Since this weekend, nine carcass detection dogs have been trained to counter a possible spread of African swine fever (ASF) in Austria. The training is provided by the Vienna Police and the Lower Austrian Provincial Hunting Association.
The acquired knowledge must then be passed on by dog handlers. The dogs first go through the dog course of the police in Vienna, where they learn the necessary techniques for locating wild boar carcasses. “The differences between police dogs and hunting dogs are not great,” says the commander of the Viennese police dog unit, Rudolf König.
“Searching with hunting dogs has the advantage that they can search an area much faster than a human chain and they cause less disturbance in the forest,” added Lower Austrian state hunting master Josef Proell. The veterinary department of the state of Lower Austria bears the costs for the training of the future carcass detection dogs, the ministry and the hunting association bear the other costs incurred.
No case yet in Austria
“The sooner an outbreak is detected, the sooner it can be contained,” members of the hunting association are convinced. They called on the population to report any dead wild boar to the authorities. So far there has been no case of African swine fever in Austria. According to Proell, the disease is currently spreading from the east – through Russia, the Czech Republic and Hungary – into Europe. Lower Austria is expected to be the first state where cases can be expected.
“The ASP poses a huge risk to domestic agriculture,” said Interior Minister Gerhard Karner (ÖVP). While AVP is harmless to dogs and humans, it is fatal in pigs between three and five days after the onset of symptoms. “It can be transmitted by sniffing and eating dead carcasses,” said Lower Austria’s state veterinarian Christina Riedl. ASF is also transmitted through food. However, the virus can be killed by very high temperatures for a few minutes.
The first dogs must be trained in the fall. In the long term, an expansion of the project to the whole of Austria is planned, according to the ministry.
Source: Krone
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