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Expanding wild boar populations associate to conflicts with human activities, being a threat to livestock and public health. Particularly, the emergence of African Swine Fever (ASF) in Europe is of major importance. To better understanding the dynamics at the interface between wild boar and domestic pigs in Europe, which is essential to prevent the risk for ASF spread, this report describes (i) the use of extensive pig farm resources by wildlife (wild boar and other mammals) and domestic pigs, and (ii) the factors involved. We studied two regions of Central‐Eastern Europe with different farm management of pigs in Serbia, in low biosecurity farms in forest/bushland habitats, and Hungary, characterized by more industrial and professional farming in fenced pastures. Camera traps (CTs) were placed at a priori risk points for interspecies interactions and in random points in 4 representative outdoor pig farms in different seasons during 2022 (2 farms in Serbia and 2 in Hungary). Also, questionnaires were distributed to 37 farms (17 in Serbia and 20 in Hungary, respectively) to describe the main features and risk factors for wildlife‐pigs interaction on outdoor pig farms. CTs revealed that the wild species that more frequently used the study farms resources were golden jackal (Canis aureus) and wild boar in Serbia, and red fox (Vulpes vulpes) and red deer (Cervus elaphus) in Hungary (at the periphery of fenced farms). The use of extensive farm resources by wild boar was frequent and widespread throughout the study area of Serbia (over 33 % of daily presence per farm, 3.70 visits detected per week) whereas it was rarely detected in our sampled Hungarian farms. Wild boar visit frequency (Serbia) peaked during spring (7.5 visits per CT and day, CT*day), mainly associated with water point use (2.1 visits per CT*day). In Hungary, the greater number of direct interactions occurred between pigs and red deer during summer. Even when a higher average number of risk points were identified inside Hungarian farms, they were less permeable due to effective perimeter fencing, which prevented the entrance of wild boar and other big sized terrestrial wildlife. The study exemplifies contrasted outdoor pig farm managements, and associated risks for interaction with wild boar in ASF infected or at‐risk regions. Management, characterized by almost absence of external biosecurity in the specific type of production in Serbia raise health concerns, and indicates the need to develop efforts to improve biosecurity. Several strategies and specific measures adapted to environmental conditions and farm management could reduce the interactions at the wild boar‐pig interface in Serbia (and similar production systems in Eastern Europe). This should be materialized in farm‐specific biosecurity programs and protocols, which requires the evaluation of their effectiveness, costs, and practical value. The type of farming practiced in marginal agricultural/forest lands in Eastern Europe, often connected to backyards production, is a highly priority for biosecurity issues at European level. However, the focus should not be only on improving technical aspects of biosecurity, but also on socio‐economic and educational determinants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ENETWILD consortium (www.enetwild.com) aims at defining the spatial interface between wild boar and domestic pigs in Europe, which is essential to evaluate the risk for ASF spread between wild and domestic. This report describes the different sources of data for domestic pigs in Europe and develops a preliminary risk map of possible spatial interaction between both groups. Specific cases from Romania and Spain where reliable data were available were assessed. This modelof the interface was based on the data from Gridded Livestock of the World(GLW) database of FAO, which provides predictions on a 1x1 km scale globally and the wild boar abundance distribution model recently elaborated by ENETWILD consortium (2020).The present available census data of livestock at the European Union level (Eurostat) is restricted to a maximum spatial resolution of NUTS2, remarking the need of developing a framework to collect harmonised data with higher resolution. This will ensure that data can be comparable, validated and used. There is need also to resolve definition issues regarding the pig production systems. Our prediction model of the interface between pig and wild boar at European level indicated that the maximum risk is scattered over Central Europe, large parts of Spain, north‐east France and Romania. Hungary, so as Serbia and Croatia in the Balkans are at the highest risk in that area. In the specific case of Romania, no statistically significant association between census data of pigs collected fromnational authorities and predicted values was found when assessing the GLW model, evidencing that GLW predictions do not reliably represents the pig abundance distribution within countries. When assessing the interface model in Spain, certain areas of interaction were lacked, e.g. where extensive farming is relevant. The current discrimination of extensive vs. intensive farms of predictive models (GLW) is not reliable to perform analyses separately for each production system.The outputs this model of interface between wild boar and domestic pigs will guide future steps in both data collection and modelling approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ENETWILD consortium implementedtheEFSA‐funded project "Wildlife: collecting and sharing data on wildlife populations, transmitting animal diseases agents", whose main objective is to collect wild boardensity, hunting and occurrence dataand model species geographical distribution and abundance throughout Europe.This subject is of particular concern due to the vastspread of African swine fever (ASF). In September 2019,the ENETWILD consortiumorganised aworkshop in Croatia for 27game biologists, animal health professionals, and experts from national huntingand forest authorities from 14 countriesfrom South East Europe.The overall objectives of the workshop were to present milestones and achievements of the ENETWILD project,to reviewthe framework forwild boar data collection and harmonization (hunting, density and occurrence data) of thedifferent countries,as well as to review scientificmethods for determiningwild boar abundance and density, and to train oncamera trapping and the random encounter method (REM).It was agreed thathunting bag data are currently the main source of information, although not always collected within a harmonized framework and rarely accompanied by a record of the hunting effort. Instead, wild boar abundance and densityestimates available in SouthEast Europe are unreliable because most of them are not based on scientific methods. Hence, there is a need to implement a novel method for determining wild boar abundance and densitythat uses hunting bag statistics including measures of hunting effort and efficiency during collective drive hunts, compared against density values calculated using camera trapping and the random encounter method (REM). Several collaborators have declared their willingness to participate in such pilot studies, and all agreed in improving data collection, including by means of citizen science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]