Danish wildlife organizations have presented the idea that wild boar should be reintroduced in order to preserve nature and broaden national biodiversity. The Danish pig farmers fear that this would lead to the introduction of Classical Swine Fever (CSF), which would have enormous consequences in terms of loss of pork export. A risk assessment was conducted to address the additional risk of introducing and spreading CSF due to reintroduction of wild boar. The OIE guidelines were followed and all available data, as well as expert opinion were utilised. Geographical Information Systems (GIS), InterSpreadPlus, and a programme developed to model wild boar populations and disease transmission were used to model and visualise the differential CSF risk due to wild boar. An active risk communication strategy was put in place from the beginning of the project because reintroduction of wild boar is of interest to the public. Wild boar use the forest for hiding and reproduction and the surrounding fields for foraging. The habitat demand for one group of sows is around 4 km2 covered with minimum 25% forest or natural vegetation. In total, 9-10% of Denmark consists of suitable or semi-suitable wild boar habitat. This would allow wild boar to establish in several forests, and conflicts are expected between agriculture and wild boar in overlap areas (24% of all Danish pig herds are in these areas). Only a limited migration of wild boar from Germany would be expected, because the wild boar habitat in Southern Jutland is small. Based on information on magnitude and destination of tourism, the risk of exposure to Classical Swine Fever virus (CSFV) by wild boar through infected refuse left by tourists was found to be highest in Western and Northern Jutland compared to the rest of the country. Outbreaks of CSF within a hypothetical infected wild boar population would last from less than half a year up to one year, depending on the size of the infected wild boar population (the larger the population, the longer the epidemic) and the virulence of the virus (the more virulent virus, the shorter the epidemic). According to the simulations, CSFV would only be transmitted from the domestic population to wild boar if an infected domestic pig herd were located close to an area with wild boar (<5 km). Transmission from wild boar to domestic pigs did not occur in one third of the simulations, whereas in 10% of simulations periodic transmission occurred leading to two or three epidemics. The consequence assessment showed that, on average, the costs related to an epidemic of CSF was only 13% higher if wild boar were present than if not present. However, Denmark has not had CSF since 1933, indicating a low base-line probability of introduction, and the presence of wild boar will increase this probability slightly.
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