A questionnaire survey for the assessment of wild - domestic pig interactions in a context oedema disease outbreaks among wild boars ( Sus scrofa ) in South-Eastern France.

Abstract

Pig outdoor farming is gaining popularity and commercial success in the EU and its expansion, together with an increasingly abundance of wild boar populations facilitates interactions between domestic and wild suids. In the Southern French Department of Ardèche, several episodes of mass mortalities due to infection with an enteropathogenic strain of Escherichia coli, causing oedema disease (OD) were reported in wild boar populations between 2013 and 2016. In order to investigate a potential link between those events and the frequency of interactions between wild boar and domestic pigs, we analysed regional vegetation and hunting bag data and implemented a semi-structured questionnaire survey among a total of 30 outdoor pig farmers and 30 hunters distributed inside and outside the identified area of OD emergence. One third of interviewed farmers (11/30) had experienced intrusions of wild boars in domestic pig premises during the previous year. Similarly, 23% of interviewed hunters reported interactions between wild boar and feral free ranging pigs in recent years and 60% reported the observation of free ranging pigs with a phenotypic feature of Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs (55%). Our analysis identified that the OD emergence area gathered several factors that could facilitate interactions between wild and domestic suids including a predominance of forested vegetation, a higher estimated wild boar density, weaker levels of farm biosecurity and a higher level of reported intrusions or interactions with wild boar in pig farms. Despite our sample was limited, our study suggests that the occurrence and dissemination of wild domestic suid interactions in this region might be higher than expected and sufficient to facilitate the circulation of shared pathogens between wild and domestic suids. Similar studies in this and other rural regions in the EU are recommended, in order to identify risk areas and anticipate preparedness for the emergence and circulation of shared swine pathogens.