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October 17, 2013
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Feature Report:
Bovine Tuberculosis discovered in Cherryville
Who’s protecting the
wildlife population?
July 2, 2011 – By Don Elzer
In the wake of Bovine TB surfacing in Cherryville - will a three month delay in reporting public safety risks do long-term harm to our environment?
Certain questions remain as to why Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), the Province, local government and livestock producers have together engaged in keeping the Bovine TB event in Cherryville very quiet, even with dangers that may emerge with regards to carcass disposal and the jump of Bovine TB into the wildlife population.
According to Dr. Robert Cooper of the CFIA, “We don’t have a direct mandate for wildlife, and while were still within the investigation stage, the wildlife component of the Bovine TB risk is driven by the province”.
In fact, the disease can jump from livestock into the wildlife population, and if it does, there is an added risk that it can then jump back into the local livestock population, causing reoccurring events that could cause repeated stress to livestock producers, communities and eco-systems.
Tuberculosis (TB) is a serious disease caused when bacteria attack the respiratory system. There are three types of TB - human, avian, and bovine. Human TB is rarely transmitted to non-humans, Avian TB is typically restricted to birds (pigs and occasionally other animals have been found to be susceptible), and Bovine TB - or Cattle TB - is the most infectious, capable of infecting most mammals. Bovine TB is caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium bovis (M. bovis) which is part of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex.
It is difficult to isolate M. bovis from pastures grazed by animals known to be infected with Bovine TB, this places wild cervid animals such as deer or elk at risk. Non-cervid animals such as bears or coyotes are most likely it contract TB from feeding on infected tissues from deer carcasses. In Michigan, Bovine TB has been found in white-tailed deer, elk, black bear, bobcat, coyote, opossum, raccoon, and red fox.
Bovine TB is spread primarily through the exchange of respiratory secretions between infected and uninfected animals. This transmission usually happens when animals are in close contact with each other. Thus, animal density plays a major factor in the transmission of M. Bovis. Bacteria released into the air through coughing and sneezing can spread the disease to uninfected animals. Research suggests that bovine TB can also be contracted from ingesting contaminated feed. Survival of M. Bovis in the environment is primarily affected by exposure to sunlight. Reports on the length of survival of M. Bovis vary from 18-332 days at temperatures ranging from 54-75 F. In a number of studies under laboratory conditions, M. Bovis has been isolated for up to 8 weeks from various feeds kept at 75 F and 14 weeks from various feeds kept at 32 F.
Bovine TB is a chronic disease and it can take years to develop. M. Bovis grows very slowly and only replicates every 12-20 hours. The lymph nodes in the animal's head usually show infection first and as the disease progresses lesions will begin to develop on the surface of the lungs and chest cavity. In severely infected deer, lesions can usually be found throughout the animal's entire body. Non-cervid animals on the other hand do not develop the disease as extensively and lesions are usually not found in lungs or other tissues.
A Bovine TB Landscape
Livestock producers on the edge of Riding Mountain National Park in Manitoba, and in parts of Minnesota and Michigan all share a common characteristic; one that places their herds close to wilderness areas and large wildlife populations. They also share repeated occurrences of Bovine TB and have had to engage in constant monitoring of both their livestock and wildlife. It’s an expensive process but one that’s necessary to achieve and retain Bovine TB Free Status as a region, state, province and country.
In Minnesota, since 2005, Bovine TB has been found in 12 cattle operations and 27 free-ranging deer in the northwestern part of that state. To date, all infected deer have been animals born during or before 2005 and taken within a 10-mile radius of the first confirmed positive cattle herd.
The most-recent case occurred in fall 2009 from a hunter harvested deer. As a result, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (MDNR) expanded the area where sharpshooters took samples recently. Tests were negative for all 450 wild deer removed as part of that effort.
Since the Bovine TB eradication effort began in Michigan its 14,000 cattle farms have tested for the disease. Since 1998, they have detected 52 TB positive cattle herds and four privately owned cervid operations in the northern section of Michigan's Lower Peninsula.
The Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has tested more than 188,000 free-ranging white-tailed deer with 687 testing positive for bovine TB to date. Strategies adopted by the DNR to reduce bovine TB in free-ranging white-tailed deer have reduced the prevalence rate of the disease from the high in 1995 of 4.9 percent to 1.8 percent in Deer Management Unit 452 for 2010.
Since there are no effective vaccines for disease prevention and no effective medications for treatment of bovine TB in wild deer, a combination of wildlife disease surveys and deer management strategies are being used in Michegan to eliminate the disease in wild deer. The wildlife surveys monitor the spread and occurrence of the disease, while hunters are asked to examine their deer from all areas of the state.
Humans can be skin-tested to determine if they have been exposed to TB. These tests can be done at either the local health department or a private physician's office. A positive skin test, however, does not identify the source of the infection. The threat of humans contracting Bovine TB from animals is extremely remote nevertheless when the disease emerges in an area, and if it is not managed, there can be obvious harmful effects on animal health and negative impacts to livestock producers, landowners, residents, hunters, businesses and wildlife populations and their food chains.
Historically, the disease already has cost provinces, states and the livestock industry millions of dollars. In Cherryville its questionable if the government agencies recruited to manage the outbreak have engaged the public to help them stop the spread of the disease into the wildlife population.
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Wild elk, helping themselves at a cattle feeder.
Where’s the beef:
Can we trust the system?
July 2, 2011 – By Don Elzer
Riding Mountain National Park (RMNP), Manitoba, is home to a population of free-roaming elk that have been found to be infected with Bovine TB. The disease has also been found in a number of cattle herds near the Park and, as a result, Manitoba has been assigned a split status for Bovine TB. A number of government agencies, with input from representatives from the wildlife and agricultural sectors, have responded by devising a program to detect, investigate, control, eradicate, and prevent TB in both wild and domestic animals – however this ongoing process has begun to impact farmers in the eradication zone who must put up with “absolute and utter misery” and are being driven out of business.
Through many years
of sustained effort and a
number of program iterations, Canada’s Bovine TB eradication efforts paid off in 1997, when all Canadian cattle herds that were not under quarantine were recognized by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) as being TB-Free for the purpose of their import requirements. This designation freed Canadian exporters from the time and expense of testing and holding cattle for 72 hours before shipping them to the USA.
However, with the discovery of Bovine TB in a number of cattle herds in Manitoba in 2002, caused the USDA to reinstate the requirement for a negative intradermal tuberculin test for all sexually intact cattle more than 4 weeks of age that either originate from, or have resided in, Manitoba, prior to the animal being exported to the USA. Only those animals that are sexually neutered (steers and spayed heifers) or that are destined for immediate slaughter at a plant approved to receive imported cattle are exempt from this testing requirement. Although most of the outbreaks occurred in the vicinity of Riding Mountain National Park (RMNP), this requirement was imposed on cattle being exported from the entire province.
When and where bovine TB first originated in the RMNP area is the matter of some speculation. There are theories that the cause was linked to bison which were first introduced into the Park in 1931 from a herd at Wainwright, Alberta. The cattle herds surrounding the RMNP could be another source of Bovine TB. For many years, local ranchers were allowed to pasture their cattle in the Park during the summer, a practice that was not halted until 1970. At times, in excess of 2000 cattle grazed there and it is possible that Bovine TB may have been inadvertently carried into the Park, thereby exposing the native cervid (e.g., Elk, Deer) population to the disease
The first report of Bovine TB in wild elk in Canada occurred in 1992, when an elk shot near an infected cattle farm was discovered to be infected with M. bovis. When another. infected cattle herd was found in the same vicinity in 1997, a joint federal-provincial wildlife surveillance program was initiated whereby primarily hunter-shot elk, deer, and moose were screened, sampled, and tested for Bovine TB. Between 1991 and 2003, there were five outbreaks of Bovine TB in cattle in Manitoba, all but one of which have occurred in the vicinity of the RMNP. The exception, in 1996, involved a single infected animal from outside the area that was detected during an individual animal test for export to the USA.
