This article was originally printed
in the April / May 2001 issue of Tracking The Industry. . .
This article is
copyrighted and may not be reproduced in any form without
permission.
C.C.C. REPORT
The Canadian Cervid Council (CCC) had our annual general meeting on March 9 and 10, 2001 in Victoria, B.C. There was a very good turn out from both the industry and government (provincial and federal). Topics of discussion were Johne's Disease, Tuberculosis research agreement, National Tagging system and of course C.W.D. We also had elections of President, Vice President, and secretary treasurer.The new president is Dr. Terry Church from Alberta. The vice President is Mrs. Denise Smith from Saskatchewan, and the Secretary Treasurer is Mr. Dennis Schmidt from Ontario.
Dr. Gerald Ollis gave a presentation on Johne's Disease and the Alberta surveillance program on Johne's. A quick point on Johne's is that animals usually pick it up at a young age and it shows up later in life, but it may also kill fawns. It may be passed by ingestion of contaminated manure, or via milk from dam to fawn. If you need any information on this disease, please feel free to phone me and I can direct you to the information you require.
The Tuberculosis research agreement has been signed between the C.C.C and the federal government. The research and collection of blood samples has begun. The C.C.C will be getting some info off to the association in regards to the process of collecting samples. There is lots of organization required for collecting and shipping of samples so it will take awhile before everything will be flowing smoothly. The research requires 5000 samples over a 3 year period for each species. As for the frequency of testing, it was recommended to remain at 3 year intervals due to current surveillance programs and U.S. import protocols but the consideration of moving it to 5 year intervals is still on the table.
There are efforts being made for a national tagging system to be in place by the time elk velvet is being harvested this year. Recommendation is to lobby our governments to all get on same programs such that when the national program is in place they will all have a compatible data base. Ms. Ellen Frombach from Alberta Agriculture gave a presentation on Alberta's tagging and tracking system. It, by far, will be the best in Canada. The producers will be able to go online to enter inventory changes, order tags, etc. They found that with growth in the industry, the old style paper trail was too cumbersome. The option of ordering tags and updating inventories manually (paper) will still be there for operations who have no computer access. Manitoba is on a similar system that is compatible to Alberta. Our Saskatchewan government's system is not compatible.
Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD). This dark cloud over the Canadian Cervid industry hopefully will be nearing its end. To date, there have been close to 3000 elk put down, approximately 80 deer, 99 buffalo and approximately 250 beef cows. CWD has been detected in a total of 17 farms and 37 elk out of 386 farms and approximately 28,000 elk farmed in Saskatchewan. Not all testing is complete on the animals put down but CFIA (Canadian Food Inspection Agency) is fairly confident that there should not be too many more trace outs. These numbers represented are all domestic stock in Saskatchewan. There have been 1600 wild heads submitted in Saskatchewan; 1/3 of the testing is complete with all being negative so far. In Alberta, they have tested 359 domestic and 886 wild heads-all negative also. Manitoba has tested approximately 1500, Ontario approximately 80 and Quebec approximately 75 in which all have come back negative.
The reason the CFIA put some beef cattle and bison down was a precautionary measure due to a misunderstanding on quarantine conditions. They have no intention of putting any more down.
CWD is not BSE (mad cow disease). There is no evidence that CWD affects cattle or humans. The CFIA has issued a "Draft" surveillance program to the CCC. We will be discussing it with our member associations and relaying our concerns to the CFIA for their consideration prior to implementing their program.
We, the livestock industry of CANADA, must be united and stand strong and prevent self destruction in which the opposition to our industry can capitalize on. If there are any questions on this report or any other concerns, please feel free to phone me and I will answer or direct you to the answers.
Until next time,
Rod
Boutin
(306) 825-0220 (after 8:00 pm)
Please report any technical problems with this site to the webmaster