6.5.4 Wild boar-habitat cycle
Wild boar is one of the most widespread group of mammals, which can be
found on every continent expect Antarctica (He, 2014). The Indian
crested wild-boar (Sus scrofa cristatus ) is seen in most of the
wildlife-protection sanctuaries and is widely distributed in India, Sri
Lanka, Nepal, Thailand and Myanmar (Naish, 2015).Wild boars exhibit a
home range behaviour, in which the movements of these animals are
generally restricted to a defined area over an extended period of time.
However, depending upon ecological conditions, these animals may roam
about widely in search of better forage conditions (Allwin et al.,
2016). Presently, the wild boar population in India are fragmented and
can be observed in isolated groups. Some of these isolated populations
can become locally overabundant and depend upon agricultural crops
especially in and around the protected areas and village interface areas
for a major part of their food requirement (Chauhan et al., 2009). While
utilizing the agro-ecosystem for food, resource and shelter,
contaminated food waste originating from the infected domestic pigs can
initiate an ASF epidemic which may accidentally be released into a wild
boar habitat. Infections disseminated to a group of wild-boar will
persist in the wild-boar habitat and their carcasses. This cycle will
continue to infect healthy wild-boar and domestic habitat. Besides, as
discussed earlier, in most of the Indian pig rearing states, carcasses
or contaminated materials of infected domestic pigs are usually disposed
in jungles or thrown in rivers. By doing so, it can not only be a source
of infection to natural host and wildlife reservoirs, but also to pygmy
hogs population (Porcula salvania ), an endangered species native
to India and the only known population that lives in Assam which is
estimated to be less than 250 in numbers (Meijaard et al., 2019). The
susceptibility of pygmy hogs to ASFV is unclear , althoughClassical Swine Fever virus , an RNA virus that causes a disease
with similar clinical signs to ASFV, can infect and kill pygmy hogs
(Barman
et al., 2012).
Based on the epidemiological cycles, the tick-pig, the domestic and the
wild boar-habitat cycles are important in emergence of future outbreak
of ASF and should be critically investigated to identify the
transmission patterns and to implement control strategies.