Biosecurity

Why We're Seeing More Bird Flu Infections Earlier

Tue, 18 Nov 2025 16:21:56 GMT

According to the USDA-APHIS dashboard , there have been 36 commercial flocks of poultry infected with highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in the past 30 days. Including backyard flocks, it totals more than 1.8 million birds.

Rebecca Eifert Joniskan, president of the Indiana State Poultry Association, says the disease has arrived earlier than “usual” as wild birds spread the virus with their seasonal migration patterns.

“We typically don’t see avian influenza until January or February,” she says. “This year we started October 9.”

Matt Makens of Makens Weather says weather patterns play a role in bird movement, and therefore virus transmission.

“In winters like this. our temperatures will be very volatile. There’ll be swings of very, very warm days. And then very, very cold days. And I think there is a connection to bird flu spread in those warmer periods,” he says.

Indiana is a poultry powerhouse for commercial production, ranking No. 1 in duck (60% of the U.S. duck produced), No. 3 in eggs, No. 4 in turkey, and a large-scale epicenter for broiler production as well.

While HPAI has been a renewed biosecurity concern for poultry since Feb. 2022, the infection has set into a seasonal pattern—creating some predictability. However, the early onset of birds being infected this fall has Joniskan and industry members concerned a long and difficult season is ahead.

“Typically, it fades over the summer. The virus burns itself out with birds in the Arctic,” she says. “That hasn’t been happening. The virus isn’t following the rules. It’s back, and it’s early.”

The first infections in Indiana were in northern countries and affected ducks and free-range egg layers. Currently, Indiana has the most reports of HPAI infection in commercial and backyard flocks for the past 30 days.

States reporting recent infections in commercial flocks are: California, Georgia, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota.
The past decade has brought an increased focus on biosecurity and disease prevention.

“When we had avian influenza in 2015 and 2016, there were a lot of learnings on how to reduce the risk of introduction of the virus on your farm,” she explains. “There were changes put in place, including annual biosecurity reviews.”

She says poultry producers in Indiana have taken the virus risk seriously and are actively preventing its introduction while also being ready to respond to it.

“Our companies across the state have taken the learning from ‘15/’16 and what we’ve learned since 2022, and they’ve doubled down to try to reduce any opportunity for introduction wherever they can. It’s difficult, but it’s less expensive and trying than the dealing with an infection,” she says.

Once a flock is infected, the birds don’t recover from the virus, and depopulation is the end result.

Chinese Scientist Accused Of Smuggling ‘Potential Agroterrorism Weapon’ Into the U.S.

Wed, 04 Jun 2025 21:22:46 GMT

Two Chinese nationals have been charged with trying to smuggle a fungus, Fusarium graminearum, into the United States.

Yunqing Jian, 33, and Zunyong Liu, 34, citizens of the People’s Republic of China, were charged in a criminal complaint with conspiracy, smuggling goods into the U.S., false statements and visa fraud.

The charges against the pair were unsealed in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Michigan, on Tuesday.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office references Fusarium graminearum online as a “dangerous biological pathogen … which scientific literature classifies as a potential agroterrorism weapon.”

Fusarium graminearum causes significant diseases in a number of U.S.-grown food crops, including corn, wheat, barley, soybeans and rice.

Diseases caused include Fusarium head blight (scab) in wheat, and two corn diseases Gibberella ear rot and Gibberella stalk rot , which can lower yield and feed quality of silage corn, according to the Crop Protection Network, a partnership of land grant universities.

Toxins the fungus produces can cause vomiting, liver damage, reproductive defects and mycotoxin-induced immunosuppression in humans and livestock, including cattle, hogs, horses and poultry.

One Scientist Arrested, One Returned To China
The 25-page criminal complaint alleges Liu tried to smuggle the fungus through the Detroit Metropolitan Airport (DMA) in July 2024, so he could study it at a University of Michigan laboratory where his girlfriend, Yunqing Jian, worked at the time.

Jian had been living in the U.S. and working at the university laboratory since 2022.

The roots of the case involving Yunqing Jian, 33, and her boyfriend, Zunyong Liu, 34, stretch back to March 2024. That is when Liu applied for a B2 tourist visa to enter the U.S.

(The Detroit News and Sanilac County Jail)

According to the criminal complaint, Jian and Liu had both previously conducted work on the fungus in China.

Officials further allege Jian received funding from the Chinese government for her research on the pathogen in China. They also claim she is a member of the Chinese Communist Party.

Jian, who was arrested by the FBI, remains in federal custody. On Thursday, her detention hearing was adjourned until 1 p.m. June 13 to allow time for a new defense attorney to get up to speed.

Liu was sent back to China last year after changing his story during an interrogation at the Detroit airport about red plant material discovered in a wad of tissues in his backpack, the FBI says.

The U.S. does not have an extradition treaty with China, which makes Liu’s arrest unlikely unless he returns.

In a statement released on June 3, the University of Michigan said it condemns “any actions that seek to cause harm, threaten national security or undermine the university’s critical public mission.”

“It is important to note that the university has received no funding from the Chinese government in relation to research conducted by the accused individuals,” the university added. “We have and will continue to cooperate with federal law enforcement in its ongoing investigation and prosecution.”

In a statement released on June 3, the University of Michigan said it condemns “any actions that seek to cause harm, threaten national security or undermine the university’s critical public mission.”

(Michigan News Source)

Boyfriend Spills Intentions To Investigators
An article in The Detroit News said Liu told investigators during an interrogation at the Detroit airport he planned to clone the different strains and make additional samples if the experiments on the reddish plant material failed, according to the government.

“Liu stated that he intentionally hid the samples in his backpack because he knew there were restrictions on the importation of the materials,” an FBI agent wrote. “Liu confirmed that he had intentionally put the samples in a wad of tissues so CBP officers would be less likely to find and confiscate them, and he could continue his research in the United States.”

Liu told investigators he planned on using UM’s Molecular Plant-Microbe Interaction Laboratory to research the biological materials, the FBI agent wrote.

“Liu stated that, while he was in the United States, he would have free access to the laboratory at the University of Michigan on some days, and that other days his girlfriend would give him access to the laboratory to conduct his research,” The Detroit News article reported.

Before preventing Liu from entering the U.S. and sending him back to China, the investigators found messages between the couple that indicate Jian previously smuggled biological material into the U.S., the FBI agent wrote.

The messages are from August 2022 and discuss smuggling seeds into the U.S.

Lawmakers Respond To The Criminal Complaint
Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement that the Justice Department “has no higher mission than keeping the American people safe and protecting our nation from hostile foreign actors who would do us harm.”

“Thanks to the hard work of our excellent DOJ attorneys, this defendant — who clandestinely attempted to bring a destructive substance into the United States — will face years behind bars,” the attorney general says.

“I can confirm that the FBI arrested a Chinese national within the United States who allegedly smuggled a dangerous biological pathogen into the country,” FBI Director Kash Patel said on Tuesday.

(FBI)

FBI Director Kash Patel addressed the arrest of Jian late Tuesday on X, formerly Twitter.

“This case is a sobering reminder that the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) is working around the clock to deploy operatives and researchers to infiltrate American institutions and target our food supply, which would have grave consequences … putting American lives and our economy at serious risk.”

U.S. Custom and Border Protection, Director of Field Operations Marty C. Raybon says the criminal charges against Jian and Liu are indicative of CBP’s critical role in protecting the American people from biological threats that could devastate its agricultural economy and cause harm to humans.

“This was a complex investigation involving CBP offices from across the country, alongside our federal partners,” says Raybon in a prepared statement. “I’m grateful for their tireless efforts, ensuring our borders remain secure from all types of threats while safeguarding America’s national security interests.”

Your next read: Surveillance State: Game Wardens Sued for Secret Private Land Intrusions in Alabama

What Do Foot-and-Mouth Disease Outbreaks in Europe Mean for the U.S.?

Mon, 31 Mar 2025 13:19:03 GMT

Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is rearing its ugly head in Europe. After an outbreak in water buffalo in Germany in January, an outbreak in cattle in Hungary in early March and an outbreak in cattle in Slovakia last week, why now? What is the U.S. doing to keep this foreign animal disease out and protect the country’s livestock industry?

“FMD is caused by a virus that affects cloven-hoofed animals so that can include cattle, pigs, sheep and goats,” explains Megan Niederwerder, DVM, who serves as the executive director of the Swine Health Information Center (SHIC). “It does not affect humans and is not a threat to food safety, but it has significant trade implications once it is introduced into a country.”

FMD has been fairly quiet in these European countries – with no cases reported for decades. Other parts of Europe have seen outbreaks more recently like the 2001 outbreak in the United Kingdom that caused a crisis in British agriculture and tourism and resulted in the cancellation of the World Pork Expo held in Des Moines, Iowa.

“FMD really decimated the United Kingdom,” says Barb Determan who was serving as president of the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) at the time. “It became very apparent that we couldn’t guarantee the safety for our U.S. pig herd because of the high numbers of international travelers that would be at the show. We had to cancel World Pork Expo out of an abundance of precaution.”

Although there is still a lot to be discovered about how FMD was introduced into these populations, it’s a significant warning to the U.S. to be on alert.

(Lori Hays)

That was the first time, but not the only time World Pork Expo was canceled. The event was also canceled in 2019 because of the African swine fever outbreak in China and again in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“That was a hard financial decision,” Determan says. “We had just completed the separation agreement between NPPC and the National Pork Board. NPPC was very tightly budgeted at that time, so it was a huge hit.”

However, keeping the U.S. pig herd safe was the most important thing on everyone’s mind. She says they made their decision after hearing reports from veterinarians who had been to England to better understand the extensiveness as well as from the USDA that had sent veterinarians over to help.

“At that time, we didn’t have near the biosecurity practices and things that we do now with the disinfectant foot mats,” Determan says. “We also don’t have live pigs on the on the grounds now compared to how we did things many years ago. We used to have live pigs everywhere on the fairgrounds in the early 2000s from genetics companies with pigs in their displays to the pigs in the live shows.”

The Truth About FMD
The clinical signs of FMD are similar to what the name implies. It can cause vesicles or blisters on the feet, mouth and tongue of animals that are infected. The U.S. has not had a case of FMD since 1929.

“We certainly want to keep it that way, as the economic implications for producers are significant if the virus is introduced,” Niederwerder says.

Compared to many viruses, FMD is a highly stable, non-enveloped virus that allows it to be infectious for longer periods. It’s very contagious and highly transmissible. Not only are there risks with transmission of the virus through infected meat products that may come in through illegal trade, but it can also be carried on contaminated clothes or equipment or supplies of humans.

“The human would not be infected, but certainly people can carry the virus on contaminated clothing,” Niederwerder says. “That’s why it’s really important as we think about prevention of entry into the U.S.”

FMD causes fever and pain. It results in excessive salivation and causes reduced milk production in dairy cattle.

“When you think about the impact, certainly there’s an impact on animal health with regards to the clinical signs, but even further is this impact on trade restrictions and the economic losses for producers,” Niederwerder says. “When you try and contain the virus, that oftentimes results in those infected animals being culled or euthanized so the disease no longer has the chance to spread.”

Why Should the U.S. Pay Attention?
When a virus moves into a new geographical range or is reintroduced into a country that has maintained a negative status for a long period, Niederwerder says it’s critical to reassess the risk to the U.S.

“In January, Germany reported their first case in over 30 years in water buffalo near Berlin,” she explains. “It was 14 animals, and those animals were all culled after the infection was confirmed but certainly trade restrictions and implications on surrounding areas of that Berlin farm were significant.”

Fast forward to March when two additional countries have reported cases. Hungary reported FMD in a single farm of cattle in the north part of the country for the first time in over 50 years. Shortly thereafter, the virus appeared in Slovakia (who also hadn’t seen a case in over 50 years) in multiple herds of cattle.

“Just recently, another herd was a suspect herd in Slovakia, near the southern border near Hungary,” Niederwerder says. “This is certainly concerning about how this virus is being reintroduced. Is it associated with contaminated fomites that may be in the country or traveling to new locations? Is it associated with wild boar? Could it be associated with infected hay?”

Although there is still a lot to be discovered about how FMD was introduced into these populations, it’s a significant warning to the U.S. to be on alert .

“We need to do everything we can to make sure it doesn’t get reintroduced into the U.S.,” Niederwerder says. “How can we amp up any biosecurity measures that are necessary to reduce our risk? We also need to think about reducing the risk of introduction into our country through travel and illegal trade.”

Be on Alert
Livestock operations should reevaluate biosecurity protocols. If any of your farm’s employees travel to areas where there are infected animals, implement a quarantine period for entry back into your U.S. farm, she advises.

“Be vigilant,” Niederwerder urges. “One of the challenges of FMD is that it does cause these characteristic lesions of vesicles or blisters on the mouth, nose or the hoof. What becomes very tricky is that those clinical signs are indistinguishable from other vesicular diseases such as Senecavirus A. If producers and veterinarians see these lesions, they must report it immediately so it can be investigated and confirmed that it is not FMD virus.”

FMD is not just a disease of pigs and cattle, she points out. Sheep, goats and cloven-hoofed zoo animals may also be impacted by FMD. This increases the breadth of what the industry needs to monitor.

“The world is very small now,” Niederwerder says. “Not only do people travel more internationally, but animals move around more than ever, too. It’s extremely important for those of us that are producers to keep our eyes open and pay attention to what’s going on worldwide so we can be as prepared as possible for any change in disease risk.”

That’s one of the ways that SHIC is trying to help producers. SHIC provides timely domestic and global disease updates to producers.

“Watching the SHIC global disease report is really important for producers,” Determan says. “It comes out every month and really gives you a feel for what’s happening in the entire world from a swine health standpoint. The biggest lesson we learned from the 2001 FMD outbreak is that looking farther out than just our own farm gate is so important.”

Keep Reading:
An Update on Foot-and-Mouth Disease Virus Serotype O in Germany

Hungary Confirms Foot-and-Mouth Disease Outbreak in Cattle

Slovakia Records First Foot-and-Mouth Cases, Minister Says

Trump Administration Announces $1 Billion to Combat Avian Flu and Soaring Egg Prices

Wed, 26 Feb 2025 16:48:58 GMT

The Trump administration is investing up to $1 billion in new funding to combat impacts of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) and soaring egg prices.

USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins in the Wall Street Journal said, “There’s no silver bullet to eradicating avian flu.” She laid out a five-point plan to address the situation.

Dedicate up to $500 million to helping U.S. poultry producers implement “gold-standard” biosecurity measures. USDA has developed a successful pilot program, called Wildlife Biosecurity Assessments, to identify and implement more safety measures. USDA will pay up to 75% of the cost to address any identified biosecurity vulnerabilities at poultry farms.
Make up to $400 million of increased financial relief available to farmers whose flocks are affected by avian flu, and we will assist them in receiving faster approval to begin safe operations again after an outbreak.
USDA is exploring the use of vaccines and therapeutics for laying chickens. While vaccines aren’t a stand-alone solution, we will provide up to $100 million in research and development of vaccines and therapeutics, to improve their efficacy and efficiency. This should help reduce the need to “depopulate” flocks, which means killing chickens on a farm where there’s an outbreak. Note: USDA hasn’t yet authorized the use of a vaccine. Before making a determination, USDA will consult state leaders, poultry and dairy farmers, and public-health professionals. The agency will also work with trading partners to minimize potential negative trade effects for U.S. producers and to assess public-health concerns.
USDA will take other actions to lower the price of eggs. For starters, it will remove unnecessary regulatory burdens on egg producers where possible. This will include examining the best way to protect farmers from overly prescriptive state laws, such as California’s Proposition 12, which established minimum space requirements for egg-laying hens.
USDA will consider temporary import options to reduce egg costs in the short term. We will proceed with imports only if the eggs meet stringent U.S. safety standards and if we determine that doing so won’t jeopardize American farmers’ access to markets in the future.

Senate Ag Committee Chair John Boozman (R-Ark.) said, “Producers and consumers alike have experienced the economic burden of this outbreak since 2022. I applaud Secretary Rollins and the Trump administration for prioritizing a strategy to combat this evolving threat. I look forward to working with USDA to ensure all poultry and livestock producers’ unique challenges are taken into consideration and they have the tools they need to address animal disease risks.”