The outbreaks in 1991 and 1997 were uncovered through routine slaughter surveillance programs in Canada and the USA, respectively, and subsequent trace back investigations led to the infected herds of origin. Those in 2001 and 2003 were discovered as a result of CFIA’s on-farm area testing program. The herd in 2001 was tested because of its proximity to a positive hunter-shot elk, while the herds in 2003 were discovered during the farm-to-farm testing of all cattle and farmed bison herds in a special TB eradication area that was established around the Park in January 2003. In a separate incident, a cull cow that originated from Manitoba was found to be infected with Bovine TB at routine slaughter inspection in the USA in 2001. Because the animal bore no identification as to its herd of origin, 20 possible herds of origin were investigated and tested. No infection was discovered in any of these herds.
Bovine TB testing as a risk?
Farmers within close proximity of Riding Mountain National Park have developed suspicions about how CFIA tests cattle for Bovine TB. Rodney Checkowski from Rossburn, Manitoba which is near the park argued for over a decade that his cattle got sick after they were tested. On April 16th, 2010 a Manitoba judge ruled that Checkowski doesn’t have the right to refuse tuberculosis testing. Judge John Combs found Checkowski guilty of refusing to present his cattle for testing and fined the cattle producer $1,500 for the offence.
On June 6, 2008, employees of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency wanted to test Checkowski’s cattle for TB. But the producer kept his cattle in the pasture away from the farm that day, so CFIA workers were unable to conduct the tests.
Robert Keffen, a CFIA veterinarian in Brandon told the Western Producer that of the 650 cattle producers in the CFIA’s TB eradication zone around Riding Mountain National Park, three have refused to have their animals tested.
Checkowski, who argued his case without a lawyer, said that since 1983, animal health officials have quarantined cattle on his farm four times and destroyed 27 because they were infected with TB.
In addition to those losses, Checkowski said he was forced shoot several animals over the years because they went off feed and became lame after CFIA employees tested his herd for TB. He believes that the tuberculin test was causing his cattle to contract TB or become ill.
But according to CFIA veterinarian Maria Koller-Jones his theory is scientifically impossible.
“I’m not aware of any situation where the tuberculin injected has caused TB,” she said in court.
Koller-Jones, heads the agency’s Bovine TB eradication program and she told the court that Tuberculin is made from a dead Myobacterium bovis bacterium, the organism that causes TB. The organism is heated to a high temperature, similar to pasteurization, thereby killing the bacteria before the tuberculin protein is extracted.
“(It’s) biologically impossible for that protein to cause TB,” she said.
But in the spring of 2008, Checkowski was convinced of the link between the TB tests and the poor health of his herd so he asked the CFIA to test 12 of his cattle using a test where tuberculin is injected into the animal’s neck.
After those tests in March 2008, one bull reacted to the test and it was removed from the farm.
A couple of days after the test Checkowski said he noticed five animals got sick.
Checkowski concluded they were TB positive.
Koller-Jones refuted Checkowski’s argument in court, stating it’s improbable that experienced CFIA staff would miss several positive reactions to the test.
The CFIA then wanted to test the rest of Checkowski’s herd on June 6.
The cattle producer said he never actually refused testing and would have allowed it if the CFIA first removed the five cattle he believed were reactors and if they used the neck skin test along with a blood test.
In his ruling, Combs said Checkowski was guilty because he lacked authority to tell the CFIA which animals were positive and how the agency should conduct its business.
In a separate case, Nick Synchyshyn who farms 14 kilometres south of Riding Mountain National Park, was fined $3,000 for refusing TB test on his cattle. Combs ruled that Synchyshyn, failed to make his herd of about 50 cattle available for testing when CFIA employees visited his farm Dec. 30, 2008.
The Checkowski case is still a work in progress and is currently retuning to the courts. Federal Liberal Agriculture Critic Wayne Easter, who has had many conversations with Checkowski, said that conflict between ranchers and the CFIA occurs because nobody at the agency “seems to want to listen” to the people in the eradication zone who must put up with “absolute and utter misery” and are being driven out of business.
“Yes, they have the authority. No question about that,” said Easter. “But instead of working with people, they come in with a big hammer and it’s ‘our way or the highway.’ If there’s other ways of doing it that still provides the proper testing, they should be looked at.”
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Read the original Checkowski story by Robert Arnason of the Western Producer
