control programs, as well as the Squeal on Pigs campaign that encourages the public to report wild pig sightings so they can be investigated and addressed.

“African swine fever poses a tremendous risk to our province’s hog sector, and we need to do everything we can to ensure that we are prepared in the event that horrible day comes upon us,” said Manitoba Pork Council chair Rick Préjet.

“We want to commend the federal government for not only stepping up with funding to support producers and our sector, but for their continued engagement on preparatory work with our producers and our staff to ensure that we are best prepared for an outbreak.”

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The survey intro notes that wild pigs can transmit diseases to a herd and “because pathogens can be transmitted in many ways, it is crucial to understand how wild pigs interact with livestock and how often, and what production practices may influence this.” 

The short survey also aims to document practices to manage wild pigs on farms. The survey is part of a $970,000 research project led by University of Calgary Veterinary Medicine professor Dr. Matthieu Pruvot.

The overall aim is to “mitigate the risks of the expanding population of wild pigs” and “maintain disease-free status requirements for live animal and meat product exports.”

The survey can be found at www.tinyurl.com/yjktuj9w.

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“The program will compensate producers for wild boar damage to eligible unharvested hay crops and eligible annual unharvested crops, wildlife-excreta contaminated crops, stacked greenfeed and silage in pits and tubes,” said Daniel Graham, AFSC’s manager of product knowledge and pricing.

To be eligible, producers have to let provincial wild boar specialists attend their property to “review the damage, provide recommendation to prevent further damage, and to conduct wild boar eradication.”

At least some of those recommendations must be implemented to maintain coverage.

“If a producer has a second claim, the minimum recommendations from the first claim visit must have been implemented in order to be eligible for a full claim,” AFSC said on its website. “If the recommendations have not been followed, no claim will be paid.”

Farmers can’t hunt wild boars on their property or allow others to hunt or trap them, it added.

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An isolated outbreak of the deadly hog disease was reported in northwest Italy at the start of the year, and the case found in Rome last week — the first detected in central Italy — has triggered fears of a spreading epidemic.

Andrea Napoletano, a close aide to the president of the Lazio region that surrounds Rome, told state broadcaster Rai the plan is to “selectively” reduce Rome’s wild boar population.

The region has banned picnics and ordered that rubbish bins be fenced off in large swathes of northern Rome, where the disease was found. Lazio’s boar population often enter the city, foraging for food in often-overflowing rubbish bins.

In a statement on Monday, the Lazio region said that out of 16 tests carried out on boars after the first case was detected last week, two were “very probably” positive to swine fever. Definitive results were not yet available.

Junior health minister Andrea Costa said the spread of wild boars was a problem all over Italy and a “large-scale cull” was required nationally, despite the concerns of animal rights groups and environmentalists.

African swine fever is harmless to humans but often fatal to pigs, leading to financial losses for farmers. It originated in Africa before spreading to Europe and Asia and has killed hundreds of millions of pigs worldwide.

China suspended pork imports from Italy in January after the illness was detected in a wild boar in the north-western Piedmont region.

The Italian government subsequently appointed a special commissioner to co-ordinate measures aimed at eliminating the disease.

— Reporting for Reuters by Angelo Amante.

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The provincial ag ministry announced the moratorium Wednesday and said it’s “developing regulations for licensing existing commercial wild boar farms.”

Regulations for wild boar and feral pigs are also to be developed under the province’s Pest Control Act, the ministry said. Those rules would declare feral pigs to be a regulated pest in the province, and would “specify the various monitoring and control efforts as well as public obligations to report.”

Provincial funding for Saskatchewan Crop Insurance’s feral wild boar control program, which includes surveillance and eradication work, will also be doubled to $200,000, the ministry said.

Agriculture Minister David Marit, in a release Wednesday, described the moves as “substantial steps that improve risk management and protect the resilience and security of our agriculture industry, which is a critical component of our provincial economy.”

The move also follows Ontario’s decisions last fall not only to regulate wild boar as an invasive species, but to phase out the production of farmed wild boar in that province entirely.

Wild boar were introduced in Saskatchewan in the late 1970s as domestic livestock, and over time many of those animals have “escaped and reproduced at a rapid pace,” the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities (SARM) said in a separate release last month.

SARM — which in its release called for the province to impose a moratorium on new farms — said it now knows of “over 60” southern Saskatchewan RMs “suffering from overpopulated boars.”

Feral pigs now are thus “established within localized regions of the province, including agricultural production areas, and represent a significant problem due to damage caused to hay and crop land and to natural areas, as well as their potential to spread invasive plant species,” the province said Wednesday.

The invasive hogs also “harass” livestock and wildlife, and are considered potential reservoirs for livestock diseases such as African swine fever (ASF), the province said..

A federally reportable disease that hasn’t yet made it to North America, ASF cut into China’s hog herd by as much as half after its arrival there in 2018.

More recently, the disease is believed to have spread to domestic hog herds in several European countries through that continent’s wild boar populations and has turned up in hogs in the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

“To this day, wild boar have free rein of rural Saskatchewan land with no predators keeping the population in check,” SARM president Ray Orb said in that group’s release Feb. 17.

