Wednesday, July 31, 2019

Boars at large

Boars seem to be becoming a problem in some European cities.
The following night, in Nou Barris, another part of the city, the trap was set up again – this time in a grassy clearing a few metres from a bus stop. Down the road was an asphalt football pitch, high-rise apartment buildings and a school. The team caught and killed eight more – seven females and one large aggressive male.

Apparently disease goes both ways--humans may be spreading African swine fever, and of course the pigs have plenty of diseases to spread to humans.

One tested positive for salmonella. Three carried rickettsia-infected ticks, a pathogen that can move from animal to human. Fourteen had campylobacter, which the World Health Organization calls a top cause for diarrhoeal diseases in humans, and “the most common bacterial cause of human gastroenteritis in the world”. Seventeen tested positive for the antibodies against the hepatitis E virus, with six showing signs of ongoing infection.

We have wild boars in this country too, of course.

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