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Local beef herds face disease threat from imported cattle |
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Wednesday, 02 September 2009 |
State veterinarian investigating TB, Brucellosis fears in Canadian herd
BY JAMIE HENNEMAN
S-E Staff Reporter
A herd of over 400 feeder cat¬tle from Canada being held at a ranch near Northport are caus¬ing concern with local cattlemen who suspect the possibly illegal band of animals are not vacci¬nated for the highly contagious diseases of Tuberculosis or Bru¬cellosis. It has been reported that the imported cattle have been commingling with domes¬tic herds on the Colville National Forest and may be spreading the disease if it is present in the Canadian cattle.
The Canadian feeder cattle were supposed to be transported across the Canadian border to a dry feedlot at El Oro Cattle Feeders feedlot in Moses Lake earlier this summer. Instead, the animals were diverted to rangeland and found to be grazing near Northport on the Three Rivers Ranger District in the Colville National Forest, ac¬cording to reports.
Washington State Veterinar¬ian Leonard Eldridge said the Washington State Department of Agriculture is conducting an “ongoing investigation” on the matter and has ordered the landowner to round up the cat¬tle as soon as possible.
“We are asking the rancher to gather the cattle so they can be quarantined and tested as soon as possible,” said Eldridge. “There are specific requirements for imported cattle that may be commingling with domestic herds, including individual id, a Canadian brand, a Brucellosis test and a TB test. We do not know if these cattle have met those requirements.”
Highly contagious
Eldridge said he was not able to name the rancher who ac¬cepted the Canadian cattle onto his property because of the on¬going investigation.
Determining if these cattle are vaccinated or not is crucial to local cattlemen who don’t want to lose their “TB and Bruccelosis free” status in Stevens County.
“Because both of these dis¬eases are highly contagious and untreatable, they can cause se¬vere economic problems for ranchers in the area by creating restrictions or quarantines of their cattle,” said Ranchers and Cattlemen’s Action Legal Fund (R-CALF) CEO Bill Bullard, who is working with area ranchers on the issue. “We have all but eradicated these diseases in the U.S., but they can always be reintroduced through imports. “
Dr. Eldridge agreed the po¬tential impact is serious.
“If either disease is found lo¬cally, other states can put movement restrictions on cattle from this area, including a 10 cent a pound restriction fee,” said Eldrige. ”On a 500 pound calf, for example, that’s the rancher’s profit.”
Last week R-CALF made a written request to the U.S. De¬partment of Agriculture (USDA) to investigate a potential viola¬tion of USDA requirements for the importation of the Canadian cattle.
In its request for investigation, R-CALF USA has asked USDA to investigate whether the im¬ported Canadian cattle, which allegedly circumvented Wash¬ington state testing require¬ments, also had entered the United States under a health certificate that may have con¬tained false or misleading in¬formation.
“We want to determine if these imported cattle, which have now potentially exposed domestic cattle to an increased risk for disease, had circumvented not only the state of Washington testing law, but the federal im¬port law as well,” Bullard em¬phasized.
Unfair & deceptive?
In addition, R-CALF filed a separate written request for an investigation concerning this in¬cident with the U.S. Department of Justice and USDA’s Grain In¬spection Packers and Stock¬yards Administration (GIPSA).
In its request for investigation, R-CALF USA stated that in ad¬dition to exposing domestic cat¬tle to potential disease spread, the Canadian cattle owned by Agri Beef Co. were not author¬ized to graze on the Three Rivers Ranger District in the Colville National Forest.
R-CALF USA has asked the DOJ and GIPSA to determine if Agri Beef Co.’s use of these im¬ported Canadian cattle consti¬tuted an unfair and deceptive practice under the Packers and Stockyards Act.
“We believe the effect of Agri Beef Co.’s improper use of these imported Canadian cattle was to lower the company’s cost of cat¬tle procurement and to reduce the demand for domestic cattle,” Bullard alleged. “Given Agri Beef Co.’s market dominance in the Pacific Northwest, it is our opinion this is an example of a meatpacker engaging in unfair and deceptive practices that gives the company the ability to unfairly lower both the demand and price for domestic cattle raised by Washington state cat¬tle ranchers.”
R-CALF USA informed Justice and GIPSA there may be up to 26,000 imported Canadian cat¬tle that were supposed to have been delivered to the El Oro Cattle Feeders feedlot since April 2009 and it asked the agencies to determine the dispo¬sition of these cattle as well.
“We are hopeful there is now sufficient information regarding these imported cattle to enable the agencies to determine the extent to which Agri Beef Co. may be using imported Cana¬dian cattle to engage in an¬ticompetitive practices and/or antitrust activities that are ef¬fectively lowering the value of domestic cattle in the Pacific Northwest,” Bullard said.
“U.S. cattle producers already face the prospect of lower cattle prices than they received last year and they can hardly with¬stand the adverse market effects of a meatpacker using unfair and deceptive practices to gain a pricing advantage in the mar¬ketplace,” he added. “We hope our federal agencies will get to the bottom of this as quickly as possible.”
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 09 September 2009 )
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