IDAHO PRESS NOT INTERESTED
Idaho Loses its Brucellosis Free Status
By Bill Schneider, 1-08-06
With almost no press coverage, one of the greatest fears of the Idaho ranching industry came true on December 28 when the U.S. Department of Agriculture revoked the state’s brucellosis free status. Officially, USDA reduced Idaho to a Class A status, the same as Wyoming. It's the first time since 1991 Idaho has not been brucellosis free.
“It’s amazing that so much ink is split, or electrons used, claiming that Montana and Idaho might lose its brucellosis free status when justifying the confinement of bison to Yellowstone Park, but how little is said and how little is really changed regarding wildlife management when the ‘terrifying’ losS of status actually happens or is at hand,� notes Ralph Maughan, on his website, Ralph Maughan’s Wildlife Reports. “In fact, you have to seriously search to learn that Idaho just lost its brucellosis free status for the same reason Wyoming did two years ago—infected elk, not infected bison, and perpetuation of the disease in elk by feeding them at winter feedlots.�
Maughan points out that the “sloppy habit of feeding elk� has spilled over into Idaho from Wyoming and “the Wyoming way of doing things� has infected Idaho cattle herds. “Idaho’s cattle industry will now pay the price, and it’s amazing how silent the media are.� According to Maughan, the only known press coverage of the “terrifying event� was a short TV news story on KIFI Channel 8 covering the Idaho Falls/Pocatello region and a short article in the Sublette Examiner.
Interestingly, the source of the brucellosis infection in the Swan Valley is not close to Yellowstone Park, but very close to the Wyoming border.
Class A status means Idaho cattle have to take more blood tests before moving out of state, and all cattle over 18 months not going directly to slaughter must be tested, which obviously increases costs for cattle producers. The status reduction doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the meat or milk products, which are still safe to eat.
For more background on this situation, see The Elk Problem
Update: Since we posted this artcile, we’ve had a flurry of calls looking for more details and some questions on where we got the information (See Sarpy Sam's post in our unfiltered section). This is a big issue for Idaho cattle producers, but there has been no official notice. Here’s why.
According to Wayne Hoffman at the Idaho Department of Agriculture, the USDA has notified his department that Idaho will be reduced to a Class A status. “We fully expect this to happen because the USDA told us it would happen,� he said, “and we are preparing for it.�
Technically, Hoffman said, the new status doesn’t become completely official until the USDA publishes the notification in the Federal Register, which is imminent -- "sometime this month,� Hoffman assured.
The Class A Status means Idaho cattle producers must have increased testing before animals can be shipped out of state. This status lasts for one year, and is already in affect, going from December 2005 to December 2006, according to Wayne Hoffman. “There is a lag time before it goes into affect, “he said. “It will stay in affect until next December unless any new cases emerge, and the affected herd is already being depopulated.�
He also said his department is “exploring the appeals process� but that can’t happen until after the official notification comes out in the Federal Register.
Wayne Hoffman confirmed that the December brucellosis infection occurred on the Wyoming border and was caused by elk transmitting the disease to cattle.
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I think Wyoming will start "test and slaughter" of elk soon to try and address their brucelosis problem. Imagine what a can of worms that will become! Maybe it is time to discuss the possibility that treating wildlife like livestock has consequences that range across the board from disease to hunting ethics...? thta feedground experiment on Idaho's Rainy Creek is turning out to be a very expensive one. Or is it?
I have not heard a realistic breakdown of projected econonomic losses from the loss of bruc.-free staus in Idaho, or for that matter in Wyoming, where feedground elk in the Green River transmitted the disease to cattle in March of 2004. I heard alot of speculation then, but nothing concrete.
How much loss of revenue are we talking about? And how does cattle production revenue in Wyo.'s (or Idaho's, now) Yellowstone compare with the dollars slated to be spent to "control" this disease? How does the revenue from wildlife--hunting and watching, etc... compare with the revenues produced by cattle, revenues that we are going to spend xxx dollars trying to protect with "test and slaughter" and other questionable efforts? I don't even think I've seen a figure as to what it has cost the MT. DOL to fly around in the helicopters hazing the brucellosis-prone bison versus the cattle revenues supposedly "protected" in that region. Or is it the responsibility of the state to protect landowners, even those who do not run cattle, from wildlife-born diseases? Maybe so-- if so, that should be made clear.
Is anybody looking at the overall dollars and cents of this problem?
Thanks for bringing the story to my and others' attention,
Hal
Just a comment about Wyoming's elk test and slaughter program. The intent of the program is not to deal with the brucellosis problem, but to sustain the control the livestock industry has over elk management in Wyoming. It always strikes me as odd that the livestock industry is disclaiming widely and loudly about what a problem brucellosis is, so that we spend millions upon millions of dollars developing "tech-vet" approaches to controlling brucellosis in bison and elk, but do absolutely nothing regarding the actual source of brucellosis in the Yellowstone Country--Wyoming's elk feedgrounds. Indeed, to call for closing feedgrounds in Wyoming, as I and many have done for years, is to utter heresy against the oligarchs.
The fact is that the feedgrounds are there first and foremost to keep elk away from forage reserved for cattle. In other words, the livestock industry has made a conscious decision in Wyoming that AUMs are more important than the risk of disease or losing brucellosis free status. That decision has bitten them in the rear with the loss of brucellosis free status--or has it? I really don't think so. I've heard that the loss of the status in Wyoming has cost producers millions of dollars, but I've learned not to trust any statistics that comes out of the Wyoming Dept. of Agriculture. Given that the State legislature has taken on much of the additional cost of brucellosis testing, it seems to me that the loss of status hasn't been that costly for ranchers. What would be costly however would be the loss of AUMs, because that affects the value of individual ranches. That's where the money is, and that's where the tracks should be followed when talking about the impact of brucellosis in either Wyoming or now Idaho.
Of course, given that the State of Wyoming and the livestock industry have made a conscious decision to discount the risk of disease on the feedgrounds and keep them open for the financial and political benefits of the industry, that now puts all of us in between a rock and hard place where Chronic Wasting Disease is involved. Whereas in effect ranchers and Wyoming can blow off the cost of brucellosis for the sake of political control over wildlife management, they won't be able to blow off the cost of an epidemic of a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy on the feedgrounds. Given how little is known about TSEs and the uncertainty of the possibility of transmission of CWD between species (elk and cattle), the public perception of such an epidemic is likely to have serious economic repercussions for the livestock industry. I think ranchers are about to hoist themselves upon their own petards when CWD hits the feedgrounds.
Robert Hoskins
The livestock industry is off-limits to the regional press. That is one reason why working on brucellosis as a conservation issue is so frustrating. With a few exceptions, editors simply won't publish the truth--that brucellosis is about livestock politics, not livestock disease--because the truth offends the livestock oligarchy.