ANIMALNET JULY 13, 2002
Mad cow fever clouding judgement in Ottawa
Let them live
We know what it takes; who pays?
Battling an alien predator in a suburban pond
Presidential award for ARS veterinary medical officer
Activists to target battery hen giants
AnimalNet is produced by the Food Safety Network at the University of
Guelph, and is supported by OMAFRA, AgCare, Council for Biotechnology
Information, Health Canada, ConAgra Foods Inc., National Pork Board,
Canadian Animal Health Institute, Ontario Pork, National Cattlemen's Beef
Association, McDonald's, Pharmacia Animal Health, National Turkey
Federation, Alberta Agriculture (Livestock Development Division), Ontario
Farm Animal Council, Adculture Group, Inc., Canadian Turkey Marketing
Agency, National Food Processors Association, Canadian Livestock Genetics
Association, Saskatchewan Nutraceutical Network, Heifer International,
Urbana Veterinary Clinic, Saugeen River Farm and the Agricultural Adaptation
Council (CanAdapt Program).
archived at:
http://www.plant.uoguelph.ca/safefood/archives/animalnet-archives.htm
MAD COW FEVER CLOUDING JUDGEMENT IN OTTAWA
July 12, 2002
CP Wire from Victoria Times Colonist
Fri 12 Jul 2002
Mad cow disease has, according to this editorial, consumed the bureaucrats
at Agriculture Canada in Ottawa. And as a precaution, 14 water buffaloes in
the Cowichan Valley are to be carted off to Lethbridge today to be killed.
The editorial says that the story of Darrel and Anthea Archer's beasts is
one of the saddest examples of unbridled clerkism we've seen for some time.
It ranks in bureaucratic foolishness with the federal government's attempt
to establish lobsters in the crab beds off Vancouver Island in the '60s. The
Archers were encouraged by the government to import 18 buffaloes from
Denmark in January, 2000. A month later there was an outbreak of mad cow in
cattle in a part of Denmark the Archers' animals had never been near. The
question was raised whether the buffaloes, just settling into their new
Island life, might be infected. Records show no water buffaloes have ever
caught mad cow. Cattle don't pass the disease on to one another by contact,
they get it from eating bad feed made from dead animals. The bureaucrats
were told this, but they wouldn't budge: they passed death sentences on the
Archers' beasts. The couple sacrificed four of them so their brain tissues
could be examined. There was no sign of the disease, but this didn't
surprise anyone, because mad cow takes six years to incubate. So, said the
bureaucrats, the death sentence on the remaining 14 remains, leaving behind
a few orphaned calves who may or may not be executed as well. In vain the
Archers pleaded to be able to keep the cows in strict quarantine until they
could earn a reprieve. In vain they promised not to destroy the remains of
any of them that died to ensure they couldn't be processed for feed. A
Canadian Food Inspection Agency officer says he and his colleagues
"empathize" with the Archers. But "there is a much bigger picture out
there." It's the trade picture, of course. You'd think that food inspectors
of the nations that import Canadian beef, like the food inspectors in
Canada, would have all that evidence showing the Archers' buffaloes couldn't
have mad cow. You'd think they'd be satisfied if our officials told them the
beasts haven't even been introduced to a cow since they got here. No,
apparently no European will eat a Canadian-grown steak, no Mexican will put
a piece of Canadian beef into a soft taco until they are assured those 18
water buffaloes on that farm in the Cowichan Valley, wherever that is, have
been slaughtered, incinerated, ground into dust and buried, once and for
all. Consumers around the world are waiting to hear the word from their
government officials who, we assume, will all be gathered at Lethbridge for
the execution. When the message is beamed around the world, there'll be a
run on Canadian beef from Minsk to Montevideo. And Darrel and Anthea Archer
will stare into their empty barns. And they'll wonder if, next time, they
should try lobsters.
LET THEM LIVE
July 13, 2002
Globe and Mail
A14
Wilson Russell of Vancouver writes regarding, Water Buffalo Ordered Killed
(July 12), to say that Federal Agriculture Minister Lyle Vanclief's press
secretary, Donald Boulanger, said the minister could not intervene to save
the animals. He failed to mention that Mr. Vanclief has received a proposal
from the owners of the water buffalo, Anthea and Darrel Archer, to keep them
in quarantine, at their cost, on their farm for the rest of their natural
lives. This means the water buffalo are absolutely no risk to the Canadian
public and never will be.
Two well-known federal Liberals, Senator Bill Rompkey and Ted McWhinney,
former MP for Vancouver-Quadra, have written Mr. Vanclief strongly endorsing
the logic of the quarantine plan.
Mr. Vanclief is not fulfilling his ethical responsibilities in allowing the
needless killing of these beautiful, innocent animals to satisfy the
single-minded stupidity of his bureaucrats at the Canadian Food Inspection
Agency. The public in British Columbia is asking the question: Would the
minister stand idly by and let this happen if the Archer's farm was in the
outskirts of Toronto, Ottawa or Montreal?
