What was supposed to be the routine drilling of a gas well in a cattle
pasture has turned into a rude awakening about the lack of provincial
post-mortem services.
Duncan and Marilyn MacMillan of Valhalla Centre in northern Alberta
have waited three months for the results of a toxicology test after
their cattle walked through drilling mud for three weeks and possibly
ate some mud the oil company dumped in the bush.
“There are still no results,” said Duncan MacMillan, who can’t sell any
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of his livestock in case carcinogenic chemicals in the mud were
absorbed by the cattle.
“Until they can say they’re not contaminated, we’ll hang onto them,” he
said. “If we put beef on the market that’s contaminated, it’ll come
back to us. It’s our problem.”
While most rural veterinarians are able to do basic field autopsies,
extensive toxicology or physiological tests must be done in one of the
province’s two private laboratories.
Those in the industry say Alberta used to have one of North America’s
best public livestock pathology laboratory networks. If an animal died,
a farmer or vet could take the entire animal to one of the government
facilities in Fairview, Edmonton, Airdrie or Lethbridge for a free
post-mortem investigation.
While those labs still exist, only the one in Edmonton has a
pathologist on staff. Joyce Van Donkersgoed, who used to have a feedlot
veterinary practice in Alberta, said that’s a shame.
“When I was in practice they were the greatest thing.”
She said she routinely sent the heart and lungs from every animal that
died to the Lethbridge lab for testing. The samples built up an
extensive database of information and helped diagnose a new
manifestation of haemophilus somnus in feedlot animals.
Dave Morgan, a Lethbridge vet specializing in hog health, said the lack
of post-mortem services makes it more difficult to get samples from his
clients’ herds, which are scattered across the province.
Formerly, the producer would take the animal to a provincial lab and
Morgan would discuss the problem with the lab’s pathologist.
“All these facilities have been turned over to offices. You’ve got
these state of the art pathology rooms just sitting there idle.”
Gerald Ollis, Alberta Agriculture’s chief provincial veterinarian, said
services were eliminated gradually with few industry complaints.
The first to go was post-mortems on small animals. Then in 1996,
submissions of aborted fetus and mastitis milk samples were directed to
private labs. In 1998, the lab no longer accepted livestock animals for
post-mortem services. The branch changed its focus from providing
routine diagnostic services to generating surveillance information on
Alberta’s livestock.
Ollis said there was no uproar when the service was eliminated.
“Zip. We had a few veterinarians that were concerned, but as far as
feedback from producers, it’s virtually been zero,” he said.
“One would like to think the service had been so invaluable, but there
was minimal feedback and response from livestock groups.”
Morgan said a delegation of hog vets tried to encourage the government
to maintain the labs, but were unsuccessful.
“The awkward situation is we’re the only province and-or state in North
America that doesn’t have some kind of government subsidized diagnostic
facility, and it’s tragic.”
Ollis didn’t disagree.
“I think that’s fair ball. I’m not aware of another jurisdiction in
North America that has fully privatized the routine diagnostics.”
Ollis said it would be almost impossible to reinstate the service now
that it has been eliminated. He estimates it would cost between $6
million and $10 million a year to restaff the facilities, which is not
likely to happen in an era of government cuts.
Instead, he said the government has focused on creating an accurate
disease surveillance system by receiving pathology data from one of the
two private labs, routinely testing for diseases and examining chronic
culls or lame animals.
“We have some holes. Nobody is going to deny that,” said Ollis, who is
working to create an accurate disease surveillance system.
But Van Donkersgoed, who sits on the provincial government’s foreign
animal disease group, said Alberta had the ideal surveillance system
before the cuts.
“They keep talking about disease surveillance. Personally to me, the
best way to have disease surveillance is to have your pathology labs up
and running and have people bring in their carcasses at no cost or low
cost.”
But the old system of testing only the animals sent to the lab wasn’t
scientifically valid, said Ollis. Now the various sectors can target
disease surveillance in a scientifically valid method for a lot less
money.
