site.btaBluetongue Spreads to Two Game Farms

Kurdzhali, Southern Bulgaria, August 26 (BTA) - A recent bluetongue outbreak has spread to two game-breeding farms, of Zhenda and Bolyartsi. Seventy-two mouflon and a fallow deer have died in Zhenda, while the number of dead animals in Bolyartsi peaked on August 13 when the bodies of 17 mouflon and one fallow deer were discovered.

According to Moustafa Hussein, chief expert with the Food Safety Agency office in Kurdzhali, outward symptoms point to bluetongue. Blood samples have been taken and sent for analysis to a laboratory in Sofia and all institutions have been informed.

Zhenda chief Radoslav Boev has ordered the establishment of two commissions to monitor the epizootic situation. Feeding and resting grounds in the two game farms have been disinsected, as the disease is transmitted by mosquitoes. Boev says that should the situation change, disinsection should be carried out from the air too.

The issue of compensation and vaccines for dead game is unresolved.

After the epidemic dies down, the mouflon will be counted. These wild sheep were imported from former Czechoslovakia in the 80s and released in the Eastern Rhodope, where the adapted easily and their numbers have been growing ever since.