“Each year, the risk of transferable disease grows between domestic hogs. We can’t ignore the damaging financial and environmental impact wild boars leave in their wake any longer.”

Sask Pork board chair Toby Tschetter, in a separate release Wednesday, said the province’s planned new regulations “will help protect the provincial hog industry and help us to keep our food supply secure. We encourage farmers, ranchers and the public to use the wild boar reporting services as much as possible.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Tests confirmed the disease in a dead boar in Ovada, located about 120 km southwest of Milan in northern Italy, the statement said.

African swine fever is harmless to humans but often fatal to pigs, leading to financial losses for farmers. It originated in Africa before spreading to Europe and Asia and has killed hundreds of millions of pigs worldwide.

The discovery in Italy could be a blow to the country’s meat producers as governments often block imports of pork products from countries where the disease has been found as a way to prevent transmission.

China and other pork buyers banned imports of German pork in September 2020 after the first case was confirmed in wild animals in Germany.

The Piedmont regional government asked city mayors to stop hunting following the discovery. Wild boar can transmit the virus to other pigs.

The government also said it is raising its surveillance of wild boars and hog farms and increasing cleaning measures on farms as much as possible.

“As in the case of the (COVID-19) pandemic, the African swine fever emergency must also be addressed by appealing to everyone’s collaboration,” said Piedmont’s health deputy, Luigi Icardi, in the statement. “Piedmont health system is working alongside operators in the sector to prevent the circulation of the virus and protect swine farms.”

In China, the world’s biggest pork producer, African swine fever destroyed half the hog herd within a year of being detected there in 2018. Last year, Haiti and the Dominican Republic confirmed the first outbreaks in the Americas in nearly 40 years.

— Reporting for Reuters by Caroline Stauffer and Tom Polansek in Chicago and Joice Alves in London.

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To that end, the province is making funding available to farmers who actively breed and raise wild boar to “shift to other forms of production such as heritage breeds of swine, other livestock or crop production.”

“Our government is taking action to phase out the production of Eurasian wild boar,” provincial Natural Resources Minister Greg Rickford said in a release Oct. 19.

“Preventing the spread of new invasive species such as wild pigs is another critical step to safeguard the swine industry from the ASF, and protect the broader health of our communities, economy and natural environment.”

“Farm escapes of Eurasian wild boar amplify the population of wild pigs, which have already caused widespread problems in Canada’s Prairie provinces and many American states,” the province said.

Apart from damage wild pigs are known to cause in crops and other settings, other countries’ experience has also shown wild pigs on the move pose a significant risk for potentially transmitting swine fever to commercial pork operations, the province added.

The province will now fund “detection and removal efforts” and also regulate wild pigs under the provincial Invasive Species Act.

Specifically, the province will ban the “import, possession, transport, propagation, lease, trade, buying and sale of Eurasian wild boar and their hybrids” effective Jan. 1, 2022.

To help the province’s wild boar farmers toward a “faster transition,” those who own wild boar as of Oct. 19 — and who agree to stop raising wild boar within six months — will be eligible for support.

Information on a transition program intake for wild boar producers is to be made available on the Agricorp website “in the coming weeks,” the province said.

Eligible farmers will get $200 per animal to “eliminate their herd while also transitioning to other forms of production.”

The province’s announcement also included plans for a new targeted funding intake starting Nov. 5 under the federal/provincial Canadian Agricultural Partnership for Ontario pork producers, processors and other agribusinesses.

That funding will go to support “training, education and planning” along with “supply and infrastructure investments and modifications needed to strengthen swine-related operations, support industry businesses, and protect the herds and livelihoods of Ontario pork producers.”

CAP funding will also be allocated under the Partnership for an education outreach and awareness campaign for “smallholder” farms — those that market fewer than 1,000 hogs or 50 sows per year.

That campaign will focus on “increasing small hog producers’ awareness of the risks of (swine fever) and the need for strong biosecurity and emergency preparedness measures.”

Once the CAP intake information is posted, applicants will be able to submit forms on a first-come, first-served basis until Dec. 3, and can apply for reimbursement of 50 per cent of costs, up to $40,000 per applicant.

“In the wake of growing concerns since African swine fever has been detected in the Caribbean, this funding will support new measures that protect the prosperity and resiliency of the entire sector,” federal Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau said in the province’s release. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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The suspected case concerned a wild boar carcass found near the German-Polish border. A sample of the carcass was being taken for tests at the Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut laboratory, the ministry said in a statement.

“As soon as the analysis is completed, Federal (Agriculture) Minister Julia Kloeckner will provide information about the results tomorrow,” the ministry added.

Germany had feared a spread of the disease after cases were confirmed in wild boars in west Poland in past months with one Polish case found only about 10 km from the German border.

Cases have also been recently confirmed in about 10 other European countries in wild boars which are suspected to be spreading the disease.

