Bears - Sounds Wild
Bear Meat Trichinosis

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Transcript

Bear meat

On a spring night, a party of bear hunters is cooking some bear meat over their campfire. They're celebrating their successful hunt, and sampling some of the fresh meat. Unfortunately, they don't cook the meat completely and a few weeks later they all get sick, feeling weak and feverish with muscle pain. They've got trichinosis, a disease caused by a parasite in bear meat that's now in their muscle tissue.

The parasite trichinella is a tiny round worm with an adult and a larval stage. The larvae migrate from the stomach and intestines into muscle, and it's the larvae in the muscles that causes the pain. Eventually the immune system will kill the adults, the larvae will become encysted, and the symptoms will pass.

Trichinella is common in Alaska's bears, wolves, foxes, coyotes, lynx; and in marine mammals like seals and walrus. The trichinella parasite in Alaska's bears is closely related to the trichinella in domestic livestock, but it's a much tougher creature. It's arctic adapted and can survive frozen for years. That's how it spreads - scavengers feed on the carcass of a dead, infected animal and the parasite gets a new host. It can also tolerate higher temperatures than the pork parasite. Bear meat should reach an internal temperature of 160 degrees and rest at that temperature for at least three minutes when it's cooked. The hunters' campfire was probably hot enough, but they didn't thoroughly cook the meat.