Swine fever: How Bavaria is spared from the virus thanks to extensive precautionary measures – Bavaria

It sounds downright martial: Bavaria wants to defend itself against the advance of African swine fever with a “Frankenwall”. The dangerous animal disease has now spread to the neighboring state of Hesse and has moved within a few kilometers of the border of the Free State. The virus is harmless to humans because it only affects domestic and wild pigs. But African swine fever causes severe economic damage in agriculture – not to mention the suffering of the sick animals.

In Italy alone, 60,000 pigs have already had to be slaughtered. Because the export markets for Parma ham are collapsing there, farmers fear losses running into billions. The EU recently criticized the inadequate disease management in Italy. The Bavarian authorities do not want to expose themselves to this accusation. The defensive measures taken in this country are correspondingly complex. Animal disease expert Ulrich Wehr from the Bavarian Ministry of the Environment presented it to the state parliament’s environmental committee on Thursday.

A visible part of the strategy is the Franconian Wall, which consists, among other things, of several staggered game fences on the Bavarian and Hesse sides. They run in a north-south direction and are intended to make it more difficult for wild boars to spread eastwards. So far this has apparently worked well, as not a single case of African swine fever has been registered in Bavaria.

Setting up and monitoring the hundreds of kilometers of fences along federal roads and motorways is, of course, an expensive matter that also causes debate. Recently, members of the FW state parliament demanded from their party friend and Environment Minister Thorsten Glauber that permanent fences like those in Hesse should also be erected in Bavaria instead of mobile electric fences. According to Wehr, the 60 kilometer long electric fences are only a first step; if necessary, permanent fences could also be set up.

Bavaria has created the densest surveillance network in all of Europe

In districts on the border with Hesse, an extended examination requirement also applies: all wild boars that have been hunted may only be released after a negative test for African swine fever; the same applies to domestic pigs that have died or were emergency slaughtered. For hunters, the allowance for expenses in the region was increased from 70 to 100 euros per wild boar killed. According to the Wehr, Bavaria has created the densest surveillance network in all of Europe: In the border districts, 3,705 healthy wild boars had already been tested for the virus by October 1st in 2024, plus 108 wild boars – i.e. animals that were found dead or run over . Fallen game is searched for using drones and specially trained cadaver dogs.

Another barrier against African swine fever is the already existing wildlife fences along the highways. Together they divide Bavaria into 25 compartments, so to speak into huge enclosures – in which, in the worst case, all the wild boars could be shot.

If swine fever does spread to Bavaria at some point, according to Wehr, 1,600 kilometers of fencing material, night sighting devices, collection bins for carcasses and much more are available in the central animal disease warehouse at the State Office for Health and Food Safety (LGL). In this case, complicated trade restrictions under EU law would come into force for farmers.

The members of the Environment Committee across party lines were satisfied with the Bavarian measures – even if animal disease expert Wehr could not give them any hope that the epidemic would end soon. “Fighting it is a marathon task,” he summed up.

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