In the Wall Street Journal Op-Ed , Rollins said some of the money will come from cuts to USDA spending by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

“Egg prices are skyrocketing, and it isn’t simply a matter of inflation. Grocery prices rose by more than 20% on President Biden’s watch, but the average price of a dozen eggs went up 237%, from $1.47 in January 2021 to $4.95 last month,” Rollins said wrote in the Wall Street Journal. “This matters for American families because eggs are a healthy, accessible and generally affordable source of protein.”

By the Numbers: Soaring Egg Prices
USDA upped its 2025 egg price forecast to a 41.1% increase (range of up 15.0% to 74.9%), more than double the 20.3% rise they forecast in January. USDA started their 2025 egg price forecast in July 2024 looking for them to decline 7.6% versus 2024

“Retail egg prices increased by 13.8% in January 2025 after rising by 8.4% in December 2024,” USDA detailed. “Retail egg prices continue to experience volatile month-to-month changes due to an outbreak of HPAI that began in 2022. HPAI contributes to elevated egg prices by reducing egg-layer flocks and egg production. About 18.8 million commercial egg layers were affected by HPAI in January 2025, the highest monthly total since the outbreak began in 2022.”

Egg prices in January were 53% higher than January 2024 and “surpassed the previous peak prices in January 2023,” USDA detailed.

I just left a message for Chris Kempczinski, CEO of McDonalds USA, thanking him for the choice to not add surcharge to eggs. THANK YOU @McDonalds!!!

(note the egg mcmuffin🥰🍳) https://t.co/UhBUJicTje pic.twitter.com/kRu6DXYutg
— Secretary Brooke Rollins (@SecRollins) February 26, 2025

Avian Flu a Top Priority for Rollins
On Monday, Rollins met with poultry farmers and industry leaders in Texas to address the ongoing avian flu crisis. She toured a Cal-Maine Foods facility in Bogata before hosting a roundtable in Mount Pleasant, where discussions focused on outbreak response and mitigation strategies. Rollins criticized the Biden administration’s handling of the issue, emphasizing the Trump administration’s commitment to supporting farmers and stabilizing egg prices.

“Clearly, this is a massive issue for our poultry producers, especially our egg layers,” Rollins told AgriTalk’s Chip Flory, in an exclusive interview, during Top Producer Summit. “Ensuring that we have a plan, not just for the short-term to bring down egg prices, which the president is very focused on, but for the long-term. What are the best practices around the world? Why in America have we been hit so hard? Why did the last USDA, a couple of years ago, recognize it as a major issue, but not many steps were taken.”

Just hours after being confirmed, Rollins’ first official meeting at the White House was on avian flu. She told Flory it’s her top priority right now, and she’s gathered a team from within USDA and the White House to focus on the issue.

“I’ve been talking to governors. I’ve been talking to the companies that are facing this. I’ve been talking to grocery. I mean, we’ve been talking to everyone, trying to come up with a big toolkit to be able to really approach this and hopefully figure out a way to, again, solve it for the long-term,” Rollins said.

Flory followed up by asking Rollins if vaccines will be one of the tools used by USDA.

“Vaccines are being discussed right now. I think that there is a lot of opinion on that on both sides. And we’re working through all of that right now,” Rollins told Flory.

The big announcement released on Wednesday did not include any plans to approve vaccines to combat the disease.

Your Next Read:
As the Trump Administration Shifts Strategy on Avian Flu, it’s a Complicated Issue in Need of a Long-Term Solution

New Pig Study Could Improve Human Vaccine Development

Thu, 19 Dec 2024 20:39:16 GMT

A new study using pigs shows that inhaled vaccines could potentially reduce viral transmission and improve vaccine efficiency, The Pirbright Institute reports.

“This is an important step toward human research,” Pirbright said in a release. “Interest in administering vaccines mucosally, rather than by intramuscular injections, has been growing since the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic was declared in 2020.”

Scientists from The Pirbright Institute and the University of Oxford used pigs as a model to explore immune system responses to mucosally-administered flu vaccines, which target viruses at the point of entry.

“Comprehensive measurement of immune responses in human lungs is not possible,” the researchers explain in a release.

To overcome this challenge, the researchers used pigs—whose respiratory tract is anatomically and functionally similar to that of humans—as a model to define key immune responses. Samples collected from both the lungs and blood of vaccinated pigs, aided by mathematical modelling, showed that lung responses can be predicted from blood tests, making it easier to assess vaccine effectiveness in humans, the release said.

“To bring future vaccines to market, it is critical to define the correlates of protection—markers that can reliably predict the effectiveness of the vaccine, in humans,” Dr. Simon Gubbins, Head of Transmission Biology at The Pirbright Institute, said in a release. “Our study explored potential assays, sampling times and sample types (such as blood and lung samples) which could define correlates of protection in humans.”

The findings of this study, published in Frontiers in Immunology have far-reaching implications for the future development of mucosally-administered vaccines in clinical trials, Pirbright said. The pig model’s ability to closely mimic human immune responses to respiratory infections make it an ideal platform for testing vaccine efficacy.

“The research found that immune responses in the blood could reliably reflect those in the lungs, thus offering a practical way to assess the effectiveness of vaccines targeting the respiratory system,” Professor Dame Sarah Gilbert, Saïd Professor of Vaccinology, Pandemic Sciences Institute at the University of Oxford, said in a release. “The findings provide critical insights into how immune responses can be measured from easily accessible blood samples and are a foundation for future testing of mucosally administered vaccines in clinical trials.”

Pirbright said this research defining effective biomarkers for mucosal vaccine efficacy and identifying the best ways to monitor and measure immune protection lays the foundation for next generation vaccines. These vaccines could someday offer improved protection against respiratory viruses and benefit public health worldwide.

Your Next Read: The Future of Swine Health: Insights and Preparations for 2025

The Pork Industry Responds to EPA’s Rodenticide Strategy

Fri, 06 Dec 2024 18:03:43 GMT

Many people in agriculture fear rodenticides will become even more difficult to access and more expensive to use after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s release of the final biological evaluation, and associated response to comments, for 11 rodenticide active ingredients.

From feral hogs and Norway rats to house mice and ground squirrels, the amount of damage caused by these pests in agricultural and non-agricultural settings alike is astounding. Not only do they cause significant damage to property, crops and food supplies, but these pests also spread disease and pose a serious risk to public health.

EPA says the mitigation measures described in this final biological evaluation will serve as the agency’s Rodenticide Strategy as outlined in EPA’s Endangered Species Act Work plan.

“The Devil will be in the detail, and will vary state by state,” says Michael Formica, chief legal strategist at the National Pork Producers Council. “This strategy is going to undermine use of these important rodenticide tools. Producers will need to be licensed by their states to get them, and we’ll have fewer options at a higher price available.”

Formica says this is just another in the “thousands of over-reaching ill-considered regulations that lead to food price inflation.”

Final Biological Evaluation
The 11 rodenticides evaluated in the biological evaluation include: chlorophacinone; diphacinone and its sodium salt; warfarin and its sodium salt; brodifacoum; bromadiolone; difenacoum; difethialone; bromethalin; cholecalciferol; strychnine; and zinc phosphide.

“These rodenticides are intended to control target animals using different biochemical mechanisms (e.g., neurotoxicity, reduced blood clotting). They also have different properties that affect the types of species that may be impacted,” EPA wrote. “For example, some rodenticides may remain in target animals long enough such that predator or scavenger animals that consume the target animals may be affected. The assessment accounts for these different properties across the 11 rodenticides evaluated in the biological evaluation.”

EPA says the final biological evaluation finds that the currently labeled uses of the 11 rodenticides evaluated remained the same as those in the draft biological evaluation, and:

• Will have no effect on 88% of species and 95% percent of critical habitats
• Are not likely to adversely affect 4-11% of species and 1% of critical habitats
• Are likely to adversely affect 1-8% of listed species and 4% of critical habitat
• Have a likelihood of future Jeopardy/Adverse Modification (J/AM) of less than 5% of listed species and less than 1% of critical habitats

“The final Rodenticide Strategy does not itself impose any requirements or restrictions on pesticide use,” EPA says. “Any mitigation measures needed to address potential likelihood of future J/AM for listed species will only apply in geographically specific areas where listed species with J/AM predictions are located, using EPA’s Bulletins Live! Two system, as part of label language, or in the Terms and Conditions of registration.”

Not all of these measures will be necessary for all uses or products containing these pesticide ingredients, EPA explains in the release. These are measures from which EPA expects to choose when reducing exposure to listed species and their critical habitats, as necessary, for a specific active ingredient, use site, and application method. During formal consultation, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) will use EPA’s effects determinations to inform their biological opinion(s).

Formica says, “This is an overly-broad regulation that imposes unnecessary costs and an additional burden on producers because of concerns by activists and their allies at EPA over alleged misuses that have nothing to do with ag (their concern is urban and suburban consumers putting too much out indiscriminately).”

Rodenticide Access
Over 10 years ago, there was a previous attempt to ban rodenticide use, Formica recalls. Opponents feared people would see a mouse, run to a local retailer and then throw out a lot of rat poison, potentially impacting other animals.

“Then rodenticides were relabeled for ag use only. They created a minimum size you had to buy so you couldn’t buy a small 1 lb package at a suburban big box hardware store, you had to buy 20 lbs from an ag supplier.,” Formica says.

The Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) is the Federal statute that governs the registration, distribution, sale, and use of pesticides in the United States, according to EPA’s website. Generally, before a pesticide may be sold or distributed in the U.S., it must be registered with the EPA. Before EPA may register a pesticide under FIFRA, the applicant must show, among other things, that using the pesticide according to specifications “will not generally cause unreasonable adverse effects on the environment.”

“What they want to do is remove it from store shelves entirely, restrict its access unless you are licensed to apply it,” Formica says. “If you are a grain farmer, you’re probably going to have a FIFRA applicator’s license anyway, but not every hog farmer is a grain farmer and not every cattle rancher is a grain farmer, so they’re going to have to go out and get their FIFRA applicator certification, which is done at the state level,” Formica explains.

In addition, losing the retail market for these rodenticides will make them more difficult to buy for those who need them, he explains.

“It won’t be impossible to buy but you are going to have much fewer choices and you will have to buy larger quantities,” Formica says. “The price goes up as well.”

The final biological evaluation is available in the docket EPA-HQ-OPP-2023-0567 on www.regulations.gov.

Your Next Read: Why You Need to Pay Attention Now to EPA’s Proposed Rodenticide Mitigation Measures

Oregon Identifies 3 Human Cases of Avian Influenza in Farm Workers from Washington State

Fri, 01 Nov 2024 18:36:31 GMT

Avian influenza (bird flu) has infected three more people from Washington state after they were exposed to poultry that tested positive for the virus, according to health authorities in Washington and in Oregon, where the human cases were identified.

A total of 39 people have tested positive in the U.S. this year, including nine from Washington, as the virus has infected poultry flocks and spread to more than 400 dairy herds, federal data show. All of the cases were farm workers who had known contact with infected animals, except for one person in Missouri.

The people from Washington cleaned facilities at an infected chicken farm after birds were culled to contain the virus, the Washington State Department of Health said in an email on Thursday.

Officials tested workers who had symptoms, including red eyes and respiratory issues, and those with potential exposure to the birds, the department said. People with symptoms were told to isolate and given antiviral treatment, it added.

Oregon identified the three new cases after the people traveled to the state from Washington while infected, the Oregon Health Authority said in a Thursday statement. They have since returned to Washington, where public health staff are monitoring them, according to the statement.

There have been no infections among people living in Oregon and is no evidence of human-to-human transmission, the Oregon Health Authority said. It said the risk for infection to the general public remains low.

Since 2022, the virus has wiped out more than 100 million poultry birds in the nation’s worst-ever bird flu outbreak.

H5N1 bird flu was confirmed in a pig on a backyard farm in Oregon, the first detection of the virus in swine in the country , USDA said on Wednesday.

(Reporting by Tom Polansek; Editing by Lincoln Feast)

Your Next Read: Influenza Expert Gets Real About the H5N1 Risk to Your Swine Herd

Exclusive: U.S. to Begin Bulk Milk Testing for Bird Flu After Push from Industry

Fri, 01 Nov 2024 18:35:20 GMT

The U.S. Department of Agriculture will soon begin testing bulk raw milk across the country for bird flu, a significant expansion of the agency’s efforts to stifle the rapid spread of the virus, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told Reuters.

The move comes after livestock and veterinary groups pushed the USDA to strengthen its current surveillance approach, calling it inadequate to contain the virus, according to state records and industry documents reviewed by Reuters.

The agency in early November will begin sampling milk in states where dairy cattle have contracted bird flu, including testing specific farms as needed to track the virus’ spread, Vilsack said in an interview.

USDA will then begin testing in states that have not identified the virus in dairy cows, he said.

The rapid spread of the virus in California, where nearly 200 dairy herds have tested positive since late August, contributed to the USDA’s decision that further surveillance efforts are needed, Vilsack said.

“These situations evolve over time and as they evolve over time there needs to be a recalibration and adjustment,” Vilsack added.

The effort adds to an emergency order issued in April that requires testing of cattle moving across state lines, and a USDA program that covers farmers’ costs for voluntary testing. Reuters previously reported USDA had softened those rules following pushback from state officials and industry representatives.

Bird flu has infected nearly 400 dairy herds in 14 states and at least 36 people, according to data from the USDA and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Virologists and federal health officials are also concerned the convergence of bird flu and seasonal influenza could enable the bird flu virus to mutate if people become co-infected, making it more easily transmissible among humans.

For now, the CDC has said the danger to the general population remains low.

The U.S. Animal Health Association, whose members include the largest dairy, egg, and poultry trade groups, and the American Association of Bovine Practitioners, a veterinary group, developed recommendations this autumn for how USDA could improve its approach, according to the documents, which have not previously been reported.

The USDA had previously said eliminating bird flu in the nation’s dairy cattle was possible using its prior approach.

The agency still wants to eradicate the virus, Vilsack said, adding that Colorado’s use of bulk milk testing eliminated new dairy cow cases in the state.

Dairy farmers in some states have resisted voluntary testing of their animals for fear of economic repercussions.

‘INADEQUATE’

The U.S. Animal Health Association passed a resolution on Oct. 16 at its annual meeting that emphasized the need for a coordinated state and federal surveillance plan, according to a copy of the document seen by Reuters, which has since been posted on the association web site.

“The narrow requirement of pre-movement testing of only lactating dairy cows moving interstate is inadequate,” it said. It recommends instead that the agency coordinate livestock sectors and states in a national surveillance and data collection strategy.

“We can’t wait for a virus to burn out. That strategy has not worked,” said Keith Poulsen, director of the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, who has been involved in discussions about the new recommendations.

The American Association of Bovine Practitioners (AABP) in September also drafted recommendations on how the USDA could better contain the virus, with weekly testing of milk tankers, among other strategies, according to emails and a copy of the draft obtained from the Missouri Department of Agriculture in a public records request.

“The disease continues to spread and current voluntary surveillance is inadequate,” wrote AABP Executive Director K. Fred Gingrich II to a group listserv on Sept. 28.

He noted that just 50 of the nation’s 27,000 dairy herds at the time were enrolled in USDA’s voluntary herd testing program, and that 17.6 million commercial poultry birds had been killed after flocks tested positive for the bovine variant of bird flu, suggesting that dairy farms are fueling the virus’ spread.

There are now 64 farms enrolled in the voluntary testing program, according to USDA data.

The document was sent on Sept. 30 by Missouri’s state veterinarian to other state animal health officials and a USDA official at the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, which is managing the agency’s bird flu response, the emails show.

The bovine practitioners group’s recommendations came after it had participated in a September meeting of the American Veterinary Medical Association alongside representatives from the poultry, cattle and swine industries, the emails show.

Your Next Read: USDA Reports First H5N1 Detection in Swine

USDA Reports First H5N1 Detection in Swine

Wed, 30 Oct 2024 20:36:09 GMT

USDA announced on Oct. 30 the first reported case of H5N1 in a pig in an Oregon backyard farm. It’s important to note there is no concern about the safety of the nation’s pork supply as a result of this finding, USDA said. This farm is a non-commercial operation, and the animals were not intended for the commercial food supply.

“The confirmed case in Oregon poses no threat to consumer health or food safety; properly handled and cooked pork products remain safe for consumption,” Bryan Humphreys, National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) CEO said in a statement. “The entire pork industry remains committed to safeguarding food safety and human and animal health.”