Mr. Vanclief still has the weekend to reverse his decision before the
planned killing of the remaining 14 water buffalo on Monday. Russell says he
hopes he will demonstrate that common sense still has a place in big
government.
WE KNOW WHAT IT TAKES; WHO PAYS?
July 5, 2002
Corner Post, Farm & Countryside Commentary
Elbert van Donkersgoed
A strategic plan is in the making. A new coalition has been incorporated.
We're still smarting from the effects of last year's outbreak of foot and
mouth disease in the United Kingdom that spread through their livestock
sector like wildfire. We SHOULD be better prepared for animal health
emergencies in the future... SHOULD be... don't assume we already are.
The Canadian Animal Health Coalition, a new alliance between our major
livestock commodities, has materialized to partner with governments and
prepare for, respond to and recover from foreign animal disease outbreaks,
such as foot and mouth disease.
There have been well-attended conferences and facilitated workshops,
extensive consultations across this country and fact-finding missions to the
European Union and Japan. We've learned a lot. An economic impact study is
underway. The British army can tell you that bringing foot and mouth disease
under control was a bigger logistical challenge than the British
contribution to the Gulf War. Communication in the information age requires
robust websites that can handle more than a quarter million hits per day.
We now know that the protocols for containing foot and mouth disease -
quarantine, no movement, slaughter, disinfect - were developed a
half-century ago for a farming system long since overtaken by our modern
input, throughput, output system.
Today, an emergency management strategy for a foreign animal disease is as
much about communications and trade as it is about stamping out the
incursion. Here's what we know we need:
One: greater investment in the infrastructure of emergency management --
diagnostic laboratories, for example.
Two: one electronic database that tracks livestock production across this
country, preferably complete with global positioning of all livestock farms.
Three: a compensation policy that covers, not only the lost opportunities
for farmers, but also the vanished windows of other countryside stakeholders
who are caught up in any stop-movement orders.
Four: legislation that creates enforceable livestock movement zones that
target foreign animal disease incursions on a regional basis. Exports from
the rest of the country need not be affected.
Five: traceability for all livestock - a record showing, from where AND to
where, for all animals on each farm.
Six: better vaccines with new application protocols.
Seven: clearly defined roles in this new industry/government partnership.
We know what it takes to prepare for, respond to and recover from foreign
animal disease outbreaks. Preparing will cost millions. Getting caught in an
outbreak will cost billions.
Who will pony up the money needed now to get beyond all this planning for an
effective animal health emergency response?
Elbert van Donkersgoed is the Strategic Policy Advisor of the Christian
Farmers Federation of Ontario, Canada. Corner Post can be heard weekly on
CFCO Radio, Chatham and CKNX Radio, Wingham, Ontario. Copyright 2001 Terra
Coeur. Send requests to print, post on a website or circulate electronically
to elbert@terracoeur.com. Corner Post is archived on the website of the
Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario: www.christianfarmers.org. CFFO is
supported by 4,500 family farm entrepreneurs across the province of Ontario,
Canada. To be added to the distribution list of Corner Post send email to
elbert@terracoeur.com with SUBSCRIBE as the message. To remove your name,
send email with UNSUBSCRIBE as the message.
BATTLING AN ALIEN PREDATOR IN A SUBURBAN POND
July 11, 2002
New York Times
Francis X. Clines
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/13/science/13SNAK.html
ROFTON, Md., July 11 ‹ Wary investigators, according to this story, dipped
voltage poles into the murky suburban pond, enlivening an environmental
mystery that had been titillating people with visions of alien,
snaggle-toothed fish intent on a voracious land march up the East Coast.
The story says that electrical shocks pulsed through the waters, and up
bobbed some temporarily stunned fish, small as minnows. They were juvenile
versions of this summer's fabled northern snakehead, a displaced Asian
species feared by some and hyped by others for its ability to scarf down
smaller fish and, in extremis, flop in primitive locomotion across dry land
to its next food stop.
The day's catch, gravely pored over by biologists and the police, presented
an Inspector Clouseau-like moment. The little offspring were proof that
snakeheads far from their Asian habitat somehow gained entry into the
enclosed, dank pond behind the Exxon station here and began proliferating
like the S.U.V.'s on nearby Route 3.
Steve Early, a freshwater fisheries specialist with the Maryland Department
of Natural Resources, was quoted as saying, "What this represents is a new
critter, one that hasn't evolved in this system. They're predators.
They're at the top of the food chain like muskies, walleyes and large-mouth
bass."
For weeks, the mystery of the snakeheads' travels has grown well beyond this
bedroom community 20 miles east of Washington, spicing the talk-radio
routine of identity-tagged commuters as they perform their own migrations to
and from jobs in the federal warrens.
