Worried about the implications for trade, North Dakota is continuing its efforts to stamp out a recent outbreak of bovine tuberculosis.
The TB was found at a dairy farm in Morton County, N.D. The state board of animal health voted last month to have the 115-cow herd destroyed.
As of April 1, more than half the herd had been killed, said Larry White of the United States Department of Agriculture. An area within an eight-kilometre radius of the infected farm remains under quarantine.
So far, the outbreak has had little effect on North Dakota’s export of cattle to other U.S. states. When the outbreak was first discovered, there was concern that neighboring states and Canada would close their borders to North Dakota cattle.
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More than 50 percent of the herd belonging to Morton County farmer Tom Fried tested positive for the disease.
White said 23 cattle herds have been tested on farms near the Fried farm. No evidence of TB was found among the 3,000 cattle included in those tests.
The outbreak came at a poor time for North Dakota. The state wants to participate in a project that allows ranchers to move feed cattle into Canada without testing for TB or brucellosis. It currently has an application before the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
Tuberculosis is an infectious lung disease that can be transmitted by airborne bacteria. Canada is almost free of the disease, although isolated outbreaks have occurred in the past two decades.
It’s the first time in more than a decade that North Dakota has had to slaughter a herd due to TB. North Dakota’s livestock industry has been certified as tuberculosis free since 1976, White said.
The Canadian Cattlemen’s Association doubts the recent outbreak, which appears confined to only one herd, will hamper North Dakota’s bid to move feeders into Canada without TB testing. Carl Block, the association’s chair of animal health and meat inspection, said the outbreak is not a concern, as long as it remains an isolated case and proper protocols are followed to prevent its spread.
Montana, Washington and Hawaii are the only three states Block knows of that can move feeders into Canada without the extra time and expense of testing for TB and brucellosis. Since last fall, Montana and Washington have shipped more than 50,000 head of cattle into Canada through the project.
The project is seen as a show of good faith in an industry vulnerable to disputes about cross-border trade.
“They’ve been working very hard in the U.S. to eliminate both TB and brucellosis,” Block said last week. “They’re almost there.”
