The troops who are combing the Collserola mountain range to contain swine fever have so far found around fifty dead wild boars. This does not mean that all animals are infected. For now, the number of confirmed positives remains at nine.
“We have found around fifty dead animals, but what we don’t know is [el resultado de] the analytics. The important thing is that all the positives confirmed so far (nine) are from this confined area,” explained the chief inspector of the Rural Agents of the Generalitat, Josep Antoni Mur.
Members of rural agents, police and military personnel from the UME continue to comb the surveillance area of 6 kilometers around the place that was reported last Friday, in the Bellatera area and within the municipal area of Cerdanyola del Vallès (Barcelona).
The troops have carried out a survey in 300 square meter grids, each assigned to a unit, in a wooded area located between the C-58, AP-7 and C-16 highways.
The work consists of containing the animals with chemical barriers (repellents) in wildlife crossings and, for two days, also physical barriers in underpasses (under the highways). For their part, the Mossos control the bridges over the roads.
Mur has said that they are awaiting the instructions of the technicians from the European Commission and the Ministry of Agriculture deployed to the area so that they can specify the methods for slaughter and capture. “We have prepared routes and mass capture trap systems, but they have to tell us where to use them and what methods can be used for slaughter,” said Mur.
The representative of Rural Agents has indicated that “so far no captures have been made, but only the land has been swept to detect corpses and to see if they are positive or not”, something that must be confirmed by the reference laboratory of the Ministry of Agriculture.
At the moment, “about fifty” dead animals have been found within the 6-kilometer surveillance zone that must be analyzed, out of a wild boar population that could be around a thousand in the entire Collserola area, according to Mur.
The chief inspector of the Rural Agents has said that “the worst scenario” is that the plague came out from the north in the direction of Matadepera (Barcelona), because from there it would penetrate into the center of Catalonia. If it expanded to the south, the situation would be less problematic because there are the city of Barcelona and the sea, which would act as barriers.
