One year after Canadian officials launched a search for Japanese cattle
imports, the last of the group was slaughtered and tested negative for
bovine spongiform encephalopathy.
In total, 12 Alberta cattle and two from Ontario were quarantined,
slaughtered and tested for the fatal brain wasting disease this fall.
All tests were negative, said a Canadian Food Inspection Agency
official. Their offspring were not destroyed.”Science as it is now has
determined, or has no proof, that the disease would go to the
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offspring,” said Alain Charette of the agency.
“At this point it is case closed.”
These cattle were part of a shipment that came to Canada via the United
States from Japan a decade ago.
One cow named Rikitani, owned by Larry and Janice Evans, was among the
group. Evans did not believe the animal was infected because it was
born in quarantine but thought it was better to surrender it for
testing.
The disease first appeared in Japan in a Holstein cow on Sept.10, 2001.
Three cases were later confirmed. Japanese officials speculate all were
fed a milk substitute from the same factory.
News of BSE, which has been linked to the human form of new variant
Creutzfeld-Jakob disease, stopped Japanese exports and drove beef sales
down dramatically. Consumers rejected both imported and domestic beef.
Recovery is expected to be slow even though the Japanese government has
introduced more thorough testing procedures for all cattle in the food
chain.
According to the Canada Beef Export Federation, Japan imported more
than one million tonnes of beef and veal in 2000. In 2001, it dropped
to 964,000 tonnes and estimates for 2002 are for 630,000 tonnes. Of
that total, Australia shipped 334,428 tonnes in 2000, 324,000 in 2001
and estimates 210,000 tonnes this year. Exports from the United States
are similar. Canada has about five percent of the total Japanese market
for beef.
Many Australian producers were involved in joint projects with the
Japanese to feed Wagyu cattle specifically for the Asian beef market.
After the discovery of BSE in Japan, that market plummeted.
Beef exports slowed and imports of Asian animals stopped because
Australia maintains a ban on importing live cattle from all countries
that have cases of BSE.
Keith Hammond owns 1,000 purebred Wagyu cows, most of which came from
frozen embryos imported from North America.
“Due to the BSE, the West may never be able to import cattle from Japan
again,” Hammond said in an e-mail.