ASF is not dangerous to humans but fatal to pigs. Some countries impose import bans from regions where it has been discovered, in non-farm wild boars.

Millions of pigs have died or been culled due to the outbreak in China and other Asian countries. The disease has slashed China’s pig herd by half since 2018.

There have been fears in Germany that its major exports of pork to China and other Asian regions could be threatened if the disease arrives in the country.

Asian countries including China regularly impose import bans on pork from regions where ASF has been discovered, causing painful loss of business for meat exporters.

Germany exported some 158,000 tonnes of pork worth 424 million euros (C$658 million) to China between January and April 2020, double the tonnage in the same time in 2019, Germany’s national statistics office said.

Sales were ironically fuelled by China’s increased import demand because the disease has devastated pig herds.

— Writing for Reuters by Paul Carrel; additional reporting by Michael Hogan.

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Two presentations at the 2020 Banff Pork Seminar highlighted the threat posed by wild boars.

Ryan Brook, a University of Saskatchewan associate professor and wildlife researcher, told seminar attendees that wild pigs are an ecological disaster, the problem is exploding and time is quickly running out on the ability to eradicate the problem.

In addition, an international expert on African swine fever spoke of the key role that wild boars have played in this devastating epidemic.

Unrecognized problem

“More than 700 delegates came here to talk about managing pigs inside the fence,” Brook said in his address. “I’m the only one who came here to talk pigs outside the fence.”

The problem started in the ’80s when animals escaped from wild boar farms or were released into the wild as the economics of that industry faltered. Since then, they have bred with domestic pigs, resulting in larger animals (some weighing several hundred pounds) and larger litters.

In the wild, these animals travel in groups called ‘sounders’ run by a matriarch female with lone males travelling extensively in search of females.

Wild pigs are incredibly smart and elusive, and populations here are growing because they’re so successful in finding food, said Brook. There are many myths about wild pig control, he added, with one of the biggest being that populations can be controlled by sport hunting.

“We will not barbecue out this problem,” he said. “If anything, sport hunting increases the problem. Wild pigs scatter and more groups are formed as a result.”

Brook’s wild pig research efforts are funded in large part by the United States Department of Agriculture with support slowly growing from Canadian partners. But the problem is largely ignored here, he said.

“A year ago I thought African swine fever would have driven a whole new level of renewed interest in the wild pig problem,” said Brook.

But interest and support for control methods and research have not really increased, he said.

Role in African swine fever

African swine fever has made headlines around the world and controlling it will be extremely challenging — in part because of wild boar populations, said Klaus Depner, a virology expert from Germany’s Friedrich-Loeffler-Institute and a leading authority on the disease.

He detailed the history of African swine fever, which until a dozen years ago was considered a so-called exotic disease with minor impact. That changed when an epidemic started in Georgia in 2007, subsequently spread throughout the Caucasus and the Russian Federation, and then into the European Union in 2014. Four years later the first outbreaks were reported in Asia and it has since devastated China’s sow herd.

The strain in the current epidemic is highly virulent and can result in 90 per cent (or more) of an infected herd dying. However, it is not as highly contagious as first

thought and analyses of domestic pig outbreaks have found its contagiosity (degree of contagiousness) is rather low.

This complicates early disease detection because at the beginning of an outbreak usually only a few pigs are affected and die.

This is one factor in what Depner calls “the persistency triangle” — low contagiosity prevents fast and complete depletion of the host population, high case fatality makes the virus largely available in the form of carcasses, and high tenacity (the ability of the virus to survive over a long period) ensures its long-term persistence in the environment.

This has resulted in the disease becoming endemic in the wild boar populations of several European countries.

When African swine fever first reached the EU, it was expected to either spread rapidly within the wild boar population or fade out due to high case fatality rate and the resulting absence of long-term carriers. But none of these predictions held true. The infection survived locally in the wild boar population independently from outbreaks in domestic pigs.

It is now believed the virus persists for a long time in decaying carcasses of wild boars that succumb to the disease and may facilitate virus persistence for months within a region, significantly influencing the course of an epidemic. Even if the probability of infection for each contact is low, the long-lasting persistence will allow maintenance of virus circulation, Depner said.

Control program

Brook offered a checklist of what is needed to make progress on wild pig control.

One is leadership.

“There’s a real vacuum here and no one is saying, ‘Let’s go kill these pigs,’” he said. “It’s a big deal and nobody is getting on board.”

More research and monitoring is needed as well as disease testing.

He urged producers to be on the lookout for wild pigs on their land.

“Do some test cameras as a cheap and easy way to get started,” he said.

And if wild pigs are found, producers should not allow sport hunting as this will only scatter members of a sounder and exacerbate the problem. Instead, whole sounders need to be captured with all but one killed — that animal should have a tracking collar put on it and then be released so it can lead trackers to other sounders.

“It’s very effective,” said Brook, adding a comprehensive multi-pronged strategy is needed for effective control.

When asked what such a program would cost, he said it would be “bloody expensive.”

“Hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of dollars,” he said. “One thing is sure. Every year you wait it gets more expensive.”

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