BARCELONA/MADRID, Dec 3 (Reuters) – Spain’s Catalonia region has pledged to curb its wild boar population, including by ramping up culls, after African swine was detected in several animals outside Barcelona in the country’s first outbreak since 1994.
That has threatened pork exports from Spain, the European Union’s leading producer of the meat, which accounts for a quarter of the bloc’s output with annual exports worth about 3.5 billion euros ($4.05 billion).
The outbreak was first detected last week in two wild boars in the Collserola mountain range outside Barcelona, and seven more boars in the same area have since been confirmed to have died from the disease.
Spanish officials have said they expect more positive cases.
Although harmless to humans, the virus spreads rapidly among pigs and wild boar. So far, no farms have been affected.
Catalan regional leader Salvador Illa said local authorities had been working for some time to reduce the wild boar population due to its threat to public health, but that the recent outbreak has shown the need to accelerate the effort.
“There are too many wild boars,” Illa told reporters late on Tuesday from Mexico, where he is on an official visit.
“We have activated and intensified this task, contacting all hunting associations and looking at technically acceptable and proven methods to do so.”
BOAR OVERPOPULATION
Farm association COAG said on Wednesday Spain’s wild boar population has grown by 550% in 30 years due to a lack of effective control measures.
There are about 1,000 wild boars in the Collserola mountain range, with 9.2 boars per square km, down from 17.4 in 2021-22 when the population soared following the COVID-19 pandemic, according to data compiled by Catalan public TV.
That reduction was achieved in part through culls, along with other measures.
Officials suspect the virus may have spread after a wild boar ate contaminated food, possibly a sandwich brought from outside Spain by a truck driver who may have stopped at a gas station near the outbreak’s area.
“We have the most biosecure farms in Europe … but we are paying the price for a wild boar that ate a sandwich,” COAG official Jaume Bernis said.
The Spanish government has said it has intensified efforts to maintain international buyers’ confidence, working to secure export certificates following the outbreak.
While China and Britain have agreed to continue allowing pork exports from unaffected regions, Spain is still negotiating similar terms with Canada.
Agriculture Minister Luis Planas told reporters on Tuesday he would fight “certificate by certificate, country by country” to get exports resumed.
(Reporting by Joan Faus and Emma Pinedo; Editing by Aislinn Laing and Jan Harvey)
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