Farmscape for September 6, 2022
The Veterinary Counselor with the Canadian Pork Council says it's important to maintain the momentum as efforts to eradicate wild pig populations continue.
The damage done and the risks posed by feral pigs were among the issues discussed during the Transboundary Feral Swine Summit held in July as part of the Pacific NorthWest Economic Region Summit in Calgary.
Dr. Egan Brockhoff, the Veterinary Counselor for the Canadian Pork Council and a member of the Swine Innovation Porc Coordinated African Swine Fever Research Working Group, says the desire eradicate these animals is largely driven by the fact that they are a potential reservoir for foreign animal disease introduction and, once infected, it would be extremely difficult to get the disease situation under control.
Clip-Dr. Egan Brockhoff-Canadian Pork Council:
Communication is going to be one of the absolute critical spaces, so helping the public understand the importance of removing this invasive population.
I think its critical that we continue our efforts to trap and remove, to identify pockets where wild pigs have started to habituate and aggressively work toward removing those populations, continuing our surveillance efforts.
Surveillance to ensure that these populations don't pose a disease risk but also surveillance just to understand where they are and what sort of population numbers we are dealing with.
We can't lose sight of that.
If we lose sight of all these efforts, if we lose the momentum, the problem will just grow up again.
For me, one of the key things is to maintain this momentum, help land owners understand the critical importance and move forward with these control and eradication steps.
Dr. Brockhoff says, in the face of disease, we could see border closures and disruptions to trade and the economic impact would be huge.
For more visit Farmscape.Ca.
Bruce Cochrane.
*Farmscape is produced on behalf of North America’s pork producers