The case was discovered on a backyard farm that includes a mix of poultry and livestock, including swine. The Oregon Department of Agriculture announced on Friday, Oct. 25, that poultry on this farm represented the first H5N1 detection in Crook County, Oregon. On Tuesday, Oct. 29, the USDA National Veterinary Services Laboratories also confirmed one of the farm’s five pigs to be infected with H5N1, marking the first detection of H5N1 in swine in the U.S., USDA reports.  

“The livestock and poultry on this farm shared water sources, housing, and equipment; in other states, this combination has enabled transmission between species. Although the swine did not display signs of illness, the Oregon Department of Health and USDA tested the five swine for H5N1 out of an abundance of caution and because of the presence of H5N1 in other animals on the premises,” USDA wrote.

The swine were euthanized to facilitate additional diagnostic analysis. Although test results were negative for two of the pigs, and test results are still pending for two others.  
The farm has been quarantined to prevent further spread of the virus. Other animals on the farm include sheep and goats that remain under surveillance.  

“USDA’s National Veterinary Services Laboratories (NVSL) has conducted genomic sequencing of virus from the poultry infected on this farm, and that sequencing has not identified any changes to the H5N1 virus that would suggest to USDA and CDC that it is more transmissible to humans, indicating that the current risk to the public remains low,” USDA wrote.

H5N1 detections include viral genome sequencing to provide additional information of interest to medical professionals and the research community to improve understanding of the virus. Genetic sequencing for these samples is underway, but results may be inconclusive due to low viral levels in the samples, USDA said.   

Pork Producers Practice Biosecurity to Protect Pigs
Biosecurity is critical to eradicating H5N1 and other viruses. Not only does biosecurity protect the health of livestock, but it also protects the health of farmworkers and their families. For more information on protecting farmworkers, visit the CDC’s website .
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10 Powerful Take Homes to Enhance Biosecurity on Your Pig Farm
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The pork industry has worked alongside USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) since 2009 to carry out the swine influenza surveillance program to identify influenza viruses circulating in swine, proactively detect reassortment viruses that could impact public health, and gain knowledge to contribute to improved animal health diagnostics and vaccines, NPPC pointed out in a statement.

“Pork producers have always been proactive and diligent about implementing biosecurity plans as part of their daily production practices to assure animals wellbeing and food safety,” Lori Stevermer, NPPC president and Minnesota pork producer said. “This detection serves as a reminder for producers of all sizes to understand and address influenza virus risks.”

What’s Next?
USDA recently approved two vaccine field safety trials for vaccine candidates designed to protect dairy cows from H5N1, and continues to explore vaccine options for other species.   As USDA takes additional steps to protect the health of livestock, it will continue to work closely with CDC to protect the health of people and FDA to protect the safety of the food supply.

“These collective, collaborative efforts have helped protect farmworkers and farmers, the health and welfare of livestock animals, and reaffirmed the safety of the nation’s food supply. The U.S. government remains committed to addressing this situation with urgency,” USDA said.

Learn more about USDA’s response to HPAI in dairy cattle.

The situation is being monitored by local public health officials, Oregon Health Authority, Oregon State Veterinarian, Oregon Department of Agriculture, as well as USDA and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.   

Read More:
Get the Facts Straight on Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza
Animal Health Experts Open Up About Future Disease Preparedness
How the Swine Industry Responded to H5N1 Outbreak in Dairy Cattle
A Message to the Ag Industry about H5N1

Why You Need to Pay Attention Now to EPA’s Proposed Rodenticide Mitigation Measures

Fri, 27 Sep 2024 01:18:52 GMT

Out of sight, out of mind. That theory works for a while until it doesn’t, especially when it comes to rodent control.

“Rodenticide use is like using insecticides. If you don’t see any cockroaches, you don’t worry about them. But once you see one, you throw the bomb at it,” says Larry Delozier, director of national poultry account sales for QC Supply.

Similarly, once you see a mouse or rat, it’s likely you have a big problem on your hands , explains Steve Von Haden, Midwest business manager for Motomco.

“Always assume you have rodents, and you should be putting bait out,” Von Haden says. “All agricultural buildings or structures will have rodents of some type. You just don’t want it to get to such high peaks it causes structural damage, diseases and contamination of food sources .”

Pending regulation could mean agriculture loses critically important tools to protect food security. EPA is proposing significant changes to rodenticides that would result in the canceling of products and uses, add more requirements to the labels, and reclassify some products to restricted use pesticides .

“Regardless of whether you are a livestock producer or citrus grower or manager of a golf course, this will have an impact on your ability to effectively manage a destructive farm pest,” says John Walt Boatright, director of government affairs at American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF). “It’s one more challenge in a regulatory environment where challenges continue to grow for the American producer.”

What is EPA Proposing?

On Nov. 29, 2022, the EPA released for public comment new proposed mitigation measures for 11 rodenticides, which if implemented, will have a major impact on all currently available rodenticide products, the Agricultural Retailers Association (ARA) said on its website . The agency’s proposals are the most significant changes to rodenticides in 15 years that will result in the canceling of products and uses, add more requirements to the labels, and reclassify some products to restricted use pesticides, ARA noted.

EPA’s recommended changes are included in four Proposed Interim Decision documents (PIDs) that cover: 1) the seven anticoagulant rodenticides; 2) bromethalin and cholecalciferol; 3) strychnine; and 4) zinc phosphide.

“EPA’s proposal is quite wide-ranging, and it is going to impact any user of rodenticides and how rodenticides are applied,” Boatright explains. “The challenge is many of EPA’s proposed mitigation measures introduce additional challenges for on-farm application. I don’t know that they will have the intended effect that EPA thinks they’ll have.”

Boatright says this should be very concerning for everyone in the agricultural supply chain who apply rodenticides. Michael Formica, chief legal strategist for the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC), says it will also have a negative impact in urban areas where rodent infestation is a major problem.

“This is an example of one area where rural communities can build positive engagement and cooperate with urban communities. As much as rats and rodents are pests on the farm, they are even more so in an urban area,” Formica says. “In the back alleys in DC, you see rats that look like cats racing from one building to another, running around at night. People don’t want to live with them.”

And they shouldn’t have to, Delozier says. Rodent control companies have made effective, safe bait under EPA’s existing stringent restrictions. EPA’s proposed measures will add great cost and will likely be prohibitive for many.

What Does This Mean for Farmers?

If this proposal is enacted, rodenticide users will see many new restrictions.

“The average livestock farmer wouldn’t be able to use them, you would have to go through certification and training in your state,” Formica explains. “If you’ve got a row crop or grain operation, a lot of folks have that certification because they spray pesticides. But most livestock farmers don’t have all those different certifications.”

Certifications would be required annually, which takes a lot of time, paperwork and training.

“If you don’t have that certification, you would need to hire exterminators to come out. That’s expensive and creates its own biosecurity problem because you’re having people come out not just to apply the rat poison, but also pick up the dead rats,” Formica says.

Pick up dead rats? Yes, that’s part of the new measures, too.

“The proposal talks about mandatory carcass searches in the field. That seems to be quite a challenge to expect a farmer or a farm worker to stop what they’re doing and search for rodent carcasses in potentially hundreds or thousands of acres,” Boatright says.

Once the rodent carcasses are found, farmers would be required to not just log them, but also pick them up and dispose of them.

Another limitation of these measures includes the requirement of single-use base stations, which would create a lot of garbage, Formica adds. The bait stations being used today are refillable.

What Will Happen if Rodent Bait Goes Off the Shelves?

“The more regulation you put on farmers, the more resistance you will have and that’s not conducive to the economic engine that is farming and food in the U.S.,” says Mike Slegl, vice president of product sales for QC Supply.

Farmers aren’t misusing product with the intent of controlling other things, Slegl adds. Some believe EPA is rushing to do this because of pressure from environmentalists for Endangered Species Act concerns.

“There is a potential major negative impact of an additional EPA regulation on the true sustainability of livestock production and the livelihood of farms,” Slegl says. “If it’s one more forced hand that overnight becomes more expensive to something they’re already doing, there’s going to be major resistance and people will push towards non-compliance.”

Delozier fears EPA’s rodenticide mitigation measures will ultimately increase the cost of goods to the consumer.

“Whenever we add requirements, there is always a cost that goes into the food system and will eventually cost the consumer more, too,” Delozier says. “Farmers are already using rodenticides that have to be EPA-approved.”

Darrin Karcher, a poultry specialist and associate professor at Purdue University, says it could be a double-edged sword.

“With the larger integrated companies, if they have to pay someone else to do it, they will pay someone because it has to be taken care of. Where it may catch are those individuals doing it themselves who may not have financial depths to pursue having other people take care of application,” Karcher says. “The question becomes, can they find a way to do that?”

An Increased Biosecurity Risk

And what if they can’t? Rodents present a major biosecurity risk for farms. With devastating diseases like Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) in the poultry industry and the threat of deadly foreign animal diseases like African swine fever (ASF) in the pork industry, leaders fear how this could impact the health of the nation’s livestock herds.

“The restricted-use pesticide designation concerns me,” says Matthew Galloway, Midwest sales manager for ag rodenticides with Liphatech Inc. “For the broiler and breeder side of the poultry industry, there are hundreds of thousands of barns all over the U.S. One contract grower often has four or five barns and there may be several thousand barns within each company. If farmers don’t get their license, they will have to hire an outside applicator. Then you run into the risk of biosecurity breaches. We can’t have applicators running through multiple farms over a week’s time, otherwise we’ll really see a massive problem.”

It’s also a major problem if rodents get out of control because farms can’t afford the added cost.

“You can put all the filters you want on the ventilation systems in your barns and be as biosecure of a facility as possible, but if rats can get in and out, they will find a way. They aren’t showering,” Formica says.

What Can You Do?

Every 15 years, pesticides are reviewed by EPA. This rodenticide review is part of a pilot project for EPA as they’re implementing their Endangered Species Act work plan. These mitigation measures seek to achieve compliance with their statutory directives at EPA, following recent court cases directing EPA.

“We will see this approach in reviewing other pesticides as well. Folks need to be prepared to provide input,” he says.

This is a proposed interim decision, Boatright explains. EPA will take comments through Feb. 13 and review them. They will then promulgate a final rule at some point in the future.

“Make your voice heard,” Liphatech’s Galloway says. “We’ve got to do everything we can. Submit comments to EPA.”

Both NPPC and AFBF are gathering feedback and information from its members and will be submitting comments to EPA by the Feb. 13 deadline.

“Weigh in and let elected officials know you value these products. The best thing you can do is call your member of Congress. We’re just coming out of three years of COVID, and there are tremendous human health issues of taking rodenticides off the market,” NPPC’s Formica says.

Read more about the rodent problem.

USDA Identifies Ways HPAI H5N1 Has Likely Spread in Michigan Dairy and Poultry Operations

Mon, 17 Jun 2024 22:29:29 GMT

On June 9, the USDA issued a report that summarizes the findings from field epidemiological investigations of disease spread between premises for 15 dairy herds and eight poultry flocks confirmed with HPAI genotype B3.13 in Michigan.

The following information is pulled from the USDA’s 2024 Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (H5N1) - Michigan Dairy Herd and Poultry Flock Summary (see Michigan Dairy Herd and Poultry Flock Summary ).

The information offers potential insights for how the dairy and poultry industries in states beyond Michigan likely have been impacted, as well.

A ‘Eurasian Lineage Goose’

Whole genome sequencing (WGS) of viruses from the dairy and poultry premises identified Eurasian lineage goose/Guangdong clade 2.3.4.4b, genotype B3.13 on the Michigan farms and suggests likely indirect transfer of virus from the dairy premises to the poultry premises.

USDA reports that interstate animal movement initially introduced the HPAI genotype B3.13 virus from Texas into a Michigan dairy. However, USDA says the continued disease transmission within Michigan has been determined to be multifactorial.

Transmission between farms is likely due to indirect epidemiological links related to normal business operations such as numerous people, vehicles, and other conveyances frequently moving on and off the affected dairy premises, with many of these indirect links shared between premises.

Importantly, USDA says, disease spread due to independent introduction of the virus onto dairy or poultry premises from migratory waterfowl is not supported based on both genomic and epidemiological data analysis.

Key findings identified to date and potential risk factors for local transmission in Michigan specifically, include:

Shared personnel between premises
o 20% of affected dairies’ employees and 7% of dairies’ employees family members work on other dairy premises

o 7% of affected dairies’ employees also work on poultry premises; 13% of affected dairies’ employees have family members who work on poultry premises

o 31% of dairies have employees who own livestock or poultry at their personal residence

Shared vehicles between premises
o 62% of affected dairy premises use shared vehicles to transport cattle, with only 12% of premises cleaning vehicles before use

Frequent visitors on/off premises
o 100% of affected dairy premises have regular visits by veterinarians, nutritionist/feed consultant, and/or contract haulers (e.g., cattle or manure); the majority of these visitors have direct contact with cattle

o 40% of affected dairy premises have regular visits for deadstock removal, with 20% having direct contact with cattle. Furthermore:

-53% of affected dairies utilized the same deadstock removal company and 40% had animals removed from the premises by that company within 30 days prior to clinical onset

o Milk haulers visit dairy premises, on average, 34 times within a 30-day time period. Furthermore:

-93.3% of affected dairy premises are part of the same milk co-op with at least one other affected dairy premises within the state (i.e., only one of the affected dairy herds is part of a milk co-op that none of the other 14 affected dairy herds belong to)

Disease Spread Between Dairy and Poultry Premises
Apart from the potential for resident wild birds or peri-domestic species to move and transmit the virus, the only other potential transmission routes found from dairy herds to the poultry flocks were through shared employment, housing, or movement of employees.

Approximately 22 employees of three poultry flocks worked weekend shifts at two different dairy premises. Shared housing between dairy and poultry workers was identified between three poultry premises and two dairy premises. It is also possible that dairy employees have social contact with poultry premises employees, USDA reports.

In Summary
The investigations discussed in this report, including the respective WGS information, indicate that HPAI H5N1 genotype B3.13 was introduced into Michigan through animal movement from Texas and subsequently spread within the state between dairy premises with spillover into poultry premises through multiple possible routes.

Factors that appear to be of greater risk for introduction into a dairy premises may be mitigated through enhanced biosecurity, increased animal testing, and potentially through within-state animal movement restrictions if they can be implemented without impacting animal welfare.

USDA says the willingness of Michigan producers to participate in these investigations has greatly increased the body of knowledge of HPAI H5N1 B3.13 detections in Michigan and throughout the nation; this report could not have been completed without them.

For more information on the H5N1 issue:

H5N1 Virus Found in Beef for First Time, FSIS Says

FDA Says New Round of Tests Prove the U.S. Milk Supply is Safe From H5N1 Virus

USDA Now Requiring Mandatory Testing and Reporting of HPAI in Dairy Cattle as New Data Suggests Virus Outbreak is More Widespread

Second Michigan Farmworker Tests Positive For H5N1 Virus

Thu, 30 May 2024 21:40:19 GMT

A second human case of HPAI (H5N1) was confirmed in a Michigan farmworker on Thursday, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

This is the third human case (two in Michigan, one in Texas) associated with an ongoing multistate outbreak of H5N1 in U.S. dairy cows. In all three cases, cow-to-person spread is suspected but none of the cases is related.

Tim Boring, director of the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, says government officials are working closely with producers to understand the scale of the virus in dairy operations across the state.

“We’re learning more every day about the epidemiology of this virus and just how it spreads. I think it’s a manageable situation on the dairy side for us right now, but we have continued concerns around just how we can best mitigate the further spread,” Boring told AgriTalk Host Chip Flory on Thursday, prior to the CDC’s latest announcement.

Boring reports that Michigan has confirmed the virus in 23 dairies, primarily in the west-central part of the state.

The virus had been confirmed in at least 66 dairy herds in nine states earlier this week, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture: 20 herds in Michigan, 15 in Texas, eight in New Mexico, nine in Idaho, four in Kansas, four in Colorado, four in South Dakota and one each in Ohio and North Carolina.

Biosecurity Practices Are Helping
The H5N1-infected farm workers were not wearing a face shield or other personal protective equipment (PPE), according to Dr. Natasha Bagdasarian, the chief medical executive of Michigan’s health department.

That “tells us that direct exposure to infected livestock poses a risk to humans, and that PPE is an important tool in preventing spread among individuals who work on dairy and poultry farms,” said Bagdasarian, in a prepared statement.

While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) maintains the public health risk from H5N1 is low, the agency encourages the use of its recommended precautions by people exposed to infected or potentially infected birds and animals.

