PNP sharpshooters tapped for Ebola hogs

MANILA, Philippines - They were shot execution-style – one by one between the eyes – by expert marksmen.

Their bodies were burned then buried in an unmarked mass grave near the scene of slaughter in a farm in Bulacan last week.

Police sharpshooters had to work in shifts around the clock to kill their prey in the fastest, most efficient way.

Speaking at the weekly Friday Balitaan sa Rembrandt hotel in Quezon City, Bureau of Animal Industry Director Dr. Dave Catbagan said they had to call in the police sharpshooters to dispose of some 6,200 pigs afflicted with the Ebola-Reston virus in compliance with the “humane treatment” of killing animals as provided under the Animal Welfare Law.

Catbagan said caliber .22 pistols were the most effective way of “neutralizing” the pigs, particularly the big ones.

“Not a single pig died a violent death – it’s against the law. The animals were practically put to sleep before they were burned and buried,” he said.

Catbagan said the caliber .22 ensured painless and instant death in the depopulation of pigs in the Pandi, Bulacan farm.

Stun guns were used on smaller pigs, he added.

Catbagan said representatives from animal welfare groups and other animal rights activists had closely monitored the operation to ensure that not a single pig was denied the right to die peacefully.

The depopulation operation was carried out to prevent the Ebola-Reston virus monitored in the farm from spilling over to other farms in the area, he added.

Republic Act 8485, the Animal Welfare Act, strictly prohibits violent and indiscriminate slaughter of animals.

Violators will be imprisoned for not more than two years and fined P1,000.

DA watching backyard swine farms

The Department of Agriculture is on the lookout for thousands of backyard swine farms in 566 barangays in Luzon for Ebola-Reston virus (ERV) infection.

Catbagan said they will survey and test some 30,000 pigs in backyard piggeries in Central Luzon, Calabarzon, and the province of Pangasinan.

About three million pigs – comprising the bulk of the country’s hog population – are found in Central Luzon, parts of Southern Luzon and Pangasinan, he added.

Catbagan said BAI plans to cover more areas nationwide will depend on whether the US-based Center for Disease Control and Prevention can send more laboratory testing kits to the Philippines.

“The only source of the test kits that we will be using for our surveillance work is the CDC in Atlanta. So, we will have to be assured of the supply that they will be sending,” he said.

“The scope of our surveillance work and our decision to cast a wider net in carrying out this task will depend on their commitment to us because it is the only institution in the world that can produce the test kits.”

Catbagan said Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap will ask the US government to ensure the supply of the test kits for the sampling of the 30,000 pigs being surveyed.

The US CDC had delivered on its commitment to help the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine to conduct the tests for free on the initial batch of pig samples used by the government to detect ERV strain, he added.

Catbagan said the government will first test the samples taken from the culled pigs in Pandi, Bulacan before it can begin on the samples from the 30,000 pigs in the other areas.

It would take the farm in Pandi, Bulacan at least three to six months to return to normal operations because the BAI will still conduct a series of exhaustive tests to ensure that the site is free of the ERV strain, he added.

Catbagan said after cleaning, disinfecting and decontaminating the farm, it would be left vacant for a period of at least one-and-a-half months.

Following that period, the BAI will place a small batch of “sentinel pigs” inside the farm and subject the animals to a series of sampling protocols after two months to ensure that the area is free of the virus, he added. — With Marianne Go