Effect of Delayed Refrigeration on the Microbial Carcass Contamination of Wild Boars (Sus scrofa)

SIMPLE SUMMARY: The bacteria that contaminate meat after the death of the animal can come from multiple sources, such as the animal itself, the external environment and the operator who handles it. The prompt refrigeration of hunted game is generally considered an important step to prevent spoilage and meat alterations, although many logistic hindrances, such as animal weight and distance from the hunting area to the refrigerators, limit the meticulous adoption of the best procedures. We show that the bacterial population of wild boar carcasses is not correlated to the mere time from shot to refrigeration but is correlated to the refrigeration time from chilling to analysis. The results of our study revealed a correlation between the time from shot to analysis and from refrigeration to analysis but a lack of correlation between the time from shot to refrigeration. ABSTRACT: The immediate refrigeration of meat after slaughter is a key issue for the proper storage and aging of meat. The industry standard cold chain relies on low temperatures and ventilation to lower the internal carcass temperature to 0–4 °C within the first 48 h, i.e., within four times the so-called semi-cooling time. On the other hand, for games, once bled and eviscerated, the carcass must be sent to a point where it can be sectioned or kept on air for maturation at refrigeration temperature. The precautions to observe are few and simple but essential: protect the meat and start the cooling process quickly. After preparing the animal (bleeding and evisceration), it may be necessary to face a period of transport that is sometimes long and not very easy; while small animals can be easily transported in a backpack, larger ones must necessarily be carried by several people or sometimes dragged to the vehicle capable of transporting them. It is obvious that a wild boar opened from the jaws to the pelvis and dragged for hundreds of meters will tend to be contaminated, although these contaminations are to be considered secondary for the preservation of the meat, compared to contamination by the intestinal contents. In an attempt to investigate the effect of delayed refrigeration on wild boar carcass contamination, the aim of this work was to determine a correlation between several hunting and logistic parameters (age, sex, animal weight, shooting distance, number of shots, weather and temperature and time from shot to refrigeration and to analysis) and bacterial contamination of the carcass. The correlation coefficient, r, was found to be 0.038 for the eviscerated body weight (p < 0.05), 0.091 for the external temperature on the day of hunting (p < 0.05), 0.027 for the time from shot to refrigeration (p = 0.081), 0.038 for the time from refrigeration to analysis (p < 0.05) and 0.043 for the time from shot to analysis (p < 0.05). These results stand for a negative correlation between the bacterial population and eviscerated carcass weight and between the bacterial population and external temperature and for a positive correlation between the time from shot to analysis and from refrigeration to analysis. No association was demonstrated between the bacterial population and the time from shot to refrigeration.