African Swine Fever continues its journey through Latvia — wild boars now know all the small towns better than tourist guides

Last week, African Swine Fever once again proved that wild boars are much better at geography than the average Latvian resident. While we're still looking for Embūte parish on the map, one wild boar there has already managed to get sick and add to this year's statistics.

Last week's tally is impressive — 12 wild boars in Talsi municipality decided that regular forest life wasn't enough for them. Four in Dundaga parish, three in Abava parish, two in Ķūļciems parish — it seems these pigs have organized a real tour group. The only ones traveling solo were the visitors to Balgale, Mērsrags, and Strazde parishes. Apparently introverts.

In total this year, ASF has been detected in 280 wild boars across 18 municipalities, which is more than the number of people riding Riga's trams on a workday. Local Liepāja veterinarian Jānis comments: "These wild boars have traveled more of Latvia than I have in my lifetime. Maybe they should be given tourist guide licenses, though they still haven't found Liedags — in that sandy beach area, our locals don't know about pig problems."

Number lovers can rejoice — since June 2014, wild boar counters have tallied 11,491 infected animals. That's almost as many as the number of potholed streets in Riga, except wild boars at least move somewhere. "Vaiņodes Bekons" with its 22,262 pigs this year was the only one that proved domestic pigs haven't traveled as much, but therefore also got sick — apparently lack of adventure weakens immunity.