Abstract
In the past 20 years, free living populations of feral wild boar have re-established in several locations across the UK. One of the largest populations is in the Forest of Dean where numbers have been steadily increasing since monitoring began in 2008, with estimates from 2016 reporting a population of more than 1500. Feral wild boar have significant ecological and environmental impacts and may present a serious epidemiological risk to neighbouring livestock as they are a vector for a number of important livestock diseases. This includes foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) which is currently absent from the UK. We developed an individual-based spatially explicit modelling approach to simulate feral wild boar populations in the Forest of Dean (England, UK) and use it to explore whether current or future populations might be sufficient to produce long-lived outbreaks of FMD in this potential wildlife reservoir. Our findings suggest that if you exclude the spread from feral wild boar to other susceptible species, the current population of boar is insufficient to maintain FMD, with 95% of unmanaged simulations indicating disease burn-out within a year (not involving boar management specifically for disease). However, if boar are allowed to spread beyond their current range into the adjacent landscape, they might maintain a self-sustaining reservoir of infection for the disease.
Highlights
The abundance and distribution of feral wild boar are growing worldwide, together with the economic and environmental impact they produce [1,2,3]
We initially explore three scenarios in the absence of disease to better understand how hunting might influence the dynamics of the wildlife host and include foot-andmouth disease (FMD) in our simulations to focus on two specific issues pertinent to disease risk assessment; the potential for feral wild boar in the Forest of Dean to support the endemic circulation of FMD, as well as the time it may take for the disease to burn-out in scenarios where it is not maintained
The model was designed to reproduce the population dynamics and spatial dynamics of feral wild boar across a real-landscape as well as the epizootiology of FMD within this wildlife host. Using this model we explored the effect that culling within the FC estate and hunting across the wider landscape have on the expansion of this population as well as the likelihood of a prolonged outbreak of FMD in feral wild boar
Summary
The abundance and distribution of feral wild boar are growing worldwide, together with the economic and environmental impact they produce [1,2,3]. In the UK, wild boar were hunted to extinction 300 years ago but have re-established notable free-living populations in the southeast of England (Kent and Sussex), in the Forest of Dean (Gloucestershire) and in parts of Scotland [4] as a result of escapes or deliberate releases. In the Forest of Dean, numbers of feral wild boar have steadily increased since 2013, when regular censuses started on Forestry Commission (FC) owned land; growing from circa 500 animals (2013) to 1562 (2016) (95% confidence interval ranging from 1095 to 2296) [5]. Despite a program of culling across the FC estate
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