Meat inspection of reindeer – a rich source of data for monitoring food safety and animal and environmental health in Sweden

Figures & data

Figure 1. Swedish reindeer herding area.[5]​

Table 1. Diagnostic groups of registered conditions and diseases.

Group of carcass conditions	Includes	Comments
Parasites	Cysticercosis, onchocercosis, setariosis, dictyocaulus, elaphostongylosis, Hypoderma tarandi, Dicrocoelium dendriticum	Small abscesses and other damage in liver as traces after parasitism included here. Changes in lungs recorded here only when parasites visually confirmed. Cysticercosis laboratory confirmation demanded.
Acute traumatic lesions	Acute lesions	Acute: subcutaneous bleedings and fresh fractures in ribs or other bones, caused by humans or animals (e.g. goring) during handling of animals
Chronic traumatic lesions	Chronic lesions	Chronic: healed wounds and fractures after accidents on roads/railroads, rutting fights between males, predator attacks, even human-caused during management activities
Emaciation	Emaciation	Animals declared unfit for human consumption because of wasting. Absence of epicardial fat (serous atrophy around arteria coronaria), absence of abdominal fat tissue, gelatinous bone marrow. Muscle atrophy.
Inflammatory processes	Inflammatory processes	Peritonitis, pneumonia, pleuritis, pericardititis, perihepatitis, abscess, septicaemia, arthritis. Parasites not confirmed visually or in laboratory.
Poor slaughter hygiene	Carcass not clean	Faecal or other contamination on the carcass visually confirmed. Includes some cases after laboratory testing. Incomplete bleeding not included.
High caesium-137 and caesium-134 content	Content of Cs-137 and/or Cs-134 in carcass exceed 1500 Bq kg^–1	Measurement done externally and confirmed at the laboratory. Bq = bequerel. Carcasses with levels of Cs exceeding 1500 Bq are declared unfit for human consumption.

Table 2. Descriptive statistics for 2015 and 2016.

Covariate/factor	2015	2016
Number of slaughtered reindeer in analysis	49,966	52,635
Number of slaughtered reindeer of mountain origin	42,563	46,097
(% of total per year)	(85%)	(88%)
Number of slaughtered reindeer of forest origin	7,403	6,538
(% of total per year)	(15%)	(12%)
Number of batches (total in analysis)	327	389
Number of batches of mountain origin	240	279
(% of total per year)	(73%)	(72%)
Number of batches of forest origin	87	110
(% of total per year)	(27%)	(28%)
Batch size median	137	105
(min–max)	(4–525)	(2–458)
Batch size in large slaughterhouses,	128	113
median (min–max)	(4–525)	(2–458)
Batch size in small slaughterhouses,	132	103
median (min–max)	(4–355)	(7–395)
Total number of carcass conditions	39	50
recorded per batch median (min–max)	(1–705)	(1–654)
Number of batches with code Hypoderma	180	262
tarandi (batch prevalence %)	(55%)	(67%)
Within-batch prevalence H. tarandi amongst positive batches, median (min-max)	0.28 (0.003–1)	0.33 (0.004–1)
Total number of reindeer with condition	8,186	14,061
H. tarandi (individual prevalence %)	(16%)	(27%)
Number of batches with code acute trauma (batch prevalence %)	226 (69%)	268 (69%)
Within-batch prevalence acute trauma amongst positive batches, median (min–max)	0.02(0.003–0.51)	0.03(0.003–0.44)
Total number of reindeer with acute trauma (individual prevalence %)	1,285(2.6%)	1,463(2.8%)
Number of batches with code chronic trauma (batch prevalence %)	118 (36%)	143 (37%)
Within-batch prevalence chronic trauma amongst positive batches, median (min-max)	0.01(0.003–0.17)	0.02(0.002–0.24)
Total number of reindeer with chronic trauma (individual prevalence %)	289 (0.6%)	490 (0.9%)
Number of batches with at least one code in inflammatory processes (IP) (batch prevalence %)	198 (61%)	202 (52%)

Table 3. Descriptive statistics for large (>6000 annual kill) and small (≤6000 annual kill) slaughterhouses (SLH) and for inspector experience groups with long (LE) and short (SE) experience in PMI of reindeer for findings Hypoderma tarandi (H. tarandi), acute trauma, chronic trauma and inflammatory processes (IP) found in PMI of reindeer.​

