The West Hawk Lake livestock movement checkpoint has been closed.
The site, which opened in 2006, was located at the Manitoba-Ontario border to collect information on livestock moving across the country. The information was part of a health monitoring program.
The plan is now to divide Canada into health zones. If a disease is found in one part of Canada, that zone could be isolated without creating hardship for the entire country.
“The next step is to use traceability data to produce movement data that is suitable for creating zoning,” said Ed Empringham of the Canadian Animal Health Coalition, which administered the program.
An application to fund the project has been made to the Growing Forward program.
Empringham said the first database is likely to use traceability information from cattle and pigs because those sectors have the most developed systems to identify movement across provincial borders.
He said Canada is still limited in its ability to do rapid trace back if a serious disease were to break out.
“We have a developing system,” he said.
