Denmark builds border ‘wall’ to keep out German pigs, stop spread of African swine fever
- The 65km fence will stand 150cm tall and extend across the Danish-German border
- Critics of the border barrier, though, say it would be ineffective and is largely symbolic
Denmark is building its own border “wall” – but this one is meant to keep out pigs.
This week, the Danish government began construction of a more than 65km (40-mile) fence along its German border aimed at preventing the spread of African swine fever.
Crews began working in the border town of Padborg, and the roughly 150cm tall fence is expected to be completed this fall, the Danish government said.
“We have 11 billion good reasons to do everything we can to prevent African swine fever reaching Denmark. And now we can finally get started on erecting our wild boar fence,” the country’s Minister for Environment and Food, Jakob Ellemann-Jensen, said in a statement.
“The fence and our increased efforts to hunt wild boar will break the chain of infection so there is less risk of African swine fever spreading to Denmark.”
However, no cases of African swine fever have been reported in Germany. The Local, an English-language news outlet, reported that the first case spotted in Poland came in 2014 from a wild boar from Belarus and that Belgium saw its first case in September near its border with Luxembourg and France.
