Analysis on the Epidemic Situation of Intercepted Alien Pests from Imported Hides in Hebei and the Countermeasures during 2013-2014

Jianchang WANG, Ruiqing GAO, Shuai ZHANG, Shen WANG*, Zhaohua WANG

1. Hebei Entry-Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau, Shijiazhuang 050051, China;

2. Shijiazhuang Entry-Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau, Shijiazhuang 050051, China

With the vigorous development of global economy and trade, the invasion phenomenon of alien pests is becoming more and more serious,ecological environment safety and biodiversity protection have attached great importance to all countries in the world. According to the statistics, the economic loss caused by the invasion of alien pests in America reaches 1 500×108dollars every year,that of India reaches 1 300×108dollars every year, and that of South Africa reaches 800×108 dollars every year[1]. In China, the di rect and indirect loss caused by the invasion of alien pests reaches 1 198.76 ×108yuan every year, which accounts for 1.36% of gross domestic product(GDP)[2].The invasive ways of alien pests are wide,such as economy and trade, transportation, container,and so on.

Hide,as a non-edible animal product, is one of the hot commodities of import and export trade.For the feeding model of wild grazing abroad, the hide often carries alien pests, such as weed, fruit, seed and vector, etc.Shanghai Waigaoqiao Port intercepted 10 112 batches of weeds from imported wool from January to September in 2011, including 435 batches of quarantine weeds, which belong to 4 species[3]. During 2004-2012, Jiangsu Port totally intercepted 13 868 batches of weeds belonging to 38 families,138 genuses and 268 species, in which there were 2 094 batches of quarantine weeds belonging to 3 families, 11 genuses and 20 species[4]. According to the statistics of Sun Degang et al.,the alien pests carried by imported animal products were mainly maggot,pillworm, Lathridiidae, clerid and dermestid from 2009 to 2010 in Huangdao Port, and the potential injuries were also analyzed[2]. Guo Huiqing et al. analyzed the risk of imported wool and fur, and determined that the diseases affecting the animal husbandry production in China were foot-and-mouth disease, cattle plague and peste des petits ruminants which were easily carried in the imported hides[5].

Hebei Province is a major fur processing province, and also a major province of hide import, animal hides are the animal products with the largest number and the highest value in Hebei Province. Just Shijiazhuang,in 2013, it had 4 269 batches of imported animal hides, which weighed 19.02×104t and were worth 4.13×108dollars; in 2014, it had 4 561 batches of imported animal hides, which weighed 20.38 ×104ton and were worth 5.18×108dollars.With the import volume of hides in Hebei increasing every year, the situation of safety,health and environmental protection is becoming increasingly severe. For this, the situation of intercepted alien pests from imported hides in Hebei during 2013-2014 was systematically analyzed,so as to provide some reference for the continuous development of animal husbandry in China.

The Situation of Imported Animal Hides in Hebei

During 2013 -2014, the import quantity of animal hides in Hebei was 8830 batches, which were from 21 countries (in Table 1) , in which the type of hides was mainly cattle hide,sheepskin and horsehide, and followed by mink, raw fox skin, etc. (in Fig.1); the imported hides after different pretreatments abroad were mainly raw (fresh) hide, salt hide, wet-salted hide, pickled hide, dry hide and drysalted hide.There were a large quantity, many batches, and different kinds of imported animal hides in Hebei,thus the risk of alien pests carried in imported animal hides was improved.

Table 1 Main original countries of imported hides in Hebei Province

The Situation of Intercepted Alien Pests from Imported Hides

During 2013 -2014, there were totally 163 batches of alien pests intercepted by Hebei Entry-Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau, which were mainly insects and weeds, including 2 batches of quarantine weeds and 161 batches of general alien insects. In addition, 22 batches of forbidden imported solids were intercepted from hides or hide containers, such as faeces and animal debris, etc.(in Fig.2).Although faeces and animal debris are not alien species, they have the risk carrying alien pests, such as, exotic weed seeds will be propagated very far with animal waste, and animal debris may carry pathogens causing zoonoses,and so on.

Two batches of quarantine weed Xanthium italicum Moretti were intercepted, which were respectively from the imported hides of Egypt and imported wool of Italy; in the intercepted general alien pests,Scenopinidae was the most,namely 47 batches,followed by Hordeum leporinum Link. (28 batches), Calliphora vicina (11 batches), Ophyra leucostoma (9 batches)(in Table 2).According to the statistics of original countries of intercepted alien pests, Australia was the largest number of batches of intercepted alien pests, which accounted for 25%of total intercepted batches, followed by America and Spain; Australia was also the largest number of batches of intercepted exotic species, followed by Belgium. Therefore, the inspection and quarantine of imported hides from the above five countries should be enhanced.