Covariate/ factor	Large SLH		Large SLH		Small SLH		Small SLH		Inspector LE		Inspector LE		Inspector SE		Inspector SE
Year	2015		2016		2015		2016		2015		2016		2015		2016
	No.	%	No.	%	No.	%	No.	%	No.	%	No.	%	No.	%	No.	%
Slaughterhouse	5	45	4	33	6	55	8	67
Inspector									6	30	7	35	14	70	13	65
Slaughtered	37,640	75	33,864	64	12,326	25	18,771	36	15,667	31	16,023	30	34,299	69	36,612	70
H. tarandi	4895	13	7219	21.3	3291	26.7	6842	36.4	2997	19.1	3370	21.0	5189	15.1	10,691	29.2
Acute trauma	751	2.0	904	2.7	534	4.3	559	3.0	273	1.7	277	1.7	1012	3.0	1186	3.2
Chronic trauma	145	0.4	328	1.0	144	1.2	162	0.9	59	0.4	419	2.6	230	0.7	71	0.2
IP	536	1.4	1142	3.4	158	1.3	1124	6.0	178	1.1	510	3.2	516	1.5	1756	4.8

Table 4. Incidence risk ratios (IRR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) of total number of conditions found in PMI of reindeer. Inspectors are divided in two groups with long (LE, > 3 years and > 10,000 reindeer) and short (SE, < 3 years and < 10,000 reindeer) experience in PMI of reindeer.

Characteristics		IRR	95% CI	p-value
Year	2015	Reference
	2016	1.3	1.2–1.5	<0.001
Origin of reindeer	Forest	Reference
	Mountain	1.0	0.8–1.2	0.861
Inspector experience group	LE	Reference
	SE	0.9	0.8–1.1	0.300
Slaughter season	Autumn	Reference
	Winter	1.6	1.4–1.9	<0.001
	Spring	1.3	1.0–1.7	0.018
Slaughter house size	Large	Reference
	Small	1.9	1.7–2.2	<0.001

Table 5. Incidence risk ratio (IRR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) of number of Hypoderma tarandi, acute trauma, chronic trauma and inflammatory processes (IP) found in PMI of reindeer. Inspector experience groups are with long (LE) and short (SE) experience in PMI of reindeer.​

Characteristics		H. tarandi IRR (95% CI)	p-value	Acute trauma IRR (95% CI)	p-value	Chronic trauma IRR (95% CI)	p-value	IP IRR (95%CI)	p-value
Year	2015	Reference
	2016	1.8 (1.4–2.4)	<0.001	1.1 (0.9–1.3)	0.275	1.6 (1.3–2.3)	<0.001	2.8 (2.2–3.4)	<0.001
Origin of reindeer	Forest	Reference
	Mountain	2.5 (1.8–3.4)	<0.001	1.8 (1.4–2.3)	<0.001	1.8 (1.2–2.7)	0.004	0.8 (0.6–1.0)	0.051
Inspector experience group	LE	Reference
	SE	0.9 (0.6–1.2)	0.399	0.9 (0.7–1.2)	0.678	0.8 (0.5–1.3)	0.380	0.7 (0.5–1.0)	0.034
Slaughter season	Autumn	Reference
	Winter	15.2 (10.1–22.5)	<0.001	1.4 (1.1–1.8)	0.008	1.9 (1.2–2.8)	0.002	1.1 (0.8–1.4)	0.595
	Spring	14.3 (8.6–24.1)	<0.001	1.1 (0.8–1.6)	0.489	1.2 (0.7–2.2)	0.446	0.6 (0.4–0.8)	0.004
Slaughter house size	Large	Reference
	Small	2.0 (1.5–2.8)	<0.001	0.4 (0.3–0.7)	<0.001	1.9 (1.3–2.8)	<0.001	0.8 (0.5–1.3)	0.300
Inspector experience group* slaughterhouse size	Group SE* Small	No interaction	-	4.6 (2.8–7.6)	<0.001	0.4 (0.2–0.9)	0.023	2.1 (1.3–3.7)	0.004

*Interaction between inspector experience group SE and small slaughter houses is marked with “SE * Small”.

Kautto AH , Vågsholm I , Niskanen R. Reindeer – wild game ante and post mortem? In: Paulsen P , Bauer A , Smulders FJM , editors. Game meat hygiene – Food safety and security. Wageningen: Wageningen Academic Publishers; 2017. p. 1–10.

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