Animal health risks associated with the transportation and utilisation of wildlife products

The animal health risks associated with the movement of wildlife products are infinitely less than those associated with the movement of live animals. Very few pathogens are sufficiently robust to survive the significant changes in temperature, pH, moisture content and osmolality which occur post mortem, or which are associated with preservation processes such as pickling, smoking or drying. Certain pathogens, however, (e.g. foot and mouth disease, classical swine fever [hog cholera] and African swine fever viruses and the anthrax bacillus) are hardy and resistant to these environmental changes and therefore constitute a finite animal health risk if raw, undercooked or under-preserved products from infected wild animals are imported. Other less robust pathogens, such as rinderpest virus, may remain infectious in animal products if these are obtained from acutely infected animals and frozen immediately. Macroparasitic diseases such as trichinellosis and echinococcosis-hydatidosis, if present in the unprocessed tissues of infected wildlife, are potentially infectious to carnivorous or omnivorous companion animals. The importation of untreated wet hides may result in the introduction of alien ectoparasites and/or the infectious diseases for which they are vectors. The author discusses the more significant pathogens found in free-ranging wildlife which should be taken into consideration when importing wildlife products from endemically or epidemically infected countries.