The news is not good for pigs these days. They've gotten a bad -- and apparently undeserved -- global rap as the cause of the so-called swine flu. The Egyptians want to kill them all. And as if that weren't enough to make them wallow in the mud, sick people can make them sick.
That's why as news reports of the flu intensified, administrators at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo sprang into action. They called an emergency meeting one morning -- and by afternoon, signs went up on the roadways leading to the pig barns. Their gist: Sick people, back away from our pigs:
"In order to protect our animals from possible exposure to swine influenza," the new signs declare, "access is limited to only healthy students and personnel."
"The general population needs to know animals are infected just like humans -- and a lot of times the humans carry the disease to animals," said Andrew Thulin, head of the animal science department.
The Cal Poly pigs are popular, and joggers and parents with children like to stop by the fencing near the open side of one barn, where the curious animals come over for pats from strangers.
"Our animals are high health, they're very clean, and they're very susceptible to disease," Thulin explained.
Other agricultural and animal programs in California schools are being extra vigilant about their swine herds.
"I had a news team that wanted to show up at our swine unit and film with pigs all around," said Edward Fonda, professor in the animal and veterinary sciences department at Cal Poly Pomona. "I said no. It's too much of a risk. I don't know where they've been. I don't know where their equipment has been. Maybe if it had been any other time, I would have said yes."
Schools with agricultural and animal programs pride themselves on pristinely healthy animal stocks, which they use for teaching, research and public outreach. Most say they don't have to ramp up their health-safety procedures because they already keep their pigs in a near-cocoon of biosecurity, taking many precautions whether they have a herd of 300, as at UC Davis, or just one -- Oliver -- at Pierce College in Woodland Hills. The 150-pound pot-bellied pig is the, well, guinea pig for Pierce's aspiring vets and vet techs, who are learning to take animal temperature, pulse and respiration rates.
