The Department of Agriculture of the Generalitat of Catalonia has established the closure of a radius of six kilometers, starting from the point of Cerdanyola (PPA), where activities in the natural environment are prohibited and which affects a total of twelve municipalities. This measure to prevent the spread of PPA covers areas of a total of twelve municipalities: Sabadell, Sant Quirze, Santa Perpètua de Mogoda, Montcada i Reixac, Ripollet, Barberà, Cerdanyola, Sant Cugat, Terrassa and Rubí.
In this area, the Generalitat has established the total closure of access to the natural environment, any hunting activity and forestry work is suspended and any activity in rural areas is prohibited. The administration will establish physical and chemical barriers, traps to control wild boars and will activate joint operations with Mossos d’Esquadra, Seprona and technicians from the Department of Agriculture, among others.
Within a radius of 20 kilometers of perimeter, which affects 64 municipalities, leisure activities, hunting and those linked to biodiversity are limited, and actions that could interfere with population control and biosecurity tasks are prohibited. Agriculture has also announced that access to the entire Collserola park for leisure activities is restricted.
The Department of Agriculture has called an emergency meeting with mayors of the affected municipalities, the Barcelona Provincial Council, the regional councils and the management of the Collserola park to coordinate the actions and ensure the maximum effectiveness of the device. The Generalitat advises the affected municipalities to intensify the cleaning of litter bins and containers, place cat feeders at high points, warn citizens that it is prohibited to feed wild boars, close picnic areas until further notice and call 112 if a dead wild boar appears and do not touch it.
The appearance of the plague has caused the preventive blockade of pork exports, as explained this Friday by the veterinarian, general director of Agri-Food Production of the Ministry. It is “bad news, very bad,” he declared.
The arrival of African swine fever, according to veterinarians, was a matter of time. The plague is typical of sub-Saharan Africa, but in 2007 it jumped to Georgia and, from there, to Russia and China. In 2014, the virus was already in the east of the European Union. The markets trembled. With a single case of plague, the affected country enters an international blacklist and can no longer export pork. The disease reached Germany, then Europe’s largest pork producer, in the summer of 2020, also from a wild boar. Countries like Denmark and Germany itself built kilometer-long fences in the mountains to prevent the passage of infected animals.