Risk Analyses

Effect on crops and environment

From analyzing the species of intercepted alien pests, except quarantine weed Xanthium italicum Moretti,most of the others are general alien species. If not properly controlled, it will also cause damage to the ecological environment and biological diversity in our country, and cause serious economic loss to agricultural and forestry production, such as, Avena fatua L., which will pose a serious threat to cereal crop production for its good adaptability, common occurrence, high multiplication rate and spread easily, the seed can burgeon out in the soil for 4-5 years. Xanthium italicum Moretti is a kind of quarantine weed intruded into our country in recent years, it was listed in the Catalogue of Quarantine Pest for Import Plants to the People’s Republic of China in 2007[6]. In China, Xanthium italicum Moretti was first found in Changping of Beijing in September of 1991, its plant has large degree of coverage, strong competitiveness,poisonous seedlings, and will compete with local species for water,nourishment, illumination and growing space, thereby forming a superiority community[7-8], which will cause the slow growth and yield reduction of crops. Once the weed invades the crop land, it will not only struggle with crops for the space of survival,making the crops damaged, but also intrude into other areas along with farm operation, grain harvest and transport,thereby enlarging its distribution range.

Effect on animal husbandry production

Animal hide is an unprocessed or preliminary working raw material for manufacturing, its alien species carried are multiple and complicated. The larvas of fly and horsefly breed in animal hides,which will cause damage to hides and affect the quality of hides;the imagoes of fly and horsefly are transmissible hosts of many zoonoses,such as charbon and foot-and-mouth disease, etc., once these zoonoses invade into our country, the development of livestock husbandry in China will be affected seriously, which will first cause the decline or death of livestock productivity, then cause the reduction of the quality of animal byproducts, thereby making livestock husbandry lose the competition in the international market;some weeds give birth to delavay raspberry closely,delavay raspberry is easy to hook on animals, thereby affecting the quality and processing of hides.

Table 2 The species of alien pests intercepted from imported hides

Effect on human health and life

Window fly belongs to order Diptera and family Scenopinidae, its larvas mainly breed in granary, soil and animal manure. Domestic reports said that the larvas of window fly can invade and attack human respiratory tract[9-10],not only causing nasal itching and discomfort, but also infecting human skin and causing dermatomyiasis[11].Imagoes of family Tabanidae are mainly hematophagus, except for the great harassing for livestock,they also can transmit many animal diseases,such as swamp fever, filariasis, etc.Biting on human can cause people and animals suffer from Tularaemia or anthrax. Some spiders contain virulence, which threatens the physical health of manufacturing staff.Although some creatures do not infect pathogens,they bring trouble and puzzle to human life, such as earwig andpillworm, if these insects occur in human life, the quality of human life will be affected seriously.

Other hazards

Necrobia rufipes often harms storage products, after the incubation of larvas, they will live in the body of the host,and the seeds of grain and oil will become the vacant shells after being eating up; Dermestes lardarius often harms hides, silk, traditional Chinese medicinal materials, animal specimens, and the processed goods of fish and meat,it is mainly distributed in Europe, some chicken farms in some European countries often have huge numbers of D.lardarius,so it has already become an important injurious insect in local poultry farming; the larvas of Tineola bisselliella feed on wool,hairpencil,fur and feather,causing the decline of product quality, moreover,harming the animal specimens of libraries or museums.

Countermeasures

Attaching importance to the quarantine of imported animal hides carrying alien pests

In the seven hide markets of China,four of them are in Hebei Province,and the import volume of hides of Hebei ranks the first three in the whole nation, therefore, the risk of the imported hides carrying alien pests there is very high. In the inspection and quarantine of imported hides, the inspection of alien pests shall be paid high attention to, so as to prevent the introduction of alien pests through hide product trade.

Improving quarantine techniques of alien pests

At present, the detection level of grassroots units of inspection and quarantine system is unbalanced in China, strengthening the training of related personnel is an important measure to improve the quarantine. Only improving the quarantine level can find the problems in imported animal hides, thereby better reflecting the effectiveness of executing the foreign quarantine law of our country. The intercepted hides carrying alien pests which are restricted by our government shall be returned or destroyed,which on the one hand enhances the persuasion of foreign contact, on the other hand increases the international influence of China quarantine enforcement.

Increasing the supervision and administration of processing and storage

The application data of quarantine examination and approval submitted by hide processing enterprises must be checked strictly, for the processing enterprises, which do not conform to the rules of examination and approval,such as incomplete procedure, epidemic original countries, nonstandard fillout,unclear imported routes,signing the contracts before approval procedure,must be prohibited;the daily supervision and annual verification of enterprises should be strengthened,and if any issues found in the supervision, relevant departments must urge them to rectify and improve in time;for the violation of law and regulation by some enterprises,such as eluding and missing detection, and selling the hides, relevant departments must timely register and investigate as well as punish,so as to guard legal dignity;the credit system construction should be enhanced, for the enterprises who timely apply for inspection and quarantine when the goods arrive, the enterprises who actively cooperate with inspection and quarantine department to implement epidemic prevention and disinfection,and the honest and trustworthy enterprises, the credit rating of them must be adjusted and improved timely, and governments should give priority to them;on the contrary,for the enterprises who break the promise or are brought into the blacklist, the supervision and management must be enhanced; the publicity and training of inspection and quarantine laws and regulations for imported hide processing enterprises within the jurisdiction of China must be enhanced, and the harm of alien pests and health prevention and control knowledge should be propagandized widely among enterprises using multiple approaches and adopting various forms.

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