Eid Benjamin, Beggs David, Mansell Peter
Melbourne Veterinary School, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC 3010, Australia.
Animals (Basel). 2021 Mar 17;11(3):848. doi: 10.3390/ani11030848.
In 2019-2020, a particularly bad bushfire season in Australia resulted in cattle being exposed to prolonged periods of smoke haze and reduced air quality. Bushfire smoke contains many harmful pollutants, and impacts on regions far from the fire front, with smoke haze persisting for weeks. Particulate matter (PM) is one of the major components of bushfire smoke known to have a negative impact on human health. However, little has been reported about the potential effects that bushfire smoke has on cattle exposed to smoke haze for extended periods. We explored the current literature to investigate evidence for likely effects on cattle from prolonged exposure to smoke generated from bushfires in Australia. We conducted a search for papers related to the impacts of smoke on cattle. Initial searching returned no relevant articles through either CAB Direct or PubMed databases, whilst Google Scholar provided a small number of results. The search was then expanded to look at two sub-questions: the type of pollution that is found in bushfire smoke, and the reported effects of both humans and cattle being exposed to these types of pollutants. The primary mechanism for damage due to bushfire smoke is due to small airborne particulate matter (PM). Although evidence demonstrates that PM from bushfire smoke has a measurable impact on both human mortality and cardiorespiratory morbidities, there is little evidence regarding the impact of chronic bushfire smoke exposure in cattle. We hypothesize that cattle are not severely affected by chronic exposure to smoke haze, as evidenced by the lack of reports. This may be because cattle do not tend to suffer from the co-morbidities that, in the human population, seem to be made worse by smoke and pollution. Further, small changes to background mortality rates or transient morbidity may also go unreported.
2019 - 2020年，澳大利亚遭遇了特别严重的丛林火灾季节，致使牲畜长时间暴露在烟雾弥漫且空气质量下降的环境中。丛林火灾烟雾中含有许多有害污染物，其影响范围远至离火灾前线很远的地区，烟雾阴霾会持续数周。颗粒物（PM）是丛林火灾烟雾的主要成分之一，已知会对人类健康产生负面影响。然而，关于丛林火灾烟雾对长时间暴露在烟雾阴霾中的牲畜可能产生的影响，鲜有报道。我们查阅了当前的文献，以调查澳大利亚丛林火灾产生的烟雾长时间暴露对牲畜可能产生影响的证据。我们搜索了与烟雾对牲畜影响相关的论文。最初通过CAB Direct或PubMed数据库搜索未返回相关文章，而谷歌学术搜索提供了少量结果。随后搜索范围扩大，以研究两个子问题：丛林火灾烟雾中发现的污染类型，以及人类和牲畜暴露于这些类型污染物的报道影响。丛林火灾烟雾造成损害的主要机制是由于空气中的小颗粒物（PM）。虽然有证据表明丛林火灾烟雾中的PM对人类死亡率和心肺疾病都有可测量的影响，但关于牲畜长期暴露于丛林火灾烟雾的影响的证据很少。我们假设，正如缺乏相关报道所证明的那样，牲畜不会受到长期暴露于烟雾阴霾的严重影响。这可能是因为牲畜往往不会患上那些在人类群体中似乎会因烟雾和污染而加重的合并症。此外，背景死亡率或短暂发病率的微小变化也可能未被报道。
