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Swine industry stakeholders’ perception on the use of water-based foam as an emergency mass depopulation method

The U.S. pork supply chain is vulnerable to various internal and external threats and in need of prompt, comprehensive response plans. Under urgent circumstances, for example in the case of foreign disease incursions, swine farms will have to perform on-farm animal depopulation to prevent disease sp...

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Autores principales: Cheng, Ting-Yu, Campler, Magnus R., Rudolphi, Josie M., Williams, Taylor J., Kieffer, Justin D., Moeller, Steven J., Bowman, Andrew S., Arruda, Andréia G.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10588842/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37862378
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0290400
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author Cheng, Ting-Yu
Campler, Magnus R.
Rudolphi, Josie M.
Williams, Taylor J.
Kieffer, Justin D.
Moeller, Steven J.
Bowman, Andrew S.
Arruda, Andréia G.
author_facet Cheng, Ting-Yu
Campler, Magnus R.
Rudolphi, Josie M.
Williams, Taylor J.
Kieffer, Justin D.
Moeller, Steven J.
Bowman, Andrew S.
Arruda, Andréia G.
author_sort Cheng, Ting-Yu
collection PubMed
description The U.S. pork supply chain is vulnerable to various internal and external threats and in need of prompt, comprehensive response plans. Under urgent circumstances, for example in the case of foreign disease incursions, swine farms will have to perform on-farm animal depopulation to prevent disease spread. Several animal depopulation methods including water-based foam (WBF) have been proposed and are under evaluation for feasibility in the field. However, the psychological/emotional impacts of applying depopulation methods for personnel managing and carrying on the tasks are not currently well understood. Thus, this study aimed to investigate WBF as an alternative for depopulation compared to existing methods approved by the American Veterinary Medical Association. Swine industry stakeholders were invited to voluntarily observe a WBF depopulation trial and to provide their self-reported perspectives before and after the observation. A survey was designed to explore key areas on expected and perceived method effectiveness, efficiency, and animal welfare considerations, as well as to evaluate short-term post-observation psychological impacts. Among 42 recruited stakeholders, 31.0% (13/42) were educators/researchers followed by animal health officials (26.2%, 11/42) and veterinarians (23.8%, 10/42), with an average of 11.7 ± 12.6 (n = 39) years of work experience. After the trial, respondents’ positive perception of WBF depopulation increased specifically regarding the animal loading process being less stressful than restrained in-barn depopulation options (P = 0.003) and by the observation of fewer swine escape attempts and vocalizations than expected (P < 0.001). Respondents’ positive perception of WBF also increased regarding to the time required to fill the trailer with foam, to stop hearing animal vocalization, and stop hearing animal movement, as the observed trial times were faster than their pre-observation estimates (P < 0.001). Additionally, 79.5% (31/39) of respondents agreed that the rapid destruction of animal populations had priority over animal welfare under urgent scenarios. Minor post-traumatic stress disorder-like (PTSD-like) symptoms from the observed trials were reported (26.7%, 4/15 respondents) one month after the observation. This study showed that the WBF depopulation process was perceived positively by swine stakeholders and may have limited short-term psychological impacts on personnel involved in animal depopulation.
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spelling pubmed-105888422023-10-21 Swine industry stakeholders’ perception on the use of water-based foam as an emergency mass depopulation method Cheng, Ting-Yu Campler, Magnus R. Rudolphi, Josie M. Williams, Taylor J. Kieffer, Justin D. Moeller, Steven J. Bowman, Andrew S. Arruda, Andréia G. PLoS One Research Article The U.S. pork supply chain is vulnerable to various internal and external threats and in need of prompt, comprehensive response plans. Under urgent circumstances, for example in the case of foreign disease incursions, swine farms will have to perform on-farm animal depopulation to prevent disease spread. Several animal depopulation methods including water-based foam (WBF) have been proposed and are under evaluation for feasibility in the field. However, the psychological/emotional impacts of applying depopulation methods for personnel managing and carrying on the tasks are not currently well understood. Thus, this study aimed to investigate WBF as an alternative for depopulation compared to existing methods approved by the American Veterinary Medical Association. Swine industry stakeholders were invited to voluntarily observe a WBF depopulation trial and to provide their self-reported perspectives before and after the observation. A survey was designed to explore key areas on expected and perceived method effectiveness, efficiency, and animal welfare considerations, as well as to evaluate short-term post-observation psychological impacts. Among 42 recruited stakeholders, 31.0% (13/42) were educators/researchers followed by animal health officials (26.2%, 11/42) and veterinarians (23.8%, 10/42), with an average of 11.7 ± 12.6 (n = 39) years of work experience. After the trial, respondents’ positive perception of WBF depopulation increased specifically regarding the animal loading process being less stressful than restrained in-barn depopulation options (P = 0.003) and by the observation of fewer swine escape attempts and vocalizations than expected (P < 0.001). Respondents’ positive perception of WBF also increased regarding to the time required to fill the trailer with foam, to stop hearing animal vocalization, and stop hearing animal movement, as the observed trial times were faster than their pre-observation estimates (P < 0.001). Additionally, 79.5% (31/39) of respondents agreed that the rapid destruction of animal populations had priority over animal welfare under urgent scenarios. Minor post-traumatic stress disorder-like (PTSD-like) symptoms from the observed trials were reported (26.7%, 4/15 respondents) one month after the observation. This study showed that the WBF depopulation process was perceived positively by swine stakeholders and may have limited short-term psychological impacts on personnel involved in animal depopulation. Public Library of Science 2023-10-20 /pmc/articles/PMC10588842/ /pubmed/37862378 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0290400 Text en https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/This is an open access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) public domain dedication.
spellingShingle Research Article
Cheng, Ting-Yu
Campler, Magnus R.
Rudolphi, Josie M.
Williams, Taylor J.
Kieffer, Justin D.
Moeller, Steven J.
Bowman, Andrew S.
Arruda, Andréia G.
Swine industry stakeholders’ perception on the use of water-based foam as an emergency mass depopulation method
title Swine industry stakeholders’ perception on the use of water-based foam as an emergency mass depopulation method
title_full Swine industry stakeholders’ perception on the use of water-based foam as an emergency mass depopulation method
title_fullStr Swine industry stakeholders’ perception on the use of water-based foam as an emergency mass depopulation method
title_full_unstemmed Swine industry stakeholders’ perception on the use of water-based foam as an emergency mass depopulation method
title_short Swine industry stakeholders’ perception on the use of water-based foam as an emergency mass depopulation method
title_sort swine industry stakeholders’ perception on the use of water-based foam as an emergency mass depopulation method
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10588842/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37862378
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0290400
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