ROSSBURN, Man. – Southwestern Manitoba cattle producers say their herds wouldn’t be plagued by a second tuberculosis outbreak if federal food safety inspectors had done their job six years ago.
About 100 producers packed the town hall here Dec. 16 during a public meeting called after tuberculosis turned up two months ago in routine autopsies done at a United States slaughter plant.
The infected cattle were traced to a herd in Rossburn.
The news came as a bitter blow to the farming community and federal officials with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency in charge of reportable diseases.
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In 1991, the rare disease flared up in a Rossburn-area herd causing 1,000 animals to be destroyed.
With this recurrence, farmers who were told the disease was wiped out are wondering what went wrong.
“Why is this happening to us now, in the same area?” an angry producer asked the panel.
“If I knew that, I could have prevented it,” answered George Luterbach, who is handling the outbreak for the federal food safety agency.
He told farmers the CFIA is doing all it can, but there are unknown factors.
TB is difficult to wipe out because the incubation period can last up to eight years, he said. Also, routine skin tests for the disease are not 100 percent accurate.
Luterbach told the crowd when inspectors narrowed it down to the original herd, 30 of 84 animals in the herd tested positive on the skin test.
Now, herds with direct and indirect contact in a nine-kilometre radius are being tested.
To date, 752 cattle from 38 herds in the Rossburn area have tested negative.
The news wasn’t doing much to reassure Terry McCaffrey, a Manitou, Man. producer who lost 247 cattle to slaughter after 13 animals tested positive for TB at a local auction market in 1991.
“No one will buy cattle from this area if you people don’t do your job,” he charged.
Some producers pointed fingers at the Department of Natural Resources and wardens with nearby Riding Mountain National Park.
A 1996 survey of wild game in the area showed an elk shot just over a kilometre from the infected herd had TB.
McCaffrey said the government needs to find ways to test and eliminate diseased elk as vigorously as cattle.
“I think we’ll be in this building on a yearly basis if you’re not doing the necessary wildlife testing,” he said.
The fact that the U.S. went ahead with plans Nov. 28 to allow Canadian beef to cross the border without a TB test is all the proof producers should need, Luterbach said.
“The U.S. recognized Canada as virtually TB free because of our policy of when we find TB we stamp it out and do a thorough job of it.”
Canada’s policy is to exterminate both infected animals and any cattle they’ve had direct contact with.
Compensation rates for commercial cattle have been increased in the past year from a maximum of $1,000 to a new cap of $1,500.
Lost income from immature calves, sterilization of corrals, loss of pasture land for up to one year and the cost of feeding quarantined cattle for up to three months while tests are completed, only to have animals slaughtered, are costs borne by the producer.
Mycobacterium bovis, cattle tuberculosis, is a contagious disease characterized by small round lumps or lesions in organs and body cavities. Commonly transmitted through coughing, it can be spread from livestock to humans and other warm blooded animals.
Cattle can maintain low levels of the bacteria for their entire lives without showing symptoms or spreading the disease, making it hard to detect.