The use of good biosecurity measures is helping contain the virus and prevent its spread, Boring emphasizes.

“These biosecurity systems work; pasteurization works,” Boring says. “The screening to make sure that we don’t have infected animals of any kind with any disease making it into the food system works.

“As the FDA has talked about, this continues to be a communicable virus and where this continues to move – potentially further impacting human health down the road – is a real concern,” Boring adds. “That continues to be a driving force for us to address the virus on the animal side.”

Vaccine Development
Last week, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced officials are moving forward with a plan to produce 4.8 million doses of an H5N1 vaccine for human use.

According to an article in Reuters , human exposures to the virus in poultry and dairy operations could increase the risk that the virus will mutate and gain the ability to spread easily in people.

The article noted that the U.S. and Europe are “taking steps to acquire or manufacture H5N1 bird flu vaccines that could be used to protect at-risk poultry and dairy workers, veterinarians and lab technicians, government officials said, moves influenza experts say could curb the threat of a pandemic.”

H5N1 Virus Found in Beef for First Time, FSIS Says

FSIS’ Final Results of H5N1 Testing Confirms Meat Supply is Safe

The complete conversation between Michigan’s Boring and AgriTalk Host Chip Flory is available here:

Ground Beef Tests Negative for H5N1, says USDA-APHIS

Thu, 02 May 2024 15:46:16 GMT

The USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced results from testing 30 samples of ground beef on Thursday, showing that all were negative for H5N1.

The agency made the announcement on its website, available for review here .

USDA-FSIS said it collected the samples from “states with dairy cattle herds that had tested positive for the H5N1 influenza virus at the time of sample collection. The samples were sent to APHIS’ National Veterinary Services Laboratories (NVSL) for PCR testing.”

PCR stands for polymerase chain reaction. Such testing is done to identify the presence or absence of human pathogens in food. Common pathogens routinely tested for in food include E. coli and Salmonella, for instance. In the ground beef study, no virus particles were found to be present.

The USDA said it is working on two additional beef safety studies. According to the information posted online, these include:

1. Beef muscle sampling of cull dairy cows condemned at select FSIS-inspected slaughter facilities: FSIS is currently collecting muscle samples at FSIS-inspected slaughter facilities of cull dairy cattle that have been condemned for systemic pathologies. The samples will be analyzed by APHIS using PCR to determine presence of viral particles. The results are forthcoming and will be posted as soon as they become available.

2. Ground beef cooking study: ARS will be conducting a beef cooking study and will be using a virus surrogate in ground beef and cooking it at different temperatures to determine log-reduction of the virus. The results will be posted as soon as they become available.

The agency said the results from both studies will be posted as soon as they become available.

A Message to the Ag Industry about H5N1

Fri, 26 Apr 2024 20:49:16 GMT

“We’re going on a bear hunt. We’re going to catch a big one… We’re not scared.”

So goes a beloved children’s book written by Michael Rosen. The story is a metaphor for how to address fear. Kay Russo, DVM, often reads it to her son and daughter, ages 4 and 6.

“This unfortunate family seems to deal with a lot of issues as they’re going on their hike,” Russo says. “Ultimately, every time they reach one of these issues, the book basically says, ‘You know, we can’t go over it. We can’t go around it. We can’t go under it. We have to go through it.’”

That story illustrates how the dairy industry must deal with the growing impact of H5N1, says Russo, Novonesis technical services manager for dairy and poultry. She’s watched the spread of the virus with alarm and urges U.S. leaders across dairy and agriculture to step up and take action.

“Address it head-on,” she says. “Don’t hide.”

As with all major threats, she says ag needs a comprehensive, cohesive plan to address the virus in dairy – and to also look at how to protect the beef, pork and poultry industries.

“At this point, I believe it’s important to take one day at a time and systematically answer the questions that we need to get answered in order to define a sustainable path forward,” Russo says.

“We have a very clear picture that it’s in the udder and is being shed in milk. But where else do we need to be concerned? That matters because that is going to define the control tactics to reduce spreading it from cow to cow. Those questions are ultimately going to be the pillar of our understanding and help to define strategies for controlling the virus in a sustainable way.”

On The Front Line
Help can’t come soon enough for dairy producers and veterinarians in the trenches working with cows.

Veterinarians such as Dr. Barb Petersen in Texas have been dealing with the virus in their clients’ dairy herds since at least March.

“It has been circulating here as early as February, based on retrospective feedback from owners and fellow veterinarians,” says Petersen, owner of Sunrise Veterinary Service in Amarillo.

By early March, she had begun sending daily emails and text messages to her Texas Panhandle dairy clients who needed answers and support.

Petersen, who has been in practice 15 years, did her best to provide both. But she didn’t know what she was dealing with. Neither did any other veterinarian Petersen reached out to within 200 miles of her practice.

“We started to text and email each other, and give summaries of ‘OK, here’s the test that this doctor has run. Here’s what another colleague has run,’” Petersen recalls.

“We tested for every single viral bacterial mycotoxin, lepto, rumensin toxicity, nitrates… I mean, you name it, every single thing that we vaccinate for, we tested for, for sure, right off the bat. And then even some of the things that we don’t or can’t vaccinate for. We tried to cast a really wide net.”

None of the initial tests, conducted by the Texas A&M Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory (TVMDL), provided an answer.

Recurring Symptoms Emerge

Some members of the animal health community suspected winter dysentery – an acute, highly contagious gastrointestinal disorder that can affect housed dairy cattle of all ages.

Petersen was skeptical.

“The first clinical symptom I saw was cows that had indigestion. They had manure that wasn’t well-digested, manure with particles of feed in it,” she says.

As she checked more cows and talked with colleagues, more information came to light and she began to identify recurring symptoms: thick, colostrum-like milk; lesions on cow vulvas; high temperatures; respiratory distress; a drop in feed consumption; and a corresponding lack of rumination. None of it added up to winter dysentery.

“This is a really strong and fierce reminder to keep your hands on the cows,” Petersen says. “It’s wonderful to have data, but you have to trust and then verify.”

When Russo at Novonesis got news of the problem from a colleague, she called Petersen.

Russo has worked as a dairy veterinarian and is also a board-certified poultry veterinarian. She and Petersen discussed what kinds of tests had already been done and what health concerns had been ruled out.

“I said, ‘You know, I may sound like a crazy person, a tinfoil-hat-wearing person, but this sounds a bit like (highly pathogenic avian) influenza to me. We’ve seen this particular strain of influenza that’s been circulating, that’s been jumping into mammalian hosts,’ and I kind of left it there,” Russo recalls.

More conversations between Russo, Petersen and other veterinarians ensued. Russo encouraged Petersen to collect some of the dead birds she had encountered at the dairies and submit them to TVMDL for testing, which she did.

On March 19, Petersen received a call from the Texas lab, confirming the wild birds were positive for H5N1.

At about the same time, barn cats at the dairies Petersen worked with were getting sick and starting to die. They had consumed some of the H5N1-infected birds and milk that had not been pasteurized.

“I spent one weekend picking up dead birds and the next weekend picking up dead cats. It was very sad,” Petersen says.

Science Provides Answers
Petersen sent some of the dead cats and a pooled sample of milk to TVMDL pathologists for testing. Because of their heavy workload, she sent the same material to a former veterinary classmate at Iowa State University (ISU), Dr. Drew Magstadt, now a pathologist at the school’s diagnostic laboratory.

“Whenever I’ve gotten into a real jam professionally – like, you have a question that you can’t seem to find an answer to – the group of folks that have always helped me solve it have been pathologists,” Petersen says. “It’s been pathologists that I could give the clues to who helped finish the puzzle.”

On a warm March night in Amarillo, Petersen sat resting on her back porch at home when a text message from Magstadt popped up on her phone.

“There’s something in the results,” he wrote. “Can I call you?”

On the phone, Magstadt shared what he’d found in the lab tests done on the cats and milk: H5N1.

“I was like, ‘Are you serious?’” Petersen asked Magstadt. “Are you going to run those tests again?”

“Yes,” he said. “Just to make sure.”

The initial H5N1 confirmation flabbergasted Magstadt. The next day, he retested the samples to confirm the finding.

“I had thought we would find the results were negative and we would move on to other testing. So I was very, very surprised when the results came back positive,” says Magstadt, ISU clinical associate professor and a pathologist at the Iowa State Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory.

The National Veterinary Services Laboratory (NVSL) then confirmed Magstadt’s findings. The documentation of H5N1 by NVSL in a sample of milk from a dairy cow represented an industry first.

“The most surprising part of this, in my mind, is the fact that we’re finding so much virus as we are in the milk, in the mammary gland,” Magstadt says.

‘Show Us The Data’
On April 23, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reported it had detected “viral particles of H5N1 avian influenza” in pasteurized milk available for purchase at grocery stores.

Russo is quick to point out this doesn’t mean the actual virus is in milk. Rather, it’s the genetic material known as RNA.

“I think the FDA needs to show us the data,” Russo says. “The fact that there is viral material in some of the milk on shelves, as detected by rt-PCR. That test doesn’t say whether it is alive or dead. Virus isolation is necessary. The first tests have not grown virus, thankfully, but we need more data.”

No unusual human illnesses have been documented. Government health officials say they have seen nothing unusual in flu activity, according to a senior official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) who was interviewed for this story. The overall assessment and risk to human health remains low from H5N1, the official says.

“CDC looks for a host of flu-like symptoms,” he told “U.S. Farm Report” host Tyne Morgan during a phone interview. “They do so by looking at people coming into emergency rooms, care systems, etc.”

Yet anecdotal evidence suggests the people most likely to be infected – dairy farm workers who have their hands on cows regularly – aren’t necessarily going to doctors for treatment.

The World Health Organization (WHO) website references just one “laboratory-confirmed case of human infection with an influenza A (H5N1) virus on 1 April 2024” on a dairy farm.

“It’s a mild, mild case and the only symptom he had was pinkeye,” Sid Miller, state commissioner of the Texas Department of Agriculture, told “AgriTalk” host Chip Flory at the time, as reported on AgWeb.

That Texas case marked the second confirmed human case of influenza A(H5N1) detected in the U.S. — and the first in the dairy industry. The first documented case, identified in 2022, involved a person in Colorado who worked with infected poultry that tested positive for the virus.

During his interview with Miller, Flory asked whether the virus could impact beef cattle at some point.

“You’ve seen what’s happened in the cattle markets,” Flory said. “They’re looking at it like this is a major problem for beef.”

Problems aren’t anticipated for Texas beef cattle, which consist primarily of feedlot cattle in the Panhandle, Miller replied.

“The cattle that get it are the older lactating cows, and we don’t have those in the feedlot,” Miller explained. “I think we’re OK, but we’re certainly going to research that.”

Tip Of The Iceberg?
So far, H5N1 has been officially confirmed in only 32 herds in eight states, according to data from USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS).

Some veterinarians working with dairies in Texas believe the virus is more active than current data suggest. Nick Schneider, a consulting dairy practitioner, is one of them.

“The thing is, when you get into the Panhandle of Texas, I’m not sure there’s anybody (dairy farms) that did not have it,” says Schneider.

Texas is home to 335 Grade A dairies with an estimated 625,00 cows, according to information on the Texas Association of Dairymen website. More than 100 of those operations are in the Panhandle.

The virus likely is being under-reported by the dairy industry because the presence of the virus in dairy cows is new, and there are no reporting requirements, Russo says.

“It’s not a foreign animal disease like it’s considered in poultry, where there are reporting requirements,” she explains. “This is considered an emerging disease (in dairy cattle).”

The dairy industry needs to be “very forward looking” now and address the virus, advises Schneider, the Texas dairy consultant.

“Looking at what happened in the rearview mirror is great, but if you’re not looking at where you’re going, it’s really just a pointless endeavor,” he says.

To that end, he advises gaining insights and expertise in preparation for whatever new information emerges next.

“We need to think about this potentially being something we have to live with, as being a part of the industry in the future,” Schneider says. “I hope I’m wrong. I would love to be wrong about that. But it’s something that we definitely need to consider when we’re thinking of how we’re going to manage it.”

Lessons From Swine And Poultry
Russo also advocates learning the lessons from swine and poultry, which have faced a variety of viral challenges for years.

“It’s important that we don’t try to reinvent the wheel as the cattle industry, but sort of cross the aisle to interact with the poultry folks and the swine folks who have gone through this repeatedly over the years and learn from the defined principles they use and try to adapt them into the bovine space,” she says.

Both swine and poultry have modified their animal management practices from the farm to the marketplace as a result of those experiences.

“Poultry, for instance has very distinct biosecurity principles they abide by to include lines of separation,” Russo says. “One is they keep the outside world out. Another is their use of PPE (physical protective equipment) to protect employees and also the birds from anything that might be carried onto the farm.”

The latter is a message Dr. Barb Petersen has taken to heart. Petersen says she was exposed to H5N1 for more than a month before she learned about the virus and its ability to infect dairy cows and people.

“I’m very fortunate that I never got sick,” she says.

Her advice? “Protect yourselves and your people on the dairy. There’s been underreporting of the virus. Understandably, there’s been a lot of fear. But every dairy that I’ve worked with has – with the exception of one – had sick human beings at the same time they had sick cows.”

Based on that knowledge, Petersen has acquired PPE available through Texas Health and Human Services.

“All the states have personal protective equipment available. Go and get it for your dairies,” she encourages other veterinarians. “If a dairy is on the fence, just provide it to them, offer it to everybody.”

Petersen says she has worked with people infected by H5N1 who do not interact with dairy cows. “I’m talking owners and feeders who don’t usually touch cows,” she says.

Research is underway to determine how much of a health risk the virus poses to humans, Russo says.

“This is a rapidly evolving situation, and the people that are working on it are doing everything they can to ensure the safety of those individuals that are most at risk,” she says.

A Paradigm Shift
The virus continues to hit the U.S. poultry industry hard.

Cal-Maine Foods, the largest producer and distributor of fresh shell eggs in the U.S., announced April 2 that chickens at its facility in Parmer County, located in the southwest part of the Texas Panhandle, tested positive for the virus. As a result, Cal-Maine had to cull nearly 2 million chickens − 1.6 million hens and 337,000 pullets.

In the AgriTalk discussion aired earlier this spring, Flory asked Miller, the Texas ag commissioner, whether he believes state agriculture department investigators are in front of the latest issues with HPAI in dairy cattle.

“I think so,” Miller replied. “We’ve got about 10 months before the ducks and geese come back, so I think we’ll have it figured out by then.”

Moving forward, the U.S. livestock industry might operate in a new world – one where the H5N1 virus is endemic.

Russo is undaunted by the challenge.

“This is not insurmountable, but it’s an issue we need to address swiftly,” she says.

Culled dairy cows going into the food supply deserve special attention, she says.

“We need to do the work so that we can define those movement strategies for the practitioners that are being asked to write health certificates on these farms that have the virus circulating,” Russo says.

The dairy industry needs to be more proactive for the sake of the poultry industry, she adds.

“Putting our heads in the sand, and hoping it burns itself out is not going to work. It’s just not,” she says. “It would take down the entire poultry industry by doing that, because this is highly pathogenic to them.”

That is not hyperbole, Russo says: a dime-sized piece of manure with H5N1 can infect up to 1 million chickens or turkeys.

In essence, the livestock industry needs to go on a bear hunt, as the children’s story says.

‘We can’t go over it. We can’t go around it. We can’t go under it. We have to go through it.”

With that as the focus, solutions to H5N1 can be found and help delivered to livestock producers and veterinarians on the front lines and, ultimately, the U.S. agriculture industry can insure a safe food supply.

This story will be updated by Bovine Veterinarian and Farm Journal editorial staff as more information is available.

USDA Now Requiring Mandatory Testing and Reporting of HPAI in Dairy Cattle as New Data Suggests Virus Outbreak is Widespread

USDA Shares Recent H5N1 Avian Flu Sequences

Texas-Sized Problems Hit the Lone Star State, but Ag Commissioner says ‘Things are Getting Better’

Rare Human Case of Bird Flu Confirmed. Officials Believe it Began on Texas Dairy

Wild Pigs Kill More People Than Sharks, Shocking New Research Reveals

Thu, 18 Apr 2024 14:43:28 GMT

Hogzilla or Jaws? More humans are killed annually by wild pigs than by sharks, a startling new study reveals. By slice, puncture, hook, and gouge, the global number of fatalities from wild pig attacks is rising by the decade.

