Contents page 1 — the trail of The Wurstbrots page 2 — no one knows where it next occurs page 3 — Affected stables restricted area, page 4 — Depend on the pork industry page 5 — overnight the market collapsed ⋮ page 9 — “Germany has a wild boar problem” On a page
the enemy Should break in fact, soon the borders of the country, you want to at least be prepared. In the past few months you have transferred to the civil protection alert, the fire brigade and the squadron of the police. They have developed emergency plans and warning signs erected. You have suits equipped with drones, electric fences and protection. You have the opponent so much you can say, not to be underestimated.
Now you want to.
More than a hundred men and women gathered on an area the size of 104 football fields. It is surrounded by dense shrubs and trees, in the Hessian Odenwald. In the Cold war, the Americans had set up a base here, a military. 120 grass-covered bunkers and a huge ammunition depot Harbor, in anticipation of a possible attack of the Soviets.
As in the scenario of the time advances of the enemy from the East, he has overrun the Ukraine, Belarus, Romania, Poland, the Baltic States. Now he stands at the border to Germany.
Therefore, hunters have arrived on the former military site, with the support of foresters, veterinarians and farmers. They have traveled from Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg and Hesse. The force urges early in the morning in a tent, a temporary alternate accommodation – the crowd is larger than expected.
Michael Sallmann is on the front of the lectern, clears his throat and speaks into the microphone: “The great interest shows, what we have to do it here.”
Sallmann, 57, a slim man with graying hair, is head of the veterinary office of the Odenwald district. Wool would be salvaged show, he says, as in the case of an emergency responds needs to be, like carcasses, like a thorough disinfection should look like and how a risk area secured. “We of the disease in case of emergency, want to be as quickly as possible, Lord!”
The plague of the Sallmann speaks is African swine fever. A Virus that can harm the people nothing, but that is fatal to domestic pigs and wild boar. It is the animals within a very short time gathers, then, a Ebola of the pigs, unstoppable and relentless. An outbreak in Germany could have serious economic consequences. Only a single infected pig in Germany would be discovered, could break the gigantic market for pig meat, thousands of sows had to be slaughtered, farmers would have to fear for their existence. The damage, the German farmers ‘ Association, estimates would be in the billions.
This article dates back to the TIME no 52/2018. Here you can read the entire issue.
, since all are in the tent for sure, not a question of whether the disease was reached, but only when. In September, the first infected were found in wild boars in Belgium, dead, only 60 kilometers from the German border. Minister of agriculture, Julia Klöckner, said: “The new Situation I take very seriously. African swine fever poses for some time for Germany to be a threat, and our preparations are in the event of a crisis.”
There are only a few people in Germany who know so well with animals and diseases like Michael Sallmann. Since 1987 he has been a veterinarian since 1992 in the veterinary office, in his spare time, he paints animals. Sallmann has the foot – and-mouth combat disease, mad cow disease, the avian influenza. But his whole experience is of no use to him right now. “What we are witnessing now, is something completely New,” he says.
animal diseases African swine fever
African swine fever, or ASP for short, is harmless to humans. The highly contagious viral infection affects domestic and wild pigs and is often fatal. The Virus was in Europe since the nineties, as eradicated. In 2007, the disease occurred again in Georgia. Of Eastern Europe has become waste, then the primarily by Meat and in order that the people spread the Virus along European roads in 2014, with a speed of about 200 kilometers per year Germany, fed. Now the disease has occurred in Belgium.
