Exactly 32 wild boar carcasses, seven of which were infected with African swine fever (ASF). This is the result almost two weeks after the first infected animal was found near the Opel racetrack near Rüsselsheim. Meanwhile, the search in the approximately 7,300 hectare protection zone continues unabated. There remains hope that the infection can be limited to this area. Every morning at 8 a.m., hunters, official veterinarians, aid organizations and dog handlers meet in the Groß-Gerau district office for a situation discussion. There, the area to be searched that day is determined before up to 40 men and women swarm out with their specially trained dogs. Along the Kühkopf they come across swarms of gnats, because the mosquitoes have multiplied en masse due to the wet spring and rainy summer. In bushy forest areas you can sometimes only move forward on all fours. The current heat is causing problems for both the search dogs and the dog handlers; they need more breaks. The search dogs usually do not find complete wild boars, but only carcass remains, as the animals have usually been lying dead in the forest for up to three months. Official veterinarian Katrin Stein therefore assumes that African swine fever has been rampant around Rüsselsheim for months. Hope of getting the animal disease under control That the seven wild boars that have so far been identified as infected are all within a radius of almost two kilometers around the Opel racetrack were found gives hope, as Hesse’s Agriculture Minister Ingmar Jung (CDU) emphasized to the press on Thursday morning in Groß-Gerau. Together with Groß-Gerau District Administrator Thomas Will (SPD), he was in the forest with a team of helpers to get an idea of the current situation. If the source of infection remains limited to a narrow area, there is good hope of getting the animal disease under control. The search is not only carried out with specially trained dogs, but also with drones equipped with thermal imaging cameras. Amelie Kurfess, a hunter by profession, came with her dog Bascha from the Ludwigsburg district to the Groß-Gerau district to help. “She lives for the search,” she says of her four-legged friend. The dog sits down and barks when she finds remains of the carcass. Each dog handler has a helper at their side who transmits the current location to the headquarters via GPS. If an animal carcass is found, a large area is cordoned off until a rescue team comes into the forest and picks up the remains, which are then taken to one of the two collection points at the sewage treatment plant between Rüsselsheim and Raunheim and near Büttelborn and examined. Tissue samples are then sent to the state laboratory in Giessen. Around 24 hours later it was clear whether the find was infected or not. 15 kilometer long fence erected “We are worried.” The Minister of Agriculture can be quoted with these words, but he adds a little optimism, because of the two A 60 motorways and A 67 as well as the Rhine, there is a natural barrier that prevents possibly infected animals from migrating from the narrow protected area to other areas and further spreading the disease. In the south of the Groß-Gerau district, in areas without a motorway, a 15 kilometer long fence was built, which is now gradually being expanded along the motorways. This is intended to prevent an animal from running across the highway into the neighboring area. Official veterinarian Stein knows from relevant investigations that the current infection was imported from Bulgaria or Romania. Presumably from a discarded bread eaten by a wild sow and topped with sausage from an infected pig. This type of disease transmission is called “jump infection” in technical language; Fortunately, African swine fever is not dangerous for humans. The intensive search for further animal carcasses will continue in the next few weeks. An expensive affair for the Groß-Gerau district. Official veterinarian Stein and District Administrator Will are now assuming that the amount they have to record in the district budget is in the double-digit million range. Not only the construction of the fence, but also the costs for disinfection materials, the collection points, special protective clothing, vehicles and personnel are taken into account here. Using a company for drone flights alone costs around 5,000 euros a day. In addition to these costs, there could also be compensation payments for crop losses if farmers are unable to harvest their grain because the fields are closed. In the Groß-Gerau district it is considered unlikely that the state of Hesse will contribute to the costs.More on the subjectAccording to the Hessian Ministry of Agriculture, African swine fever can be transmitted directly from animal to animal. The virus can also be passed on through contaminated material such as agricultural equipment, animal feed, food waste, clothing or hunting utensils. Untreated meat and untreated meat products from infected animals are particularly contagious for other pigs. Healthy pigs can also become infected from the carcasses of dead pigs. The ministry therefore appeals to the population to only throw leftover food into closed garbage containers. “Infected meat or sausage is harmless to humans, but food leftovers thrown away, for example on motorways or country roads, are eaten by wild boars and can mean the spread of the disease,” it says on the authority’s website.
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