Between 2014 and 2023, the average yearly number of fatal shark attacks worldwide was 5.8, while the average number of fatal wild pig attacks was 19.7. In 2024 alone, there have already been seven deaths from wild pig incidents.

According to groundbreaking research published in 2023, the number of humans killed by wild pig attacks steadily climbed from 2000 to 2019, for a total of 172 deaths—including a freakishly grisly fatality in southeast Texas.

“Most of the public doesn’t know the facts about wild pig attacks on humans,” says John J. Mayer, lead author of the study and wild pig research pioneer. “It’s not sharks, wolves, or bears that kill the most people—it’s wild pigs, and the numbers are consistently trending up.”

1,532 Attacks and 172 Deaths

In 1973, well before the global pig bomb exploded, Mayer began noting wild pigs’ capacity for habitat destruction. At a steady drip, he also heard anecdotes of pig attacks on humans. Although many of the stories initially could not be verified, by the 1990s Mayer accumulated a folder bulging with confirmed encounters, and in 2013, he published research detailing wild pig attacks.

The public reaction to his findings surprised Mayer: “I got a significant number of negative responses from people who refused to believe wild pigs were dangerous. I had people telling me the stories of attacks on humans were pure nonsense. Interestingly, if you asked those same people about sharks, they would, to a person, say that sharks are dangerous.”

A decade later, after collating a global dragnet of sources with colleagues James Garabedian and John Kilgo, both USDA wildlife biologists, Mayer published Human Fatalities Resulting From Wild Pig Attacks Worldwide: 2000–2019 , and the report is packed with eye-opening detail: 1,532 wild pig attacks on humans from 2000-2019, resulting in 172 human deaths in 29 countries.

Of the 172 fatalities, 88% occurred in non-hunting circumstances; 77% of victims died due to blood loss; 86% of attacks occurred in daylight; 84% of victims were male and 62% of victims were adults; 38% of attacks involved farm workers engaged in agriculture; almost all attacks were by solitary pigs, except for 20 encounters featuring multiple pigs; and average pig size in each incident was 240 lb.

“Tigers, Indian elephants, Nile crocodiles, and venomous snakes kill more people than wild pigs, but wild pigs are certainly worse than bears, wolves, and all shark species put together,” says Mayer, technical program manager at the Savannah River National Laboratory in Aiken, S.C. “Wild pigs are nowhere near the worst of the worst, but they’re far more dangerous than people believe.”

“These attacks can be horrific,” Mayer adds. “Typically, wild pigs don’t bother anyone if they don’t feel threatened, but they can deliver tremendous damage to the human body in a matter of seconds in a very gruesome manner. We found that in fatal attacks, 55% of people died on the scene. A wild pig is at the waist to knee range for most humans, and when pigs slash in that area, they do tremendous damage to the arterial system.”

Sincerely. Boars deliver stab-and-slash wounds, often around the groin area, with tusks that operate as nails and razors.

7x Predatory

Boar tusks are extremely sharp, with 60-70% of a canine enclosed in the jaw and roughly 1”-4” outside the socket. The upper and lower tusks rub against one another each time a boar opens and closes its mouth, honing the lower tusks into cutters via a perpetual sharpening process.

“Boars punch holes with their tusks, making rough-edged slashes and gouges,” Mayer describes. “They can also break bones with a powerful bite. Sows have smaller tusks, proportionally almost like dogs, so a sow tends to bite, rather than stab or slash. Therefore, most fatal attacks are by males with large canines, and often to the inner leg and femoral artery. On top of that, they can run in short bursts up to 30 to 35 miles per hour.”

Mayer’s benchmark report makes clear that almost all fatal wild pig attacks are associated with defensive behaviors. However, he documented seven attacks “during which the pig’s behaviors appeared to be predatory.”

“If they can get their mouths around something, they’ll eat it. It’s rare, but without question, they sometimes attack unprovoked,” Mayer notes. “We found one case in India where a young girl was walking with her father when a wild pig emerged from brush, grabbed her and picked her up in its jaws, and carried her away. The father gave chase and caught up, but both the father and daughter ended up in the hospital and the little girl died from her wounds.”

“And then there was the 2019 case in Texas where a lady endured the worst,” he adds. “That case is as terrible as it gets.”

As in, maneater. Wild pigs as maneaters.

Feeding Frenzy

The Sunday before Thanksgiving, Nov. 24, 2019, arguably ranks as the most savage wild pig attack on record.

As caregiver at the home of an elderly couple living in rural Chambers County, Christine Rollins, 59, arrived to work at roughly 6 a.m., in clockwork fashion. Rollins parked a Chrysler sedan in the yard of the well-kept property, directly beside the driveway, and exited her vehicle. She likely was dead within minutes, partially consumed while alive.

At approximately 7:45 a.m. law enforcement arrived at the property and found Rollins—5’1” and 130 lb.—on her back against the manicured lawn, 6’ from the Chrysler. Rollins’ clothing was torn away. A shirt and jacket were bunched high on her torso; pants and shoes were gone.

Her body, head to toe, was a roadmap of injuries—bites, punctures, and lacerations, including large portions of her legs devoid of flesh. Gone. Eaten.

Arriving on site as an investigation unfolded, nothing in Sheriff Brian Hawthorne’s 35-year southeast Texas career prepared him for the scene.

“I’d never seen anything like it in my life,” he recalls. “Miss Rollins was annihilated. A third of her body was mutilated and in ghastly condition. We could see that she’d been attacked by wild animals and we could see clear signs of hog rooting in the yard. The area around the property was rural and partially wooded, and the elderly owners told us they had major wild hog problems.”

“The owners also had two dogs outside, a 14-year-old Lab and a dachshund, a classic wiener dog. The Lab was extremely friendly toward us and was happy to see the deputies.”

Designated as an “unknown death,” the incident automatically triggered a criminal investigation. Hawthorne reserved judgement, pending an autopsy.

The autopsy was telltale.

“It was tragic. Miss Rollins bled to death,” Hawthorne says. “She had wounds over her whole body, but the lower extremities were horrific. People tried to attribute the attack to dogs, but the evidence was clearly to the contrary. The pathologist found no canine bites on the body. There certainly were bites and tusk marks of all sizes and different widths, but they were made by hogs. Material was sent to labs for DNA testing, and those results confirmed the wild hog attack.”

“It can only be speculation, but we believe she exited her car while the wild pigs were coming around the house,” he continues. “Initially, she was an obstruction, but then became the center of a feeding frenzy by multiple adult hogs and multiple juveniles of various sizes. I’d compare it to the frenzy of domesticated pigs when slop is dumped in a pen, or the frenzy normally associated with sharks at feeding.”

Glaringly, the 2019 wild pig attack in Chambers County accords with Mayer’s research and study. “Every part of me wishes Christine Rollins’ death was attributable to something other than wild hogs, but every bit of evidence says it’s not so,” Hawthorne concludes. “This attack was an exception, but I tell people all the time: Wild hogs are problematic and a danger to be around. Period.”

No More Skeptics

Why do most of the attacks and deaths from wild pigs go unnoticed? Over half (51%) of all fatal pig attacks occur in India, followed by China (8%), with the U.S. well behind at six recorded fatalities in the past 100 years, as noted in Human Fatalities Resulting From Wild Pig Attacks Worldwide: 2000–2019 .

However, the attack rate is trending up everywhere, Mayer says. “In the last 30 years, the global wild pig population has exploded, and we expect encounters to climb alongside, and now the news media is also catching up and the data is more available. In America, for example, I’m certain there were more wild pig fatalities in the past century, but those accounts were never documented. No doubt, there are more lost in family histories.”

In the early 1970s, when Mayer first began giving presentations on wild pig expansion, he was met with puzzled looks and a frequent question: “Why study an animal with no relevance?”

Fifty years later, with the U.S. wild pig population ballooning to 7 million, and annual damage to the agriculture economy at $1.5 billion, according to USDA estimates, no one questions Mayer over the impact of wild pigs.

“You hear about shark attacks all the time in the news, but you almost never hear about wild pig attacks. I hope our study increases awareness about wild pigs and makes people more cautious,” he says. “Wild pig attacks are rare and fatal attacks are rarer, but the rate is still much, much higher than people think—high enough to place wild pigs over sharks in cause of death.”

Sincerely. By the numbers, Hogzilla defeats Jaws.

For more articles from Chris Bennett ( cbennett@farmjournal.com or 662-592-1106), see:

Corn and Cocaine: Roger Reaves and the Most Incredible Farm Story Never Told

American Gothic: Farm Couple Nailed In Massive $9M Crop Insurance Fraud

Priceless Pistol Found After Decades Lost in Farmhouse Attic

Cottonmouth Farmer: The Insane Tale of a Buck-Wild Scheme to Corner the Snake Venom Market

Tractorcade: How an Epic Convoy and Legendary Farmer Army Shook Washington, D.C.

Bizarre Mystery of Mummified Coon Dog Solved After 40 Years

While America Slept, China Stole the Farm

South Dakota Confirms First Case of HPAI in a Dairy Herd

Thu, 11 Apr 2024 21:41:59 GMT

The South Dakota Department of Agriculture (DANR) and the Animal Industry Board (AIB) have received confirmation from the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) National Veterinary Services Laboratory (NVSL) of the detection of highly pathogenic avian influenza in a dairy cattle herd in South Dakota.

This is the first confirmed case of HPAI in a dairy operation in South Dakota.

“South Dakota Dairy Producers encourage all dairy producers to closely monitor their herd and contact their herd veterinarian immediately if cattle appear symptomatic,” said Marv Post, Chairman of South Dakota Dairy Producers, in a prepared statement. “USDA continues to emphasize that pasteurization kills the virus and that milk and dairy products are safe to consume.”

Read the complete press release here .

Get the Facts Straight on Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza

Thu, 26 Sep 2024 19:12:13 GMT

Updated as of 4.10.24

Now that the mystery illness impacting dairy herds in multiple states has been revealed as the same strain of influenza virus [Influenza A (H5N1)] that has been impacting the U.S. poultry flock, pork producers are asking a lot of questions. Is this strain transmittable to pigs? Should livestock producers with cattle and pigs be concerned about cross-species transmission?

Those are all important questions, but understanding influenza is the best place to start, says National Pork Board chief veterinarian Dusty Oedekoven.

“Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) is influenza. HPAI is an official term defined by the severity of the mortality rate in poultry,” he explains.

Within strains of influenza A, the naming convention goes by two proteins on the outer surface of the virus: hemagglutinin (H type) and neuraminidase (N type). Typically, HPAI is of the H5 or H7 types, but there are many other possibilities as there are 18 hemagglutinin types and 11 neuraminidase types, he explains.

“Not all of those occur in poultry, not all of those occur in pigs, and not all of those occur in humans,” Oedekoven clarifies. “But the term highly pathogenic applies to poultry.”

He believes the reason it’s making headlines as HPAI is because it’s the same strain, H5N1, or similar strain that has been found recently in poultry where they have designated it as HPAI.

“Maybe that’s a narrow thing to tease apart,” he points out. “But in my mind, I hope we can separate that a little bit. This is influenza A virus.”

Influenza A viruses affect many warm-blooded animals, including birds and mammals. That’s nothing new, Oedekoven says. Influenza A viruses have been identified in cattle in the past, as well as swine and birds.

“If we think about influenza in domesticated species and humans, we are typically looking at the cycle between humans and pigs,” he says. “Pigs become amplifying hosts of influenza A viruses and the mixing vessel for different types of viruses, as are birds. Birds can get multiple viruses and those viruses mutate within the bird, and new strains evolve. That’s how we have new strains of the virus that emerge and become different strains.”

And that’s why receiving the annual flu vaccine is so important, he adds.

“It’s likely the vaccines we got last year were designed for a different strain than what we’re looking at this year because the virus reassorted and it’s slightly different. Scientists predicting which strain we might be dealing with for the vaccine are right sometimes, and sometimes they miss the mark a little and you may see more influenza in a given year,” he says.

Fact #1: The threat of influenza virus infection in people and pigs is ever present.

Oedekoven says he has not heard of the H5N1 strain being identified in pigs at this time.

“We know pigs are susceptible to influenza A viruses, and swine influe-nza is not uncommon in the U.S. We see outbreaks of routine swine influe-nza fairly frequently,” he says. “We don’t know if there’s any special higher risk of disease or illness or mortality for pigs due to this virus strain than any other swine influenza strain we have.”

The key is diligent observation. If producers see signs of illness in their pigs, Oedekoven urges them to contact their veterinarians.

On the same hand, if they see signs of respiratory illness or flu-like symptoms in people, seek advice from healthcare providers.

Influenza A viruses are common in people, just like they are pigs. Influenza viruses are constantly changing and reassorting.

“The threat of influenza virus infection in people and pigs is ever present. It’s why healthcare providers recommend people get annual influenza vaccines to prevent against new strains of the virus that are emerging all the time,” he says.

This doesn’t represent an elevated threat, Oedekoven adds.

“It’s recognition of a threat we know is there,” he says. “Influenza viruses exist and circulate in people all the time.”

Good sanitation and hygiene are important. If employers have workers who are ill with influenza signs, don’t let them come to work because they could potentially spread that disease to the pigs, which could cause more spread to other humans.

Fact #2: There’s no evidence to support a higher risk of influenza infection from cattle to pigs than exists otherwise.

“We’re not even sure yet to what extent this strain of influenza may be transmitted from cattle,” he says.

USDA reports bovine influenza A virus (originally referred to as HPAI in many reports) in dairy cattle was first identified in samples that included unpasteurized milk from one dairy farm in Texas and two in Kansas, as well as an oropharyngeal swab from another dairy in Texas. The virus was first confirmed in one Texas herd on March 21 by Iowa State University’s diagnostic lab that was helping Texas labs process samples more quickly. Affected farms also reported finding deceased wild birds on their properties.

“Most waterfowl and wild bird species can carry influenza viruses, but usually they don’t die from it. They are good carriers of it and can become infected and produce high levels of the virus and spread it. It’s always a good biosecurity practice to keep birds away from your pigs,” he says.

Remain Vigilant
Megan Niederwerder, executive director of the Swine Health Information Center (SHIC), encourages producers to keep close tabs on biosecurity protocols to reduce risk of pathogen exposure from wildlife.

“As part of the Swine Health Information Center’s Standardized Outbreak Investigation Form, there are several hazards associated with wild birds that can be proactively considered to enhance biosecurity,” Niederwerder explains.

Examples include surface water, wild bird access to inside swine barns, equipment stored outside, compost piles, mortality disposal boxes, open feed bags, open feed bin covers and feed spillage fed to pigs, she says.

“It is important to clean and disinfect tools and equipment with potential exposure to wildlife prior to utilizing inside facilities housing pigs,” Niederwerder says.     

Prompt investigation is key, Oedekoven says. This helps veterinarians and producers handle disease challenges better. USDA notes additional testing is underway, including genome sequencing, to characterize the strain(s) associated with the detections.

Spread the Word

Pork producers play an important role in disseminating truth, Oedekoven says. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, influenza has not been shown to spread through eating properly handled pork.

“You can’t get influenza from eating or handling pork,” Oedekoven emphasized. “There’s not a risk of acquiring influenza that way. The way that it is transmitted is through aerosolization and direct contact between infected animals, including humans.”

Read More:

Piecing the Puzzle Together: Diagnostic Monitoring and Flu Prevention

Veterinarians Answer Questions on Influenza

BREAKING: Mystery Illness Impacting Texas, Kansas Dairy Cattle is Confirmed as Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Strain

Meat Institute: Properly Prepared Beef is Safe to Eat; HPAI is not a Food Safety Threat

HPAI Now Detected on Ohio Dairy: Strange Bird Flu Concerns See Growth

Thu, 26 Sep 2024 19:03:23 GMT

Ohio has become the sixth state where dairy cattle have tested positive for highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), also known as bird flu. A recent news release from the Ohio Department of Agriculture (ODA) reports presumptive positive results from dairy cows in Wood County.

According to officials, the cows arrived in Wood County on March 8 from a dairy in Texas. That dairy later reported a confirmed case of HPAI. The Ohio dairy operation alerted state officials when the livestock began showing signs of illness. State officials are awaiting confirmation from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“We have official confirmation that we do have a case at a dairy in Wood County of HPAI, which is an influenza,” says ODA Director Brian Baldridge. “We’ve been working with this in the poultry industry for about the last two-and-a-half years and it has found its way into the dairy industry. We are working diligently with the dairy, with their vets and with our Animal Health division and our state veterinarian, Dr. (Dennis) Summers, on this issue.

