Attack of the super pigs!

Hello 👋 This is Weekend Rounds - the latest veterinary news, entertainment and education wrapped up into a quick 5 minute read. Consider us the Mario Kart speed boost of vet med.Here's what's on track today:🐖 Canadian super pigs 👃 Life saving olfactory systems🐘 The circus goes 3D🐆 + 🐕 = 🥰🚀 Quick hits

🐖 Canadian super pigs

In 2019, Americans were worried about '30-50 feral hogs'. Fast forward to 2023, and it is destructive Canadian super pigs taking up mental energy... and for good reason.First a bit of background: wild pigs are not native to the Americas, but various species have been imported multiple times, starting with the original colonizer himself - Christopher Columbus. However, this particular pig situation stems back to a lot brought over from Europe in the 1980s to be raised on farms. Canadian farmers created the super pigs by breeding their hogs with feral populations to form larger varieties that provided more meat and were easier to hunt. The thinking went, "even if a wild pig or a wild boar escaped from a farm, there’s no way it would survive a Canadian winter."Well I guess the joke is on us, because these hybrid hogs have used their smarts and size to survive. They've been known to burrow underground and line their nests with snow for insulation. As their population increases, they have been expanding their territory by almost 34,000 square miles per year and now occupy over 300,000 square miles. As they continue to move south, wildlife officials in North Dakota, Minnesota, Idaho and Montana are all on the alert for pigs crossing the border.But northern states are not the only ones dealing with pig problems. Wild pigs have terrorized the southern United States for decades, destroying farmers’ crops, preying on native species and carrying a variety of pathogens that can spread to humans - causing an estimated $2.1 billion in damage every year. Bonus fact: a herd of wild swine is called a sounder.

👃 Life saving olfactory systems

You likely know that some dogs can be trained to detect cancer, but as the National Geographic covered this week, you may not know that ants, rats, bees, and worms can also have similar superpowers. We highly recommend a read through the full article linked above if you have a moment. But our superpower is quick recaps so here you go:DogsDogs can be trained to smell several types of cancers, including melanoma, breast and gastrointestinal cancers in humans. They've also been successfully trained to detect malaria and Parkinson’s disease and even COVID-19. Dogs medical applications go beyond human medicine as well. They can also smell infectious disease in other animals, including chronic wasting disease, which affects the brains of deer and can be fatal.What we don't know for sure, is if the dogs are reacting to the disease itself or the way the body is reacting to the disease. A study from late last year on ovarian cancer showed that different dogs may be picking up on different scents.Ants

Research from the University Sorbonne Paris Nord in France shows that the silky ant (formica fusca) can learn to identify the scent of breast cancer in urine. Ants and other animals pick up signs of disease by perceiving various volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, which can be found in exhaled breath, and in sweat, urine, and blood. By placing a sugar reward near the cancer sample, ants are conditioned to seek out that scent.Rats Meet the the African Giant Pouched Rat (Cricetomys gambianus) who has been trained to sniff out landmines. Since 2004, they've helped rid seven countries of more than 150,000 landmines.However in Tanzania, the rats can screen upwards of a hundred suspected tuberculosus patient samples in about 20 minutes, which is much faster than their human colleagues. Like the ants, they are rewarded with food when they identify a sample already identified as positive, and if the rat alerts to a sample that researchers thought to be negative, the sample is sent on to be further evaluated. BeesDutch researchers have shown that honeybees are quite adept at identifying SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The bees can be trained in a matter of minutes, and can check a COVID test in just seconds. While researchers aren't yet sure what exactly the bees are smelling, work has been ongoing to help identify COVID in remote communities where traditional testing can be difficult.Worms (sort of)

While it's not technically a worm, the nematode caenorhabditis elegans, is approximately the size of a sand grain and is commonly used in lab research. It has a few properties that make it ideal for research, including it's transparent nature that allows biological processes to be easily visible under a microscope.

The organism has also been shown to have cancer-detecting abilities in both a Japanese study (where is detected pancreatic cancer cells) and Italian study (where it identified revealed it could recognize breast cancer cells). In both cases the worms would move towards samples with the cancer cells and avoiding the healthy ones.

🐘 The circus goes 3D

A new 3D spectacle is taking over the tented world of circus acts. After years of animal cruelty reports, it appears change is afoot as circuses are adapting. In Germany, at Circus Roncalli, the 3D hologram is a modern way to preserve the flavor of historic circuses while eliminating concerns of animal cruelty. In America, seven states and 149 cities, towns and counties have implemented restrictions on the use of wild animals in circuses. While the holograms lack a certain realism, they are fascinating in their own way and it's possible the act moves stateside soon. I'm sure we're all in favour of fewer animal abuse cases. Bring on the holograms! Check them out:

🐆 + 🐕 = 🥰

Did you know that cheetahs, especially those in captivity, are anxious and shy? To help cheetahs feel comfortable, playful, and happy, zoos often provide emotional support dogs for them to play with. And it's perhaps one of the cutest things you'll ever see:

Photos courtesy of the Columbus Zoo.

🚀 Quick hits

Here are some stories we're following this week from around the veterinary world and animal kingdom:

Dog gets 3D-printed prosthetic leg grafted onto bone in France [Connexion]

Alarming toxic ‘forever chemicals’ found in animals’ blood – study [The Guardian]

The rise of cultivated meat: how will this new technology affect farmers and veterinary professionals? [Farmers Review Africa]The human sensory experience is limited. Journey into the world that animals know [NPR]

U.S. FDA to restrict unlawful import of veterinary tranquilizer Xylazine [Reuters]

AVMA backing helps reignite push for stronger dog import standards [AVMA]