CSFV A goDIVA

Partner 10

Partner 10: Office National de la Chasse et de la Faune Sauvage (ONCFS)

Institute

The National Game and Wildlife Agency (Office national de la chasse et de la faune sauvage, ONCFS) is a public agency responsible for wildlife, its habitats and hunting, under the shared administration of the Ministry of Ecology and Sustainable Development (MEDD) and the Ministry of Agriculture and Fishing (MAP). Employing 1612 agents comprising managers, scientists, technicians and enforcement officers specialized in wildlife throughout the French territory. In contact with farmers, foresters and hunters who work in rural space management. Working in partnership with all those concerned with nature conservation, the preservation of protected areas, and hunting of game species in accordance with conservation needs. ONCFS ensures the development of the huntable wildlife stocks while respecting their biological equilibrium and promotes hunting in accordance with sustainable hunting practices.The wildlife sanitary unit (Unité sanitaire de la faune, USF) of the ONCFS is more particularly involved in wildlife disease research and surveillance. This unit leads survey and research programs dealing with game mortality and wild reservoir of diseases transmissible to humans or livestock such as classical swine fever, avian flu, trichinellosis, Aujeszky's disease, brucellosis, bovine tuberculosis...etc.

Expertise

Since 1998, ONCFS is involved in the surveillance and management of classical swine fever of wild boar at a National level, and is performing a field evaluation of management measures including oral vaccination. The previous research programs conducted under the authority of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fishing (MAP) have brought significant insights on the efficacy of vaccination, and more particularly the low bait uptake and immunization rate in young wild boar, the strong correlation between population size and CSF persistence, the effect of green corridors in the diffusion of the disease, the competition between crops or oak mast and baiting. New management measures and regulation have emerged from this scientific work such as changes in vaccination timetables. ONCFS also provides monthly and annual epidemiological synthesis used by the French MAP. At the European level, ONCFS has also participated as invited expert in the previous European program conducted on live-marker vaccine in wild boar, and has recently enter a working group of EFSA dedicated to the evaluation of CSF control measures in wild boar.

Role and contribution in the project

Research activities will focus primarily on work packages 5 and 7 in addition to WP 9

Principal scientific and technical personnel

Mastain, Olivier DMV, head of the wildlife sanitary unit.
Rossi, Sophie PhD, DMV, researcher epidemiologist.
Hars, Jean DMV, researcher epidemiologist.

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