According to the USDA, HPAI has now been detected in five other states, including:

Texas
Kansas
New Mexico,
Idaho
Michigan

“Clinically sick dairy cattle from affected herds range from 1% to 20%, with an average of 10% of the milking herd affected. There are no confirmed reports of death loss in dairy cattle directly attributed to these detections. Most sick cows begin recovering within a few days.”

“Federal and state agencies continue to conduct additional testing from sick animals and in unpasteurized clinical milk samples from sick animals, as well as viral genome sequencing, to assess whether HPAI or another unrelated illness may be underlying any symptoms,” the ODA reports.

The agency notes that clinically sick dairy cattle from affected herds range from 1% to 20%, with an average of 10% of the milking herd affected. Currently, there are no confirmed reports of death loss in dairy cattle directly attributed to these detections with most sick cows recovering within a few days.

HPAI symptoms in dairy cattle include:

Sudden drop in milk production.
Some severely impacted cows are producing thicker, more concentrated, colostrum-like milk.
Drop in feed consumption with a simultaneous drop in rumen function, accompanied by loose feces and some fever.
Impacted herds have reported older cows in mid-lactation may be more likely to be severely impacted than younger cows, fresh cows or heifers.
Some herds have reported pneumonia and mastitis.

Officials are strongly advising dairy producers to use all standard biosecurity measures. They note it’s important for producers to clean and disinfect all livestock watering devices and isolate drinking water where it might be contaminated by waterfowl. Farmers are also being asked to notify their herd veterinarian if they suspect any cattle within their herd are displaying symptoms of this condition.

For more on HPAI, read:

Top 10 States with the Largest Wild Pig Populations

Fri, 10 Nov 2023 17:21:31 GMT

Wild hog populations are continuing to spread and move north in the U.S. As one of the most destructive invasive animal species in the U.S., the significant increase in the wild hog population is of great concern to many. According to the USDA, wild hogs cause approximately $2.5 billion in agricultural damages each year.

It’s no wonder why the numbers are spiraling out of control. The species’ strength and rapid reproductive rate have led to exponential population growth: each litter of pigs averages around five offspring but can reach as many as 12, and wild sows average two litters per year.

Because wild hogs do not have substantial predators outside of humans and can live in a variety of climates, there is little to stop their continued spread, reports Captain Experiences in an analysis of the USDA and University of Georgia data.

As a whole, the southern states bring in the overwhelming majority of feral hog reports. Most states in the South have experienced hog sightings in at least 90% of their counties, the report says. The wild pig’s range has expanded more westward and northward over time, and states like California, Hawaii, Michigan and Pennsylvania now have fairly large feral hog populations as well.

The University of Georgia Center for Invasive Species and Ecosystem Health has been tracking feral hog sightings with their Early Detection & Distribution Mapping System (EDDMapS).

How is Your State’s Wild Pig Population?

^{Source: EDDMapS. 2023. Early Detection & Distribution Mapping System. The University of Georgia - Center for Invasive Species and Ecosystem Health. Available online at http://www.eddmaps.org/; last accessed November 10, 2023.}

A recent report highlights the number of feral hog reports throughout the country. The number of counties affected by wild hogs has nearly tripled since the early 1980s, from 550 in 1982 to 1,496 in 2023. Here’s a list of the top 10 states with the highest population of wild hogs.

1. Texas with 2,425 feral hog reports

2. Georgia with 1,377 feral hog reports

3. Florida with 1,193 feral hog reports

4. Mississippi with 731 feral hog reports

5. Oklahoma with 665 feral hog reports

6. Arkansas with 657 feral hog reports

7. North Carolina with 655 feral hog reports

8. Louisiana with 613 feral hog reports

9. Alabama with 590 feral hog reports

10. California with 563 feral hog reports

More from Farm Journal’s PORK:

A Sport Utility Vehicle for Disease: Wild Pigs Wreak Havoc

Is Missouri’s Feral Hog Population on the Decline?

Feral Swine Eradication Program Should Be Permanent, Senators Urge

Destructive, Formidable, Invasive: How is the U.S. Managing the Feral Hog Population?

Feral Swine Test Positive for Pseudorabies at Colorado Farm

Agro-Terrorism and the Food Supply Chain: This is a Different World, Rose Says

Mon, 10 Oct 2022 23:43:03 GMT

If you want to disrupt a government, disrupt the food supply.

“Agriculture is critical infrastructure,” Andrew Rose, strategic advisor to the food and agriculture supply chain, said during Farm Journal’s Farm Country Update on Sept. 28. “Three weeks without food and agriculture, and it’s over. You don’t mess with food and ag.”

Years ago, Rose was working at a large agricultural lender and decided to run a tabletop exercise as part of a teambuilding workshop simulating a ransomware attack on the company.

“Walking away from that exercise, I began thinking, is this a blind spot in the food and agriculture supply chain? Are we aware of the threats out there and the implications they can have? Not only to us as producers and processors, but to the entire critical infrastructure, and our ability to feed our population? I kept getting more questions than I got answers,” Rose said.

Since then, Rose has dedicated himself to helping the agricultural community get more prepared and understand the threats knocking at the gate.

What is Agro-Terrorism?

Agro-terrorism, or the deliberate introduction of a disease agent against livestock or into the food chain, is typically a tactic that can be used to either generate or cause mass socio-economic disruption or as a form of direct human aggression. Rose says there are a lot of definitions out there, but from his research, for a terrorist act to occur, there needs to be violence.

He said the FBI constantly hammers home the concept of sympathy versus action. Rose points out that having strong feelings about something isn’t wrong – acting on it is.

“There’s a First Amendment right to say and feel what you want to about any given subject. You can walk outside and put posters up, you can get a bullhorn, cowbells, whatever you want. As soon as you take an action, though, that’s when things change. That’s when risk and consequence come into the equation,” Rose said.

For the agriculture community in particular, it hurts when someone stands outside of your property and waves a sign, says bad things or shows a picture of things that aren’t true, he said. But until these people take action – until they steal some pigs or commit an act of violence – it’s their right to do that.

“It’s a hard pill to swallow, but it’s something that if you go to the FBI, they’ll say sympathy versus action,” Rose said. “Don’t take that action.”

How Can You Protect Yourself and Your Farm?

1. Pay attention to the threat actors.
Know who the threat actors are, including transnational terrorist groups, domestic terrorists, corporate espionage and activists. Engage with organizations like the Animal Agriculture Alliance and Protect the Harvest to keep up to date on threats and movements. Subscribe to their newsletters and learn from their experts.

2. Guard yourself on social media.
“Not only is social media a real threat, it’s an ongoing threat,” Rose said.

When he’s speaking to agricultural audiences, the first thing he tells them to do is go to Facebook, click on their privacy settings, and find out which apps and websites they are connected to with their account. Some apps can trick you into clicking “OK” allowing them to sell your information to third parties.

“There are computer programs scraping every bit of social engineering that’s publicly available on every human being and compiling it so they have those demographical profiles, whether it’s specific to you as an individual, or you as a class of individuals for certain types of messaging,” Rose said.

3. Beware of passive insider threats.
Passive insider threats are people who resist change and fall victim to social engineering. Sometimes, they’re told to do certain phishing exercises, or complete multi-factor authentication for their accounts, and they ignore it.

“They use their work devices to go to personal websites or places they probably shouldn’t go and they click on things they shouldn’t click on. Every employee of every company or organization is part of its cybersecurity defense,” Rose said. “If they’re not paying attention, if they’re not actively aware of the opportunity that threat actors are looking for, and they’re just letting them in, that’s a big insider threat.”

4. Know your FBI agent.
If something happens to your organization, whether it’s a terrorist attack or cybercriminal attack, it’s likely you will be in a high state of emotion. Rose said that’s probably the last time you want to make your first introduction to your FBI agent.

“There are 56 field offices across the United States. The FBI is there to help victims of crimes, they’re not going to go through your filing cabinets and look for other things. They want to help you. They want to figure out who did it, how they did it, and they want to go and oppose risk and consequence on your behalf,” Rose said.

That is why he suggests calling your local FBI agent or at least finding your point of contact before a problem happens.

“The world will never be the way it was – those days are gone, it is not coming back,” Rose said. “The world is as it is today, and we need to be realistic about how it’s going to be tomorrow. The ability for us in the U.S. to feed our population, that’s the North Star. Let’s make sure we do that. Be suspicious and be aware, this is a different world.”

Check out Farm Country Update and learn more from Andrew Rose about how you can protect yourself, your farm and your agricultural business.

New Study Investigates Feed Mill Decontamination in the Event of an ASF Outbreak

Tue, 01 Feb 2022 15:11:07 GMT

A new research study will evaluate methods for cleaning and disinfecting feed mills following a potential African swine fever (ASF) outbreak. The information gained will inform North American feed industries’ ASF preparedness plans as well as feed mill biosecurity plans to minimize supply chain and trade disruptions in the event of an outbreak.

The study is being conducted by the Institute for Feed Education and Research (IFEEDER), Animal Nutrition Association of Canada (ANAC), United Soybean Board (USB) and the Swine Health Information Center (SHIC).

“SHIC continues to look into all routes of entry and dissemination of emerging diseases, not just to identify these pathways, but to do something about them with research of this kind,” SHIC Executive Director Paul Sundberg, DVM, said in a release. “With partnership across the allied feed-related groups to benefit the U.S. swine herd, SHIC is encouraged to see this project move forward. We have learned that once ASF virus is in a feed mill, it will remain in that environment for a long time. This work is essential to address this risk to the U.S. swine herd.”

Over the course of 12-18 months, researchers will examine optimal methods for disinfecting feed mills, especially looking at feed manufacturing equipment that is not designed for disinfection. Researchers will test several disinfection and flushing procedures using three viruses known to be most stable in feed and endemic in the U.S., SHIC reports. Those viruses include Seneca Virus A (SVA), porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDv) and porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV). Researchers will also determine the infectivity of feed and environmental samples after completely flushing and decontaminating equipment.

Feed inoculation and manufacturing will occur in Kansas State University’s Cargill Feed Safety Research Center, which includes a pilot-scale feed mill with pelleting capabilities and is approved for handling biosafety level 2 pathogens, Sundberg said. The infectivity of the samples will take place at Iowa State University.

“Over the past few years, the U.S. feed industry has taken steps to improve its biosecurity procedures to reduce the risk of ASF introduction and transmission at feed mills, such as voluntarily holding ingredients for extended periods and reducing foot-traffic onsite,” Lara Moody, IFEEDER executive director, said in a release. “Now, we are looking at filling knowledge gaps within the milling process – should an outbreak occur. There are currently no recommendations for best practices to clean and disinfect a feed manufacturing facility experiencing ASF contamination. With the support of American Feed Industry Association members, we are backing this research to provide guidance to companies to quickly and safely get their operations back up and running, minimizing any long-term shutdowns, which could have detrimental food supply chain and economic consequences.”

Although ASF poses no health concerns to humans, it is a highly contagious and deadly viral disease affecting pigs and has devastated swine industries across Africa, Europe and Asia. In the summer of 2021, it was detected in the Dominican Republic and Haiti, the closest it has ever been to the U.S. mainland.

“The Canadian feed industry recognizes the devastating impact the introduction of ASF in North America would have on the swine industry,” Melissa Dumont, ANAC’s executive director, said in a release. “A strong biosecurity and supplier approval program is key to keeping animal diseases out of feed mills and these programs continue to evolve as the science evolves. However, if ASF were to be introduced in North America and enter feed mills, facilities are lacking the crucial information on how to decontaminate a feed mill. ANAC is excited to support this research project, which will provide critically important knowledge so we can adequately be prepared in the event of an outbreak and continue to provide all livestock with safe feed.”

More from Farm Journal’s PORK:

Why the U.S. Pork Industry Won’t Forget 2021

Close All the Windows to Keep ASF Out

ASF in the Western Hemisphere: What’s Different 40 Years Later?

It’s Time to Batten Down the Hatches, Pork Industry Experts Say

Learn more about what the industry is doing to prevent ASF from entering the country.

Ordinary to Outrageous: Top 10 Agricultural Seizures of 2021

Wed, 19 Jan 2022 20:42:12 GMT

It’s no surprise pork products made the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) Top 10 Agriculture Seizures of 2021 list more than once. Keeping deadly diseases of plants and animals out of the U.S. is a high priority for CBP, especially as the deadly African swine fever (ASF) virus moves closer to the U.S.

In the past year alone, CBP issued 73,917 emergency action notifications for restricted and prohibited plant and animal products entering the U.S., the agency reports . In addition, CBP conducted 630,150 positive passenger inspections and issued 7,190 civil penalties and/or violations to the traveling public for failing to declare prohibited agriculture items.

Here are the Top 10 agricultural finds of 2021 from throughout the U.S.:

1. Papaya-Hidden Marijuana

In February, CBP officers at the commercial facility at the Otay Mesa Port of Entry seized more than 12,000 pounds of marijuana with a street value of $27 million found commingled within a shipment of papayas. A CBP narcotic detector dog immediately alerted to the shipment during a second inspection, and officers discovered 873 wrapped packages of marijuana.

2. Avian Eggs

In April, CBP ag specialists at the port of Memphis, Tenn., inspected a shipment from China on its way to New York City manifested as “The Scarf” and found that the shipment actually contained 750 unfertilized avian eggs. According to USDA, China is currently affected with Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza and Newcastle Disease, both of which are highly contagious and fatal to the U.S. poultry industry and various avian wildlife. The eggs were not accompanied by any documentation detailing the genus or species, nor was there any indication of their purpose, so they were destroyed.

3. Giant Land Snails and a ¼ Pound of Beef

CBP ag specialists working at the George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston intercepted 15 live giant land snails from a passenger’s luggage in early July. The passenger was traveling from Nigeria and initially only declared dried beef, but later amended her declaration to include live snails. During an examination of the passenger’s luggage, agriculture specialists found three plastic zip-closed bags containing the live snails with fresh leaves and about a quarter pound of beef. The snails were turned over to USDA, who identified the snails as giant land snails, also known as banana rasp snails.

4. Pork Sausages

In August, CBP agriculture specialists assigned to the Boston Logan International Airport encountered a 35-year-old female arriving from Santiago, Dominican Republic. During a baggage examination, 11 kilograms of pork sausages were discovered. Just a month prior, Dominican Republic officials confirmed the presence of African swine fever, a highly contagious disease of feral and domestic swine. The pork sausages at the Boston airport were removed and turned over to a USDA hauler for destruction.

Ag specialists uncovered 320 pounds of pork bologna and 30 pounds of turkey ham at the Paso Del Norte Border Crossing. Photo by U.S. CBP.

5. A Bunch of Bologna

CBP ag specialists assigned to the Paso Del Norte Border Crossing seized 320 pounds of pork bologna and 30 pounds of turkey ham in August. The meat was discovered during an inspection and had been hidden under blankets, under the seats, center console and inside a duffel bag. The individual was issued a $1,000 civil penalty, and the products were confiscated.

6. Botulinum and E.coli DNA Plasmids

A traveler arriving from Japan “reluctantly declared” he was in possession of Botulinum and E. coli DNA plasmids intended for research in September, CBP reports. An inspection revealed 27 vials of the biological material. The traveler lacked the required documents, including the official statement attesting to the non-infectiousness of the material, required by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). After reviewing the samples, CDC agreed that more information was needed to determine admissibility. The traveler withdrew his application for admission to the U.S. and returned to his country with the biological materials.

7. Butterfly Larvae

Also in September, CBP agriculture specialists at the Port of Gulfport discovered a butterfly larvae pest, informally known as the Saunders 1850, while inspecting a shipment container of pineapples from Costa Rica. Due to the potential impact to U.S. agriculture, the shipment of pineapples, worth $15,000, was destroyed. According to USDA, this was the first time this species had been discovered in the United States.

8. Primate Arms, Dry Fish, Cooked Snails, Cow Skin and What?

In October, CBP’s agriculture team in Minneapolis discovered six large bags containing clothing, two primate arms, dry fish, cooked snails, plant material, cow skin, bushmeat and eru plant material. After notifying the CDC, the team seized the primate arms and bushmeat and destroyed them according to USDA protocol. The seeds were submitted to USDA for identification and the passenger was informed of human-health concerns with handling and consuming bushmeat, including the potential transmission of ebola and monkeypox viruses.

