ASF: Compulsory culling of pigs begins in southern Bulgaria
After the passing of the deadline for owners of domestic pigs in southern Bulgaria to kill them as a measure against African Swine Fever (ASF), veterinary teams were to begin entering people’s yards on August 12 to cull all remaining live pigs.
In many places, farmers have been refusing to comply with the measures against ASF.
In the Pazardzhik district, mayors of 31 villages issued a joint statement in support of the action against ASF and rejecting protests, in a turnabout from their previous stated resistance to the culling plan.
According to a report by Bulgarian National Radio on August 12, about 80 per cent of the pigs in the Pazardzhik district have been killed.
In Dolni Chiflik municipality, owners of pigs have refused to accept the order to “voluntarily” kill their pigs. They are refusing because there have been no confirmed outbreaks of ASF in the area.
For several days, protesters have closed the road between Varna and Bourgas near the village of Oryahovo in the afternoons by occupying a pedestrian crossing.
Police in the town of Sliven are investigating following reports of unburied animal remains, nearby the village of Krushare and the nearby river Tundzha, Bozadzhi and the town of Kermen.
Krushare has been the scene of several days of protests blocking the road between Sliven and Yambol in protest against an order to kill unregistered pigs.
The leader of the protest in Krushare, Valentina Vassileva, told Bulgarian National Radio that the state was to blame for failing to exercise sufficient control after ordering the killing of pigs.
“The job of the state was to provide a sanitary way of transporting this waste because people really don’t know what to do with it,” Vassileva said.
(Photo: Scott Bauer/USDA)
