Way to Track U.S. Cattle Isn't Ready for Quick Use

by Denise Grady
New York Times
Published: January 3, 2004

An animal identification system that the Agriculture Department has said it will begin putting in place immediately to help safeguard the meat supply against mad cow disease is expected to take a year or two to phase in, an official said yesterday.

Weaknesses in tracking cattle have been revealed in the last week as officials have scrambled to try to locate cows connected to the one in Washington State found to be infected with mad cow disease.

The purpose of a new system would be to find cows that might have been involved in disease outbreaks and trace them to their origins within 48 hours.

The infected cow is believed to have come from a farm in Alberta, Canada, and to have been shipped to the United States in 2001 along with 80 or 81 other dairy cows. But officials are not certain and hope that laboratory tests comparing its DNA to that of animals suspected of being relatives will help determine whether the cow did indeed come from the Alberta farm.

The cow is thought to have been infected by contaminated feed, and if animals raised with it ate the same feed, they may also be infected.

Only 10 other animals from the herd shipped in 2001 have been found, 9 on the farm in Mabton where the infected cow lived and one on a farm in Mattawa, Wash. A herd in Mattawa was put under quarantine yesterday. The Agriculture Department said it had "good leads" on the remaining 70, so far all within Washington.

The disease does not spread from animal to animal, but it is important to find the missing cows in case any are infected, to keep them out of the food supply. Though human cases of mad cow disease are not common, people have contracted it, probably from eating contaminated meat.

A spokeswoman for the Agriculture Department said that although it was theoretically possible that some of the missing cows had already entered the food supply, that was considered unlikely because the herd was all dairy cows. Such animals are usually kept alive as long as they produce milk, unlike animals raised strictly for beef, most of which are slaughtered at or before 30 months of age.

The new identification plan, described on a government Web site, www.usaip.info, calls for farms and other premises that handle animals to have identification numbers by July 2004, and animals themselves to be numbered by July 2005. The animals' numbers will be on ear tags that will probably emit a radio frequency that will be read by the same kind of devices, like E-ZPass, that have begun replacing toll booths on some highways. The tag numbers may also be printed so a person can read them.

Development of the plan has been in the works for more than a year and a half, and it may not be possible to hasten it, despite the mad cow case.

"These timelines are very aggressive, and it will be a huge task to get the system in place and operational to the extent we'd like it," said Scott Stuart, president of the National Livestock Producers Association, a group in Colorado Springs that has been working on the plan with the Agriculture Department.

Animals will be tagged if they are relocated, and the tag numbers entered into a national database along with each move, say, from farm to farm or to a feedlot or livestock market. Animals that stayed on one farm for their whole lives and then go directly to a slaughterhouse or rendering plant might not have to be tagged at all, Mr. Stuart said.

"The way it's envisioned now, the most at-risk animals would be the first ones to be tagged," he said.

Mad cow disease has an incubation period of three to five years, so the highest-risk animals would include the oldest ones. But if somehow the records of a cow's origin have been lost, then the tagging information may include only its present location.

"Eventually we would tag a calf when it's born and it would wear the tag for a lifetime," Mr. Stuart said.

Currently, he said, although there is no central identification system for cattle, some animals can be traced by their brands or by ear tags registering their vaccinations for certain diseases.

Comment: Isn’t it comforting to realize that our very own Department of Agriculture is protecting the American people with its dedication to duty? The American cattle industry is now cranking out reams of propaganda designed to keep the public eating their un-tested beef. If the public gets any idea of the true state of affairs, the Pet Adoption centers at the local SPCA will be doing a booming business. So far, there is no report of Mad Rottweiler Disease.