Post by jackc99 on Sept 28, 2009 14:33:52 GMT -5
www.indystar.com/article/20090928/NEWS/909280338/1001/NEWS/Specter+of+bovine+TB+haunts+cattle+producers
Specter of bovine TB haunts cattle producers in Indiana
Franklin County cows and deer are focus of testing for the disease
By Will Higgins
will.higgins@indystar.com
Indiana's cattle producers -- their billion-dollar-a-year industry threatened by an obscure bacterium -- turn their eyes anxiously to Franklin County.
There on a small farm lived a cow that had bovine tuberculosis. The disease was detected in the cow at a slaughterhouse in Pennsylvania in December.
The State Board of Animal Health tested all the cows on the Franklin County farm and an adjacent cattle farm for bovine TB -- twice. All tested negative.
Bovine TB, highly contagious, can be passed to cattle by deer, so the Department of Natural Resources culled 30 wild deer in the area and tested them. The results won't be in until October.
If bovine TB is discovered, it would increase the likelihood of it showing up in a second herd. And that could spell trouble.
Bovine TB can affect all warm-blooded vertebrates, though it is no longer much of a threat to humans as long as they drink pasteurized milk and cook meat thoroughly.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture monitors the disease closely, and when it's found in more than one cattle herd, the agency imposes a new level of regulations, slowing or preventing cattle's movement across state lines.
It also then requires annual testing by veterinarians -- at $70 a head.
"I'm a farmer, so I deal with adversity every day -- the weather, the supply and demand of the market," said Clark Sennett, who raises cattle in Montgomery County. "But this TB, if they find Indiana has a problem, it could sure hinder us."
Michigan, one of four states to lose its USDA "TB-free status" (the others are Minnesota, California and New Mexico), has wrestled with the disease for 15 years. Wildlife and agriculture officials there have tested more than a million cattle and 80,000 deer, and have destroyed 45 cattle herds. The cost: $100 million.
The state's cattle producers have suffered.
"The markets outside Michigan have really gone away," said Dr. James Averill, who heads the Michigan Department of Agriculture. "TB is still the most common infectious disease in the world and internationally of great concern."
Indiana's cattle industry isn't huge (it's 35th among the states), nor is it growing as urban sprawl encroaches on farmland. The state's herd -- 900,000 -- shrank 10 percent from a decade ago and 25 percent over two decades.
Still, the industry employs 2,200 people, according to the Indiana Beef Cattle Association. Its 2007 annual revenues, the most recent data compiled by the USDA, were $940 million.
More broadly, cattle are key components of rural life -- about one in three of Indiana's 58,800 farms has cattle -- "and are therefore subject to bovine TB," said Chris Hurt, a Purdue University agricultural economist. "I don't want to cry wolf, but this is a dangerous disease."
Sennett, 60, who used to farm with his father and now farms with his son, grows corn and soybeans and keeps 1,200 head of cattle.
Sennett's cattle account for half his income. "So, yes, I'm real concerned about how this thing got started," he said.
State officials suspect that the Franklin County cow contracted the disease from a farm down the road that raised red deer and elk.
Some of those animals tested positive for bovine TB; all three dozen were destroyed.
Red deer and elk, species not native to Indiana, are raised on farms across Indiana mostly for sale to hunting preserves. These are private properties known for their trophy-sized animals. Hunters pay thousands of dollars for a chance at them.
A cervid breeder in Wayne County recently bought animals from the Franklin County farm. They, too, were destroyed.
The animals at a third location, in Harrison County, that also bought animals from the Franklin County farm have not all been destroyed, "but we're in the process," said Phil Bloom, a DNR spokesman.
The State Board of Animal Health and DNR investigators are focusing their attention on wildlife, which officials see as the only way the disease could have been passed between the two Franklin County farms.
The disease is transmitted through saliva or nasal discharge. Deer often eat food intended for cattle. In Michigan, the native deer population is a known carrier.
State officials here say deer aren't the only suspects: The disease could be spread by birds or other animals.
But their next plan is to meet with deer hunters in the counties where bovine TB has been found and advise them to be on the lookout for signs of bovine TB in their prey, such as lesions on their lungs.
The DNR hopes to collect tissue samples from felled deer and test them for bovine TB.
"If you get to free-ranging deer right away," said Steve Schmitt, a biologist with Michigan's beleaguered DNR, "it's very possible you can nip this in the bud."
"I'm satisfied the BOAH and DNR are really trying to correct the situation," said Sennett, the farmer. "But when you grow up with this way of life, when you're a farmer, you accept what happens and go on.
