The Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture is in a supportive role in the ongoing investigation into Bovine Tuberculosis in a herd, led by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA).

The first case was confirmed on November 29th from tissue collected from a cow that was slaughtered at a federally-regulated abattoir in Alberta, and traced back to a herd from Saskatchewan. Last week, the CFIA announced three additional cases were discovered from the same herd.

Dr. Stephanie Smith, Saskatchewan’s Chief Veterinary Officer, says their role includes regular conversations with the CFIA on where they’re at in the investigation and relaying that information back to affected producers and industry organizations. 

“If the investigation is going to take a while, you know, how can I help them and tell people in advance what can you expect, what records can you have prepared,” Smith says, “I’m talking with the (Saskatchewan) Veterinary (Medical) Association and letting them know what can their clients expect and how you can help support them in that situation, and then of course from the mental health perspective and my side is very critical that I help people to understand what’s available within our province to support them throughout the whole event.”

Next steps in the investigation include, among other things, testing all animals in the herd that are over 12 months of age, other herds that were in contact with the infected herd, and contact tracing of animals that left the herd over the last five years. Smith says that requires a lot of follow-ups with producers and asking lots of questions. 

“That does mean that a lot of animals have to be handled, lots of questions have to be asked of producers, looking at records, understanding what moved (and) what didn’t move, where it’s gone to really do that due diligence and certainly we rely on the existing traceability system we have and the tagging and everything else, but as we know, those things are never perfect, so unfortunately it still needs a lot of one-on-one followup with each individual producer and trying to understand how things have gone.” explained Smith.

A few days ago, SaskAgToday reached out to the CFIA for further comment, specifically to expand on the testing aspect of the investigation. In an emailed response, the CFIA said while it started to “trace animal movements and identify the herds that will require testing”, the “herd testing of contact, trace-in and trace-out herds has not started yet.”

The Agency re-iterated a lab result from the November 29th case contained “a strain that has never been identified in animals or humans in Canada, and the origin of the strain is unknown. It is not closely related to any of the recent strains in Western Canada.”

Another organization providing support is the Saskatchewan Cattle Association. CEO of the Cattle Association Christina Betker says their role is a liaison between affected producers and CFIA and “advocating for the producers who are involved in the investigation” by seeking additional compensation for any producers impacted. 

“At the moment, CFIA only compensates for any of the animals that have to be de-populated and often with these types of investigations there are extraordinary expenses producers can incur, especially if (cattle) have been place under quarantine for any period of time – things like extra feed cost and that kind of thing to maintain the animals they have, if they were planning to ship them.” Betker added.

Regarding compensation, the CFIA said at the end of the emailed response, “the Compensation for Destroyed Animals and Things Regulations authorize fair market value compensation for animals up to prescribed maximum values. The current maximum for purebred cattle is $10,000 and the maximum for commercial cattle is $4,500. The value of each animal is determined by factors including documentation provided by the owner and market price reports like Canfax.”

Betker also says they have been in contact with the affected producer, who she noted was doing the best they can in this stressful situation.

“It’s really hard on any of the producers when its their livelihoods that are going to be impacted by this, so I would say they’re doing well considering the situation.” Betker said.

Smith and Provincial Agriculture Minister Daryl Harrison also expressed sympathy. Smith says this is a terrible thing for anyone to go through and these producers are bearing a huge burden on themselves for the safety of the rest of the Canadian cattle industry.

Harrison said, “I definitely understand what producers are going through, it’s not good. It’s your livelihood, it’s your whole world as an individual producer when you’re impacted with something like this, so my thoughts are always with those producers. The CFIA is doing their due diligence and tracing this out and hopefully we can get to concluding this as soon as possible.”