Ag Director Newhouse on the Canadian cattle investigation

Washington Ag Today September 30, 2009 Washington state Agriculture Director Dan Newhouse was a speaker at last weekend’s annual meeting of the Cattle Producers of Washington where he addressed the investigation into Canadian cattle placed on Washington rangeland without the required disease testing. According to the paperwork on the cattle they were supposed to go to Agri Beef Company’s El Oro feedlot.

Newhouse said the first priority was to get all those Canadian cattle rounded up and tested for both TB and brucellosis and prevent any threat to the state’s cattle herd. That is still going on as is an investigation to determine what happened.

Newhouse: “And we are in the middle of that right now to see if it was intentional. Was there a lack of communication within the parties that are responsible for this? Or exactly what kind of actions led up to this? And then what kind of potential penalties might be involved depending upon the results of our investigation. So, it is ongoing right now. We are taking it very seriously.”

The director says ways to prevent this in the future are also being discussed.

Newhouse: “And so we are talking with the State Attorney Generals Office, with some of the state legislators, as far as potential legislation that could help lessen this kind of problem in the future. I don‘t know what all those are yet.”

So far test results are back on over half the Canadian imports and they are negative for TB and brucellosis.

The USDA is also investigating the importation of these Canadian cattle.

I’m Bob Hoff and that’ Washington Ag Today on the Northwest Ag Information Network.

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