The potential of environmental and demographic factors in prediction of the presence of Aujeszky disease in wild boars (Sus scrofa L.)

Aujeszky disease is a viral disease, primarily of suids, caused by Suid-alphaherpesvirus 1, also known as the Aujeszky disease virus. The potential transmission of virus from wild boars to domestic pigs underlines the necessity of studying the epidemiology of Aujeszky disease in wild boars. The aim of this study was to evaluate the potential of demographic, environmental and population management predictors in predicting that ELISA tested animals will be seropositive. We used 222 wild boar blood samples, collected from 10 different hunting grounds and Medvednica Nature Park. In total, 12 predictors were used in this study, three of which were demographic (age category, sex, population density), two represented population management (hunting method, relative hunting bag) and seven environmental characteristics (altitude, watercourses, meadows, scrublands, forests, agricultural area and infrastructure area). The model selection was based on the Akaike Information Criterion, corrected AIC and Akaike weight. The model with logistic forward stepwise regression. The age of the wild boars proved to be positively correlated with prediction of boars remains unclear.