A total of 47 roosters and hens were found wrapped in stockings inside a purse, and underneath the seats, floor mats, inside the glove compartment and trunk of a vehicle at the Laredo Port of Entry. Photo by U.S. CBP.

9. Live Poultry

CBP officers at the Laredo Port of Entry intercepted a l arge clutch of live poultry hidden throughout a vehicle back in November. A total of 47 roosters and hens were found wrapped in stockings inside a purse, and underneath the seats, floor mats, inside the glove compartment and trunk of a vehicle in the SENTRI lane. A $500 penalty was issued to the driver for attempting to import prohibited agriculture items while being a SENTRI card holder. The SENTRI card was turned in to the SENTRI Enrollment Center, the vehicle was seized by CBP under 19 USC 1595, and the live poultry were seized and transferred to USDA’s Veterinary Services.

10. Fresh Peppers

In December, CBP ag specialists in Newark encountered a shipment of fresh peppers from Guatemala. During document review, the provided phytosanitary certificate, which must be used to facilitate importer plants and plant products, was blurry, and an original certificate could not be found. It was later discovered that the certification was fraudulent, which can alter the options for phytosanitary actions that must be taken to prevent the entry of plant pests, prohibited plant products, or animal products capable of introducing foreign animal diseases.

In an attempt to ease the process for travelers needing to declare agriculture and biological products prior to arriving at an airport in the U.S., CBP has moved the declaration process to the CBP One mobile application, which will give travelers more transparency throughout the request process, including real-time status updates by way of pushed notifications, which can also be sent to a group email, CBP reports. Travelers can also upload documents such as accompanying permits, certificates or statements of non-infectiousness for CBP review prior to arrival. Learn more here .

More from Farm Journal’s PORK:

The Chickens That Didn’t Cross the Road in Laredo

$53 million in narcotics found in truck carrying Mexican cauliflower

Federal Agents Prevent Smuggled Animal Products from Entering the U.S.

K-9 “Kody” Sniffs Out Prohibited Sausages at Newark Airport

U.S. Customs and Border Protection intercepts meth in strawberries

CBP Ag Specialists Block Bologna at Border Crossing

DC Signal to Noise: Immigration and Infrastructure Heat Up

Mon, 20 Sep 2021 22:03:06 GMT

Pro Farmer policy analyst Jim Wiesemeyer and AgriTalk host Chip Flory discuss many topics including the situation at the southern border with Haitians and others trying to immigrate to the United States, the latest on the battle over the infrastructure bill(s), and more.

Watch the video above or listen to the podcast below for discussion on these topics and more:

Wild Pigs Could Trigger Decimation of US Pork Industry

Tue, 13 Jul 2021 20:35:35 GMT

What happens when wild pigs are given 1,000 tons of groceries per day in the form of landfill trash? Expect an explosion in pig and litter size, and quite possibly, a $50 billion decimation of the entire U.S. pork industry.

The Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina has become ground zero for research drawing a nexus between wild pigs and the potential introduction of African swine fever (ASF) into the U.S. At an SRS location, wild pigs have grown notably bigger and birthed larger litters in just a handful of years, attributable to the establishment of a landfill—a veritable hog buffet. The SRS landfill and other similar refuse dumps across the U.S. may be ticking time bombs, and could open America’s door to ASF, an epic porcine disease with no vaccine or cure, and a century-long track record of sweeping over international borders and wiping out billions of pigs.

Sooner or Later?

In the sandhills region of western South Carolina, roughly 25 miles east of Augusta, Ga., the Department of Energy’s SRS covers a massive 198,046 acres across three counties (Aiken, Allendale, and Barnwell). The wild pig population of the general area has long been tracked by Jack Mayer, R&D manager at the Savannah River National Laboratory , and John Kilgo, research wildlife biologist for the U.S. Forest Service Southern Research Station .

In 2021, Mayer and Kilgo (along with Tommy Edwards and James Garabedian) published “Sanitary Waste Landfill Effects on an Invasive Wild Pig Population,” a report that turns anecdotal evidence into concrete fact. The report pulls back the curtain on an all-you-can-eat wild pig party, and the results are sobering, particularly when considering ASF ramifications.

In 1998, within an 8,000-acre wildlife management zone encompassed by the greater SRS region, Three Rivers Solid Waste Authority (TRSWA) began operation of an open (no fencing) 331-acre landfill encompassed by woods and shouldered in close proximity by two roads. The landfill’s actual garbage pits covered 69 acres and received 1,000 tons of waste each day—a magnet for wild pigs already capable of obtaining food from a litany of sources. A wild pig’s dietary latitude is phenomenal, from foraging roots, to accessing tree nuts, to hitting a freshly planted row of corn, to consuming the remains of dead mammals, or to functioning as a predator, i.e., the modus operandi of a truly opportunistic, efficient omnivore.

By at least 2001, wild pig sounders regularly were trafficking into the SRS landfill under cover of darkness and usually exiting close to dawn. By 2009, TRSWA employees reported 100-plus wild pigs foraging in the garbage pits every night. With plenty of cover and water in the surrounding wooded hills and hardwood bottoms, the wild pigs had maintained steady presence inside the area since the 1950s, but their numbers remained relatively stable. The landfill, however, upended the calculus.

In 2013, Kilgo began a telemetry study of mature sows with sounders in the vicinity of the landfill, utilizing trail cameras, trapping, and radio collars. His cameras positioned close to the TRSWA landfill told no lies: to the naked eye, the wild pigs appeared substantially larger when compared with pre-landfill photos and first-hand sightings. “John had pictures of pigs he was collaring and they were big, really big,” Mayer says. “I’ve been studying wildlife here since 1976 and I could tell instantly these pigs were bigger. Huge.”

“When I started trapping,” Kilgo concurs, “it was immediately obvious that pigs close to the landfill were noticeably bigger than pigs in the rest of the area. The telemetry showed them going to the landfill on a nightly basis. I imagine the jump in size began immediately after the landfill was first built.”

“It’s intuitive,” Mayer adds. “Let pigs into a landfill and they get free food, and they’ll increase in size, right? But no research had ever looked into exactly what else happens, and some of the answers we found should make people think hard about what could happen—sooner or later—in this country, and how devastating it could be for the pork industry.”

“In Front of Our Face”

Wild pigs have exploded in numbers across the U.S., possibly exceeding 6.5 million in just under 40 states, and their proliferation involves far more than a high birth rate and extreme intelligence. Wild pig control has become one of the greatest challenges in U.S. wildlife management history, and wild pig prosperity is partially due to a hog’s ability to thrive on a wide range of food sources—such as the fare offered in a landfill.

On control data ranging back to the 1970s, Mayer’s team already had a wealth of continuous SRS wild pig cull statistics in pocket. Across 11,296 hogs spread from 1980 to 2019, they found post-landfill weight gains in both sexes and all age classes. Comparing two lump sums from pre- and post-landfill wild pigs, weight gain averaged 20 lb. across all ages and both sexes (a shocking number considering the average includes piglets and juveniles). As a telltale exclamation point, the largest wild pigs ever killed at SRS were shot in woods within range of the landfill in 2018—a 400 lb. sow and 450 lb. boar.

“The research is striking in the pig size difference, especially in how fast this happened,” Kilgo notes. “There was one piglet we tagged at three weeks old and 8 lb. in weight, and we killed it a year and a half later at 250 lb.—an incredible rate of growth. All things being equal, he should have been about 130-140 lb., but most definitely not at 250.”

Further, with 799 sows harvested from 1980 to 2019, fetal litter in post-landfill sows registered at 7.1 piglets, compared with 5.9 for pre-landfill sows—just over one piglet in difference. The in utero litter increase of the single piglet meant a massive change in wild pig numbers. “The population modeling by increasing litter size as such over 10 years means a population difference of double in size—a huge difference,” Mayer explains. (He estimates close to 5,000 wild pigs currently inhabit the area.)

Following the thread, Mayer and Kilgo recorded a third category of significance directly related to wild pig size and frequency of travel in and out of the landfill: wild pig-motor vehicle collisions. According to data gathered since the mid-1970s, the SRS site had no recorded wild pig-motor vehicle collisions on either of the two roads (one private, one public) adjacent to the pre-landfill area, despite the constant presence of wild pigs in that area of SRS the entire time.

However, from 2000 onward, the same two roads experienced 20 wild pig-motor vehicle collisions, with at least 14 of the accidents occurring within an hour on either side of sunset or sunrise—the exact window wild pigs enter and exit the landfill for nightly foraging. “There were no collisions for a couple of decades, and then wild pig traffic shot up, and got so bad we had to put up the first ‘Hog Crossing’ signs in South Carolina,” Mayer says.

Considering the jump in size, fetal litter, and vehicle collisions, Mayer wasn’t surprised to see the wild pig population around the landfill possibly triple in size. “Control activities around the whole site are implemented uniformly by sending in subcontractors to kill wild pigs, but around the landfill, the harvest numbers tripled. We’ve never seen anything like this, and it means the landfill situation is producing bigger hogs, more hogs, and a safety risk. Allowing wild pigs access to a landfill is counter to controlling wild pigs.”

Yet, beyond wild pig control, the gravity of the Mayer-Kilgo research is noted in the report’s conclusion: “Several credible scenarios exist for the introduction of ASFV (African swine fever Virus) into the United States. Based on the paths of transmission across Eurasia, a number of these scenarios involve wild pigs foraging in landfills.”

Mayer offers a blunt, vernacular translation. “ASF could wreck the U.S. pork industry, and this is right in front of our face, and there are plenty of experts that believe ASF in the U.S. is just a matter of time. We know landfills played a role in ASF transmission in other parts of the world, and we know wild pigs are accessing landfills across the U.S. right now and could consume contaminated pork products. Look what just happened to China in 2019. They had about 440,000,000 pigs when ASF hit, the largest herd in the world, and had to kill at least 200,000,000.”

Game Over

ASF unleashes a sledgehammer effect on pig health, and triggered the death of a quarter (or more) of the world’s pig population over the last several years. The virus often carries a mortality rate close to 100% and is the kiss of death for a hog herd. If the virus reaches the U.S. pork industry, long-term losses are projected as high as $50 billion, according to a 2020 report partially funded by Iowa State University.

The report projects a strong possibility of ASF entry into the U.S. domestic pig herd through back door access: “The likelihood of the disease entering the U.S. through illegal entry of swine products and byproducts is high…”

“Illegal entry” of ASF into the U.S. is the precise scenario fostered by landfills and wild pigs, Mayer contends. “We’ve watched ASF spread like wildfire to the Middle East, Eurasia, Russia, Korea, China, and now into Western Europe. Landfills were a big component of ASF’s expansion in other parts of the world, and the same thing could happen here. We’ve never had an ASF outbreak in the U.S., and the last thing our pork industry wants is that economic devastation.”

Landfills, potentially the domain of heavy wild pig presence, are often the final destination for pork products illegally brought into the U.S., Mayer continues. “We get people from Asia coming into airports carrying pork products, and that pork gets confiscated by airport authorities. Everyone knows this has been going on, and still is. The confiscated pork gets thrown in the landfill, and all it takes is one sample infected with ASF to send the virus through a wild pig population, and eventually right into the domestic herd. We’ve got specially trained beagles in our airports (USDA’s Beagle Brigade ) seeking out pork products—that’s how serious the situation is.”

The U.S. has at least 500 active landfills, most with no fences, and many within easy access of wild pigs. “Seminole County Landfill near Orlando, or Guadalupe Landfill beside San Jose, or landfills at Fort Rucker, Alabama, or so many other landfills; take your pick,” Mayer says. “I wish they would put fencing up, but that’s probably not likely due to the expense.”

“If you want to prevent ASF from having a greater likelihood of entering the U.S. pork industry, open access landfills are counter to that prevention,” Mayer adds. “We’re talking about high-stakes ASF consequence and the potential devastation for American pork. In many ways, ASF could be game over.”

For more stories from Chris Bennett (cbennett@farmjournal.com), see:

While America Slept, China Stole the Farm

Where’s the Beef: Con Artist Turns Texas Cattle Industry Into $100M Playground

The Arrowhead whisperer: Stunning Indian Artifact Collection Found on Farmland

Fleecing the Farm: How a Fake Crop Fueled a Bizarre $25 Million Ag Scam

Truth, Lies, and Wild Pigs: Missouri Hunter Prosecuted on Presumption of Guilt?

US Farming Loses the King of Combines

Ghost in the House: A Forgotten American Farming Tragedy

Rat Hunting with the Dogs of War, Farming’s Greatest Show on Legs

Misfit Tractors a Money Saver for Arkansas Farmer

Predator Tractor Unleashed on Farmland by Ag’s True Maverick

Government Cameras Hidden on Private Property? Welcome to Open Fields

Farmland Detective Finds Youngest Civil War Soldier’s Grave?

Descent Into Hell: Farmer Escapes Corn Tomb Death

Evil Grain: The Wild Tale of History’s Biggest Crop Insurance Scam

Grizzly Hell: USDA Worker Survives Epic Bear Attack

A Skeptical Farmer’s Monster Message on Profitability

Farmer Refuses to Roll, Rips Lid Off IRS Behavior

Killing Hogzilla: Hunting a Monster Wild Pig

Shattered Taboo: Death of a Farm and Resurrection of a Farmer

Frozen Dinosaur: Farmer Finds Huge Alligator Snapping Turtle Under Ice

Breaking Bad: Chasing the Wildest Con Artist in Farming History

In the Blood: Hunting Deer Antlers with a Legendary Shed Whisperer

Corn Maverick: Cracking the Mystery of 60-Inch Rows

Against All Odds: Farmer Survives Epic Ordeal

Agriculture’s Darkest Fraud Hidden Under Dirt and Lies

The Wild Hog Knows No Fear: True Stories of One of Ag’s Biggest Threats

Tue, 06 Apr 2021 17:44:28 GMT

“The wild hog is very possibly the most dangerous animal in the wild. And he knows no enemies and he knows no fear,” says Hank Berdine of the Mississippi Levee Board in a new video series, Feral Swine in America.

Listen to true stories from farmers and ranchers in a gut-wrenching new video series from USDA that chronicles the impact of feral swine damage on American livelihoods and ecosystems. Through personal accounts from farmers, ranchers, land managers, conservationists, and others who deal with feral swine damage, this series aims to show the heartache caused by one of the country’s most invasive enemies.

Berdine tells his story in Episode 1, describing the Mississippi levee system that protects the area from Memphis, Tenn., to Vicksburg, Miss.

“The integrity of the levee has to be such that during high water times, we do not have any weak spots in the levy, any areas where trucks have rutted the levy up and could cause erosion. When hogs come out of the woods and go rooting around, they’ll root up an area half as big as a football field in a couple of nights. It’s decimating the integrity of that levee,” Berdine explains. “We’ve got to go in after those hogs damage it and fix those areas because we cannot afford to go into a flood situation with these areas like that.”

“Lots of times when I get up in the morning and go out into the river or out in the woods, it absolutely just chokes me up to see what we have right here in this area and how the hogs are destroying a good bit of it,” he shares.

USDA estimates that feral swine cause more than $1.5 billion annually in damage and management costs nationwide. Berdine is concerned about what that means for the future of areas like the Mississippi Levee that he works so hard to protect.

Source: Episode 1, Feral Swine in America, YouTube

“Lots of times when I get up to go duck hunting in the winter time on a Sunday morning, folks say ‘you aren’t going to church?’” Berdine says. “I tell them, ‘I’m sitting in my church. I’m out here right now amongst all of God’s great glory and creation. In the woods is as good a church to me as going into a brick-and-mortar church.’”

The USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) partnered with MODOC Stories to create the video series and tell stories like Berdine’s.

“We wanted to highlight how diverse and widespread feral swine damage can be. So, we reached out to ordinary people in Mississippi, Oklahoma and Texas to share their personal stories,” explains Dr. Dale Nolte, National Manager of the APHIS National Feral Swine Damage Management Program.

To date, the series includes three short videos ranging in topics from feral swine damage to farms, ranches, and levee systems to archaeological sites, native wildlife, and natural resources. To view the free videos, visit APHIS’ Feral Swine in America YouTube site or click on the episode links below:

• Episode 1 - Mississippi
• Episode 2 - Oklahoma
• Episode 3 - Texas

Future episodes will focus on feral swine damage management and removal efforts and impacts to endangered species in California and Georgia.