"You just learn to live with what you're dealt."
Specter of bovine TB haunts cattle producers in Indiana
Franklin County cows and deer are focus of testing for the disease
By Will Higgins
will.higgins@indystar.com
Indiana's cattle producers -- their billion-dollar-a-year industry threatened by an obscure bacterium -- turn their eyes anxiously to Franklin County.
There on a small farm lived a cow that had bovine tuberculosis. The disease was detected in the cow at a slaughterhouse in Pennsylvania in December.
The State Board of Animal Health tested all the cows on the Franklin County farm and an adjacent cattle farm for bovine TB -- twice. All tested negative.
Bovine TB, highly contagious, can be passed to cattle by deer, so the Department of Natural Resources culled 30 wild deer in the area and tested them. The results won't be in until October.
If bovine TB is discovered, it would increase the likelihood of it showing up in a second herd. And that could spell trouble.
Bovine TB can affect all warm-blooded vertebrates, though it is no longer much of a threat to humans as long as they drink pasteurized milk and cook meat thoroughly.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture monitors the disease closely, and when it's found in more than one cattle herd, the agency imposes a new level of regulations, slowing or preventing cattle's movement across state lines.
It also then requires annual testing by veterinarians -- at $70 a head.
"I'm a farmer, so I deal with adversity every day -- the weather, the supply and demand of the market," said Clark Sennett, who raises cattle in Montgomery County. "But this TB, if they find Indiana has a problem, it could sure hinder us."
Michigan, one of four states to lose its USDA "TB-free status" (the others are Minnesota, California and New Mexico), has wrestled with the disease for 15 years. Wildlife and agriculture officials there have tested more than a million cattle and 80,000 deer, and have destroyed 45 cattle herds. The cost: $100 million.
The state's cattle producers have suffered.
"The markets outside Michigan have really gone away," said Dr. James Averill, who heads the Michigan Department of Agriculture. "TB is still the most common infectious disease in the world and internationally of great concern."
Indiana's cattle industry isn't huge (it's 35th among the states), nor is it growing as urban sprawl encroaches on farmland. The state's herd -- 900,000 -- shrank 10 percent from a decade ago and 25 percent over two decades.
Still, the industry employs 2,200 people, according to the Indiana Beef Cattle Association. Its 2007 annual revenues, the most recent data compiled by the USDA, were $940 million.
More broadly, cattle are key components of rural life -- about one in three of Indiana's 58,800 farms has cattle -- "and are therefore subject to bovine TB," said Chris Hurt, a Purdue University agricultural economist. "I don't want to cry wolf, but this is a dangerous disease."
Sennett, 60, who used to farm with his father and now farms with his son, grows corn and soybeans and keeps 1,200 head of cattle.
Sennett's cattle account for half his income. "So, yes, I'm real concerned about how this thing got started," he said.
State officials suspect that the Franklin County cow contracted the disease from a farm down the road that raised red deer and elk.
Some of those animals tested positive for bovine TB; all three dozen were destroyed.
Red deer and elk, species not native to Indiana, are raised on farms across Indiana mostly for sale to hunting preserves. These are private properties known for their trophy-sized animals. Hunters pay thousands of dollars for a chance at them.
A cervid breeder in Wayne County recently bought animals from the Franklin County farm. They, too, were destroyed.
The animals at a third location, in Harrison County, that also bought animals from the Franklin County farm have not all been destroyed, "but we're in the process," said Phil Bloom, a DNR spokesman.
The State Board of Animal Health and DNR investigators are focusing their attention on wildlife, which officials see as the only way the disease could have been passed between the two Franklin County farms.
The disease is transmitted through saliva or nasal discharge. Deer often eat food intended for cattle. In Michigan, the native deer population is a known carrier.
State officials here say deer aren't the only suspects: The disease could be spread by birds or other animals.
But their next plan is to meet with deer hunters in the counties where bovine TB has been found and advise them to be on the lookout for signs of bovine TB in their prey, such as lesions on their lungs.
The DNR hopes to collect tissue samples from felled deer and test them for bovine TB.
"If you get to free-ranging deer right away," said Steve Schmitt, a biologist with Michigan's beleaguered DNR, "it's very possible you can nip this in the bud."
"I'm satisfied the BOAH and DNR are really trying to correct the situation," said Sennett, the farmer. "But when you grow up with this way of life, when you're a farmer, you accept what happens and go on.
"You just learn to live with what you're dealt."