Could the snakeheads have swum and shimmied all the way from Florida, where
these freshwater aliens were first discovered last year as illegal
intruders? Is this pond only a resting spot to launch devastating schools
farther north by way of the Little Patuxent River, a mere 75-yard flop away?
Or might these fish flop in more ways than one, like the walking catfish
that never lived up to the killer-bees-style warnings of headlines in
slow-news times past?
Alas for fabulists, the mystery was, the story says, pronounced solved this
week, and the culprit was decidedly human. An exotic fish fancier did it.
The police were cited as saying that a man confessed to setting an adult
couple of snakeheads loose in the pond two years ago after they had grown
too big (measuring 14 inches) and too hungry (consuming daily cupfuls of
guppies and goldfish) for his home aquarium near here.
The miscreant, left unidentified, was pronounced remorseful but beyond the
statute of limitations for the misdemeanor of disturbing the environment
with an intrusive species. There were conflicting versions of whether he was
a cowed hobbyist or a gourmand with second thoughts about cooking the
snakeheads. The fish, which
were bought in a New York market, are considered fine eating in Asia.
Florida specialists who must track all manner of nonidigenous species loosed
in that state's waters advise that the red-eyed snakehead is actually less
aggressive than some similar alien fish able to thrive in American waters.
In fact, the electro-stunning here demonstrated that the pond's native
inhabitants have hardly been wiped out.
PRESIDENTIAL AWARD FOR ARS VETERINARY MEDICAL OFFICER
July 12, 2002
ARS News Service
Agricultural Research Service, USDA
Marty Clark
Agricultural Research Service scientist David L. Suarez received a
Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) at a
ceremony today in Washington, D.C.
Suarez's selection was based on research explaining how chickens and turkeys
contract avian influenza, as well as contributions to several new types of
vaccines for treating avian influenza.
Suarez is a veterinary medical officer at ARS' Southeast Poultry Research
Laboratory, Athens, Ga. ARS is the chief scientific research agency in the
U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Since joining ARS in 1995, Suarez has assisted, at the request of the
federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with studies of a new
strain of influenza (H5N1) that appeared in chicken and human populations of
Hong Kong in 1997.
Suarez has also served on the Live Bird Market working group, which is
involved with eradication efforts in the northeastern United States, and has
developed a rapid influenza detection system for use there.
He has also developed a rapid diagnostic test, using standard molecular
genetics technology, that can be used for quick influenza subtyping by
diagnostic laboratories that do not work routinely on influenza viruses. The
test is being used in live bird markets in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia
and in the northeastern United States.
Suarez continues to investigate why these viruses crossed species boundaries
from poultry to human--important research for the poultry industry and human
health.
ACTIVISTS TO TARGET BATTERY HEN GIANTS
July 12, 2002
Animal Watch Aotearoa
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/PO0207/S00141.htm
The National Week of Action Against Battery Farming culminates in Dunedin
today with a protest against battery hen giant Mainland Poultry.
The protest meets at the Octagon at 2.30pm before moving onto the final
destination.
"Mainland Poultry is the biggest battery hen company in New Zealand,
incarcerating literally hundreds of thousands of hens. They are the ultimate
in animal cruelty and a huge promoter of intensive farming." spokesperson
Clare Havell said.
Throughout the week animal rights activists have been collecting submissions
against battery farming, giving out egg-free food, and re-labeling factory
farmed eggs in supermarkets. Stickers with images from New Zealand battery
farms were placed on battery eggs in several supermarkets and
product-warning fliers distributed to shoppers.
" Many people were shocked to discover their 'Country Life' eggs were
actually from hens in cages. Battery hen companies not only treat animals
like machines, they try to hide it. The egg industry's labeling of battery
eggs is downright deceptive."
"Submissions to the review of welfare codes for layer hens are set to open
in the next few weeks - these actions are a signal to the government and
industry we won't let up. Intensive farming is pure suffering; it must be
banned. And we won't stop until it is.
For more information contact Clare Havell at animalwatch@paradise.net.nz
To subscribe to AnimalNet, send mail to:
(subscription is free)
listserv@listserv.uoguelph.ca
leave subject line blank
in the body of the message type:
subscribe animalnet-L firstname lastname
i.e. subscribe animalnet -L Wendy Powell
To unsubscribe to AnimalNet, send mail to:
listserv@listserv.uoguelph.ca
leave subject line blank
in the body of the message type:
signoff animalnet-L
For more information about the AnimalNet research program, please contact:
Dr. Douglas Powell
dept. of plant agriculture
University of Guelph
Guelph, Ont.
N1G 2W1
tel: 519-824-4120 x2506
fax: 519-763-8933
dpowell@uoguelph.ca
http://www.foodsafety.ksu.edu
archived at:
http://www.plant.uoguelph.ca/safefood/archives/animalnet-archives.htm