The APHIS National Feral Swine Damage Management Program was established in 2014 with the overarching goal to protect agriculture and natural resources, property, animal health, and human health and safety by managing damage caused by feral swine in the United States and its territories. APHIS also collaborates with Canada and Mexico to support border activities and facilitate an informational exchange on feral swine disease monitoring and control activities.

Read more stories of wild pig encounters here:

Killing Hogzilla: Hunting A Monster Wild Pig

Monster-Sized Wild Pigs are on the Rise in Canada

Wild Pig Wars: Controversy Over Hunting, Trapping in Missouri

Texas Pork Producers Face Uphill Battle with Wild Pigs

Deadly Terrorist Threatens the Lone Star State’s Domestic Pig Herd

March of the Wild Pigs

Wild Pig Bomb Still Rocking Agriculture

Wild Pig Explosion Starts in Belly of the Beast

Tue, 02 Mar 2021 19:48:00 GMT

Slicing into a wild pig killed overnight during a research cull, a student of Dr. Steve Ditchkoff expects the unexpected. Another wild pig, another necropsy, and quite possibly—another surprise. Roots, vegetation, seeds, pecans or acorns, insects, rabbit, deer: What is inside the belly of this particular pig?

As the blade cuts through the stomach wall, 53 toads spill from the cavity—telltale evidence of a phenomenally adaptive creature geared for survival. “There’s not an animal in North America that compares with the opportunism of a wild pig,” Ditchkoff says. “If you take away invasive pythons in Florida, wild pigs are unquestionably the No. 1 vertebrate pest in the country, and they’re responsible for untold amounts of destruction.”

Truly. And 53 toads is merely a tiny dish on a buffet line with no end. Wild pigs have exploded in numbers across the United States, possibly exceeding 6.5 million in just under 40 states, assisted in great part by car wheels on gravel—human transport, and their proliferation involves far more than an outrageously high birth rate and extreme intelligence. Without exaggeration, wild pig control is one of the greatest challenges in U.S. wildlife management history, and in many ways, wild pig prosperity is partially due to a hog’s ability to eat like a human, i.e., the truth is in the fascinating belly of a beast like no other.

Opportunistic Masterclass

How can a creature that eats almost anything be controlled? The latitude in a wild pig’s ability to source food is astounding, from foraging roots in the woods, to feasting in a pecan orchard, to hitting a freshly planted row of corn and precision-rooting seed every 6” for 100 yards, to consuming the remains of dead mammals, or to functioning as a predator, says Ditchkoff , a wildlife biologist at Auburn University, and one of the top wild pig specialists in the U.S., as he recalls a chilling lesson witnessed firsthand during a nighttime harvest of wild pigs in Alabama in 2006. Under cover of darkness en route to cull a wild pig, Ditchkoff heard the bleats of a fawn, and upon locating the source of distress, shot a wild pig in the process of consuming the dying deer. During the subsequent necropsy, Ditchkoff’s team found several feet of the deer’s intestines inside the wild pig. (Anecdotally, multiple accounts exist from farmers and landowners observing cannibalistic behavior of wild pigs feeding off the carcasses of their own species.)

Suffice to note, the capability of wild pigs to ingest a wide spectrum of food relates directly to their ability to cause havoc on U.S. farmland. Annually, APHIS estimates wild pig damage to the U.S. agriculture economy at $1.5 billion, but Ditchkoff, author and co-editor of Invasive Wild Pigs in North America: Ecology, Impacts, and Management , believes the true dollar amount may be significantly higher. “We don’t have solid numbers on the losses inflicted on ag by wild pigs, and the numbers we do have are low on detail. There have been several studies in recent years, but they haven’t come to a reliable, comprehensive conclusion. I think $1.5 billion is low because it doesn’t factor in water quality effects and ecological damage that can’t be enumerated.”

In 2016, APHIS estimated the total U.S. wild pig population at 6 million across almost 40 states—a glaringly high number considering wild pigs may have numbered as low as 500,000 prior to 1990.

Jack Mayer, manager of the Environmental Sciences and Biotechnology Group at the Savannah River National Laboratory in Aiken, S.C., pegs the wild pig population at 6.3 million, with an overall possible range of 4 million to 11 million. Wild pigs breed year-round and sows produce two litters per year—six piglets on average, but litters can be as large as 12 piglets.

Although rare, sows are biologically capable of conception as early as four months and boars are sexually mature at five months, according to Mayer. There are two general ruts, but wild pigs mate year-round, and sows give birth every month of the year.

The average wild pig age is 1.5 years, with the oldest animals living 8 to 10 years. Sows and litters run together, often in multiple groups, but mature boars tend to be solitary except during breeding. Boars average 200 lb. (but can reach up to 500-600 lb.) and sows average 170 lb. in size, and can run at speeds nearing 30 mph, and cross rivers or bodies of water with relative ease.

Breeding rate, physical prowess, and intelligence are enough to make wild pigs a grand survivor, but when dietary superpowers are tossed in the mix, wild pigs are elevated to an opportunistic masterclass. One serving or another, nature’s trough provides a feast for wild pigs—but, surprise, gluttony plays a minimal role.

Wild Pig Shangri-La

“Despite public perception, wild pigs are no more gluttonous than any other animal,” Ditchkoff notes. “Their metabolism and digestive system is extremely similar to humans. If you really want to know the dietary possibilities of a wild pig, just consider whatever a human can eat and then some.”

The perception of a wild pig as more ravenous than other mammals partially is due to the manner in which they acquire food—much of which is below the surface, Ditchkoff notes. Extraordinary diggers and rooters of the animal kingdom, wild pigs sport an hourglass nasal bone floating in cartilage that provides backing for the nasal pad on the snout, enabling pigs to lean in when rooting with amazingly strong neck muscles, often leaving acres of pasture and row crop ground with a strafe-bombed appearance. Yet, the same snout capable of operating as a porcine bulldozer is also highly sensitive to smell, picking up scents from five to seven miles away, or 20’-plus below the surface.

Wild pigs begin consumption of normal food at roughly two weeks of age, but are not weaned for several months. (The timeline is similar to whitetail fawns, which begin eating vegetation at three to four weeks, but still suckle.) Wild pig diet is 80-90% plant matter, depending on the time of year. “No. 1, they go after roots, and No. 2, plants that store lots of carbohydrates,” Ditchkoff explains. “For example, they absolutely love longleaf pine root systems, and will hammer a line of seedlings to get the starch and carbohydrates.”

Given opportunity, or pressed by necessity, wild pigs switch to earthworms, insects, larvae, turtle eggs, ground-nesting birds, reptiles, amphibians, and mammalian carcasses. An average boar (200 lb.) requires at least 3,000 calories a day (paralleling a human of equal size), but spends additional energy searching and foraging for food sources, requiring a caloric increase. (Caloric requirements for pregnant sows don’t increase significantly, Ditchkoff notes, but protein requirements shoot up during the last trimester of pregnancy and during lactation.)

“This is the top find-it-and-take-advantage animal,” Ditchkoff describes. “Just look at Texas, where wild pigs are the second greatest predator of livestock in some parts of the state, eating newborns, and a lot of the time ranchers don’t even find out because there is nothing left.”

The common assumption that winter months are hardest on wild pig food sourcing may be in error, Ditchkoff says: “Their diet just hasn’t been examined in detail as with other species. The focus has been on how to get rid of wild pigs, but not much research has examined how they function. I’m not convinced the winter is that much harder on them, because in winter, plants store energy in root systems and the pigs have an opportunity to feast, but in summer, plants generally send energy into the leaves, and wild pigs are not leaf eaters. They don’t feed like deer. Winter may or may not be harder, but I’m not going to assume.”

All things considered, farmland is a wild pig Shangri-La: a grocery store surrounded by trees. Crop fields, pasture, timber, ponds, bottoms and irrigation sources provide food, water and cover. From a wild pig’s survivalist perspective: Why leave?

“Like No Animal In The Wild”

For over 40 years, and certainly the last two decades, wildlife biologists have tried to document the destructive behavior of wild pigs in order to control the species, with few research exceptions. Over the last several years, researchers have begun looking deeper at wild pig biology: “If we can understand their biology, then we can better control them, and understanding diet is a significant part of that.”

“There are still so many things about wild pigs we don’t know,” Ditchkoff continues. “We know very little about juvenile survival, because we don’t radio collar piglets like we do fawns. We don’t know how males move, because we typically put radio collars on females. We don’t know the extent of their effect on water quality, but we do know it is scary. Diet is one of those things we need to know more about to really understand the overall impact of wild pig populations.”

In 2020, Ditchkoff co-authored and co-edited the aforementioned Invasive Wild Pigs in North America: Ecology, Impacts, and Management , a winner of a Wildlife Publication Award , and a reference guide on wild pig behavior, ecology, management and overall outlook. (Ditchkoff’s co-contributors were Kurt VerCauteren , National Wildlife Research Center; James Beasley , University of Georgia; Jack Mayer , Savannah River National Laboratory, Gary Roloff, Michigan State University; and Bronson Strickland , Mississippi State University.

“There was a group of us working on this book,” Ditchkoff says, “and we wanted to provide a reference for students, scientists, wildlife managers or anyone involved with wild pigs.”

The final chapter of Invasive Wild Pigs in North America takes a look at the future—and Ditchkoff predicts positive changes on the horizon. “Twenty years ago, there was such little optimism in stopping wild pigs, but we’ve acquired so much knowledge, and I think we’re going to see a major difference downward in wild pig numbers. Toxicants are showing real promise, combined with all the other control techniques we’ve gained from. I’m not saying I envision anything approaching eradication, but I expect a major reduction in wild pig numbers.”

In conclusion, Ditchkoff acknowledges the tall order of reducing the population numbers of an animal with a prolific birth rate, high intelligence, imposing size, and phenomenally wide-ranging diet. “Almost all animals are limited food-wise—wild pigs are not. They eat from every plate on the table. They eat above ground; they eat below ground. They are big enough, mean enough and intelligent enough to utilize food sources like no animal in the wild,” he adds. “Oh yeah, ultimate survivor for sure.”

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Ghost in the House: A Forgotten American Farming Tragedy

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Predator Tractor Unleashed on Farmland by Ag’s True Maverick

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Descent Into Hell: Farmer Escapes Corn Tomb Death

Evil Grain: The Wild Tale of History’s Biggest Crop Insurance Scam

Grizzly Hell: USDA Worker Survives Epic Bear Attack

A Skeptical Farmer’s Monster Message on Profitability

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Killing Hogzilla: Hunting a Monster Wild Pig

Shattered Taboo: Death of a Farm and Resurrection of a Farmer

Frozen Dinosaur: Farmer Finds Huge Alligator Snapping Turtle Under Ice

Breaking Bad: Chasing the Wildest Con Artist in Farming History

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Against All Odds: Farmer Survives Epic Ordeal

Agriculture’s Darkest Fraud Hidden Under Dirt and Lies

Vilsack Weighs In On Parallel Between COVID-19 and Animal Disease Outbreaks

Mon, 01 Feb 2021 13:36:43 GMT

If the COVID-19 pandemic has taught the country anything, USDA Secretary of Agriculture nominee Tom Vilsack said it’s that there is a tremendous amount of synergy between the circumstances of a pandemic involving humans and those involving animals.

During the Coalition for Epi Response, Engagement and Science (CERES) Biosecurity Infectious Disease Symposium at Colorado State University (CSU) on Jan. 28, Vilsack explored the parallels between the animal and human infectious disease pandemics with CSU Vice President for Research Alan Rudolph.

A coordinated response
Vilsack said there are three lessons learned from the pandemic that can help the country better prepare for future human and animal infectious disease outbreaks.

“It’s pretty clear. Lesson number one is the sooner you can detect a problem, the better,” Vilsack said. “Clearly, we didn’t respond aggressively to the pandemic early in the process and we are currently paying for that failure to early detect.”

The second lesson learned is that incredible coordination is required during a disease outbreak, whether it’s an animal disease situation or human disease situation, he said. This starts with the ability of every government level – local, state, federal – to coordinate and work together.

“We’re now seeing that the challenge with reference to the vaccine distribution not being well coordinated, and obviously lives are at stake,” Vilsack said. “Tragically, we are seeing in places like Los Angeles, difficulties with this issue as it relates to the pandemic. We’ve certainly seen it with animal disposal as well. We need a more effective and efficient disposal method.”

Thirdly, the country needs to be able to create, distribute and manufacture vaccines more quickly. All of this involves effective communication, he added.

“It’s pretty clear that we need to continue to invest in research and development, both in animal health and human health and understand the connection and coalition between the two. And that’s going to require some resources. Hopefully, we’ve learned from this pandemic, and previous experiences, that it’s important and necessary to invest in research and development,” Vilsack said.

Human and animal disease parallels
Being able to flex between human and animal disease research is important, Rudolph said. Many of the labs in the National Animal Health Laboratory Network (NAHLN) that sit on land-grant campuses have flexed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Many of these NAHLN diagnostic labs have shifted to being human CLIA diagnostic labs and really supported the infrastructure. We’ve seen a plasticity that I think is also a really interesting lesson learned – that we can flex between human and animal,” Rudolph said.

When Vilsack previously served as Secretary of Agriculture, the U.S. began building new assets to deal with large animal disease outbreaks like African swine fever and foot-and-mouth disease, Rudolph noted.

“It’s pretty clear that we needed to modernize our facilities,” Vilsack said. “Plum Island was in very difficult shape. And while it was isolated from the continental 48 states and had a significantly lower risk of an escape of some disease or problem that would cause significant problems in the animal world, the move to Manhattan, Kan., creates a very incredibly secure facility with modern capacity to do what we need to do to better understand the nature of disease, how viruses are formulated and how they mutate over a period of time.”

Vilsack said it will be an important asset in the effort to detect disease early and be able to more effectively respond and prevent. However, he said the challenge is that we will always be confronted with animal diseases of one sort or another.

“We learned from the avian influenza situation that it took us a while to figure out what, and then it took us a while to figure out how to produce a vaccine, and then it took us a little while to produce it, and then a little while to distribute it,” Vilsack said. “The reality was that we saw fairly significant destruction of chickens and turkeys that really impacted and affected consumers, and obviously affected producers.”

Because of the pandemic, he believes the country has a heightened awareness now of the necessity of being able to respond quickly and effectively – from a national security perspective and economic security perspective – if the U.S. is hit with a pandemic or animal disease outbreak.

Editor’s Note: The CERES coalition brings together six premier land grant universities: University of California-Davis, Texas A&M University, Colorado State University, Kansas State University, Iowa State University and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln to mobilize land-grant university discoveries and innovations in agricultural infectious diseases. The coalition has integrated a network of federally funded bio-containment resources for surveillance, diagnostics and countermeasure production, while actively engaging communities through Extension engagement and outreach.

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Feral Swine Eradication: USDA invests $11.65 Million to Expand Program

Fri, 15 Jan 2021 16:04:27 GMT

An $11.65-million investment by the USDA will help agricultural producers and private landowners trap and control feral swine as part of the Feral Swine Eradication and Control Pilot Program. This new investment will fund 14 projects to expand the pilot program in Alabama, Hawaii, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas.

This program is a joint effort between USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS). This second round of funding is for partners to carry out activities as part of the identified pilot projects in select states, USDA said in a release.

“These awards enable landowners to address the threat that feral swine pose to natural resources and agriculture,” NRCS Acting Chief Kevin Norton said. “The projects we have identified will be key to addressing the feral swine problem.”

NRCS will provide funding to partners who will provide financial assistance, education, outreach and trapping assistance to participating landowners in pilot project areas, USDA said. All partner work will be closely coordinated with the APHIS operations in these areas. Between the first and second round of funding, there will be a total of 34 active projects across 12 states for the life of the 2018 Farm Bill. Learn more here .

USDA said new pilot projects and areas were selected in coordination with NRCS state conservationists, APHIS state directors and state technical committees based on areas in greatest need of assistance due to high densities of wild pigs.

The three coordinated components of the projects include feral swine removal by APHIS, restoration efforts supported by NRCS and assistance to producers for feral swine control provided through partnership agreements with non-federal partners. Projects will be completed by the end of September 2023.

More from Farm Journal’s PORK:

Western States Unite to Keep Feral Pigs from Crossing U.S.-Canada Border

Can You Really Trap Feral Pigs with Your Cell Phone?

Feral Swine: USDA Monitors World’s Worst Invasive Alien Species

How Colorado Eliminated Feral Hogs

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Montana Puts Plan in Place to Keep Canadian Feral Hogs Out

Texas Community Hires Consultant to Fight Feral Hog Problem