Management of Chamois in Bavaria (Germany): The Importance of Game Activities in Scabies Control.

Abstract

In Bavaria (Germany), scabies was registered for the first time in the year 1824 among the chamois population of the Berchtesgaden region, and disappeared 6 years later. For the next 119 years, the chamois populations in the Bavarian Alps seemed not to be infected by scabies. But in 1949 scabies occurred again in the Bavarian chamois populations east of the River Inn, with origin in the Berchtesgaden region. Scabies has been recorded repeatedly since then. Whereas between 1949 and the early 1990s scabies had a great impact on the development of the chamois populations in the Bavarian Alps east of the river Inn, the disease has had little significance since 1995. As it is assumed that there is a link between high population density and the occurrence of scabies among chamois, hunting bags (as indicators of population density) were compared with the recorded scabies cases (shot or deceased game) among chamois populations in the Bavarian state forests east of the river Inn. Data collected from the Berchtesgaden Forest Office were further analysed according to age and sex parameters. There is a highly significant, inverse, non-parametric correlation between recorded incidences of scabies and hunting bags in the whole study area and in the area of Berchtesgaden Forest Office. The results of the analysis show that bucks were slightly more likely to be registered with scabies than does (p=0.018). Young animals (yearlings and juveniles) played only a secondary role in terms of scabies prevalence. Both the historical background of scabies in the Alps and the present study support the above-mentioned hypothesis that the incidence of scabies in chamois is related to high chamois population densities. The spread of scabies can therefore be slowed down or prevented by increasing game bags over a large area.