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Anybody contemplating hunting feral hogs should read the following article: www.dnrintra.state.il.us/ORC/Wildlife/ReportsW/General/FeralHogs.pdf This is an excerpt: "Hog Problems Wild hogs have the potential to spread diseases that affect people, pets and livestock. Currently, the diseases of most concern are trichinosis, leptospirosis, swine brucellosis and pseudo-rabies. In southern states,feral hogs frequently have infection rates of 10 percent for swine brucellosis and 30 percent for pseudo-rabies. Feral swine could also spread foot and mouth disease, anthrax, or various swine fevers. People are at risk from those hogs that are infected with swine brucellosis. This disease has been found in wild pigs in ten states and is known as undulant fever in humans. It can be contracted through handling infected tissues of wild pigs. Pseudo-rabies infects wild swine and can be transmitted to hogs in commercial operations. This disease is caused by a herpes virus, does not infect people and is not related to rabies. It does weaken pigs, causes abortions and stillbirths and renders hogs susceptible to other problems that reduce production and decrease profits. Once infected, a pig is a carrier as long as it lives because there is no effective treatment. It sheds the virus through its mouth and nose and can transmit the disease to cattle, sheep, goats, dogs and cats where it is fatal. Wild boars sometimes break into commercial hog operations to reach sows that are in heat thereby spreading the disease. About six commercial operations per year in the United States have to be depopulated due to this. Pseudo-rabies can also fatally infect wild mammals like raccoons, skunks, foxes, oppossums and small rodents. The virus affects the nervous system of these animals and can produce paralysis and death. Hunting dogs can also be infected by contact with wild hogs. Leptospirosis can also be spread by hogs through contamination of ponds and water holes with their urine as part of their wallowing behavior. Leptospirosis is a bacterial livestock disease that settles in the kidneys and causes abortion of immature pigs, still births and weak pigs at full term. This bacterial organism can also affect humans but is killed during cooking just as with swine brucellosis." This is not meant to discourage feral hog and wild boar hunting, just to urge caution. |