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Unexplained bacterial meat spoilage during the moose hunting in northern Norway – a review of cases 2008–2021

BACKGROUND: Sudden and unexpected spoilage of moose (Alces alces) carcasses has incidentally been reported in northern Norway. Hunters describe a strong foul odour and greenish discolouration of moose carcasses, hence the nickname “green moose”. Finnmark Estate has registered all reported cases of “...

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Autores principales: Josefsen, Terje Domaas, Mørk, Torill, Ims, Anders Aarthun
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10318808/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37400877
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13028-023-00683-0
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author Josefsen, Terje Domaas
Mørk, Torill
Ims, Anders Aarthun
author_facet Josefsen, Terje Domaas
Mørk, Torill
Ims, Anders Aarthun
author_sort Josefsen, Terje Domaas
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Sudden and unexpected spoilage of moose (Alces alces) carcasses has incidentally been reported in northern Norway. Hunters describe a strong foul odour and greenish discolouration of moose carcasses, hence the nickname “green moose”. Finnmark Estate has registered all reported cases of “green moose” in Finnmark county in the period 2008–2021. In 2013, a questionnaire was introduced to gather more detailed information. Bacteriological and histological examinations were performed on submitted samples of spoiled moose meat. The aim of the present report is to summarize the data gathered about the “green moose” cases, and to discuss possible causes. RESULTS: Ninety-three valid cases of “green moose” meat spoilage were registered in Finnmark county, giving this form of meat spoilage a prevalence of 0.85% of hunted moose. The carcass weights of spoiled carcasses were within normal weights for moose carcasses in Finnmark. Adult bulls were significantly more, and calves were less frequently affected by meat spoilage. No distinct geographical pattern or “hotspots” could be identified, but multiple cases in the same hunting area same year were reported. The meat spoilage was detected within 5 h after shooting in five cases, and 53% of cases were detected within 2 days after shooting. The meat spoilage was primarily found in deep muscle groups. Bacteriological analyses of 13 samples of spoiled meat were not conclusive. A mixture of aerobic bacteria was detected in 12 samples, and swarming clostridia in 10 samples. Histological examination of seven samples showed abundance of bacteria in fasciae and connective tissue surrounding blood vessels. Injury shootings were not more frequent in “green moose” cases than in moose hunting in general. Other possibly predisposing events to meat spoilage were evisceration later than 60 min after shooting, delayed skinning and contamination by ruminal content. Whether these events occurred more often in “green moose” than normal moose was difficult to determine, due to lack of reference data. CONCLUSIONS: Based on the bacteriological results and the characteristics of the meat spoilage we suggest that clostridia are a main factor involved. How and why clostridia are spread to the muscles and causing the often rapid meat spoilage, is unexplained. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13028-023-00683-0.
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spelling pubmed-103188082023-07-05 Unexplained bacterial meat spoilage during the moose hunting in northern Norway – a review of cases 2008–2021 Josefsen, Terje Domaas Mørk, Torill Ims, Anders Aarthun Acta Vet Scand Research BACKGROUND: Sudden and unexpected spoilage of moose (Alces alces) carcasses has incidentally been reported in northern Norway. Hunters describe a strong foul odour and greenish discolouration of moose carcasses, hence the nickname “green moose”. Finnmark Estate has registered all reported cases of “green moose” in Finnmark county in the period 2008–2021. In 2013, a questionnaire was introduced to gather more detailed information. Bacteriological and histological examinations were performed on submitted samples of spoiled moose meat. The aim of the present report is to summarize the data gathered about the “green moose” cases, and to discuss possible causes. RESULTS: Ninety-three valid cases of “green moose” meat spoilage were registered in Finnmark county, giving this form of meat spoilage a prevalence of 0.85% of hunted moose. The carcass weights of spoiled carcasses were within normal weights for moose carcasses in Finnmark. Adult bulls were significantly more, and calves were less frequently affected by meat spoilage. No distinct geographical pattern or “hotspots” could be identified, but multiple cases in the same hunting area same year were reported. The meat spoilage was detected within 5 h after shooting in five cases, and 53% of cases were detected within 2 days after shooting. The meat spoilage was primarily found in deep muscle groups. Bacteriological analyses of 13 samples of spoiled meat were not conclusive. A mixture of aerobic bacteria was detected in 12 samples, and swarming clostridia in 10 samples. Histological examination of seven samples showed abundance of bacteria in fasciae and connective tissue surrounding blood vessels. Injury shootings were not more frequent in “green moose” cases than in moose hunting in general. Other possibly predisposing events to meat spoilage were evisceration later than 60 min after shooting, delayed skinning and contamination by ruminal content. Whether these events occurred more often in “green moose” than normal moose was difficult to determine, due to lack of reference data. CONCLUSIONS: Based on the bacteriological results and the characteristics of the meat spoilage we suggest that clostridia are a main factor involved. How and why clostridia are spread to the muscles and causing the often rapid meat spoilage, is unexplained. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13028-023-00683-0. BioMed Central 2023-07-03 /pmc/articles/PMC10318808/ /pubmed/37400877 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13028-023-00683-0 Text en © The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research
Josefsen, Terje Domaas
Mørk, Torill
Ims, Anders Aarthun
Unexplained bacterial meat spoilage during the moose hunting in northern Norway – a review of cases 2008–2021
title Unexplained bacterial meat spoilage during the moose hunting in northern Norway – a review of cases 2008–2021
title_full Unexplained bacterial meat spoilage during the moose hunting in northern Norway – a review of cases 2008–2021
title_fullStr Unexplained bacterial meat spoilage during the moose hunting in northern Norway – a review of cases 2008–2021
title_full_unstemmed Unexplained bacterial meat spoilage during the moose hunting in northern Norway – a review of cases 2008–2021
title_short Unexplained bacterial meat spoilage during the moose hunting in northern Norway – a review of cases 2008–2021
title_sort unexplained bacterial meat spoilage during the moose hunting in northern norway – a review of cases 2008–2021
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10318808/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37400877
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13028-023-00683-0
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