Owners of Canadian horses that are returning to Canada from visits to the United States face restrictions due to an outbreak of vesicular stomatitis in some American states.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency said in a June 22 news release that horses that were in a VS-infected state can only return to Canada after living in a non-infected U.S. state for at least 21 days.
The CFIA did not indicate which states have been recently infected and are thus subject to the new requirements.
It recommended that Canadian horse owners contact CFIA offices before they plan to bring their horses across the border from the U.S. because import requirements can change without notice.
Once a horse has lived in the U.S. for more than 60 days, it is considered a U.S. horse, and may need to be inspected at the border. In such cases, horse owners should give 24 hours notice of planned border crossing to ensure a veterinarian is available, CFIA said.
