Sanctions eased for livestock with brucellosis

BILLINGS — New federal rules ease sanctions against states bordering Yellowstone National Park when livestock get infected with the disease brucellosis — but leave unresolved the more nettlesome problem of infected wildlife.

Under the U.S. Department of Agriculture rules, ranchers with a handful of cattle infected with the reproductive disease no longer risk losing their entire herds to slaughter. Nor do states automatically lose their coveted "disease-free" status — a past practice that cost the industry tens of millions of dollars in lost sales and expenses.

The most significant change for wildlife is increased disease monitoring for species like bison and elk that carry brucellosis. So far, though, the rules have yielded no change to a government-sponsored capture program for bison, under which more than 500 of the animals are awaiting possible slaughter.

Brucellosis causes pregnant cattle, bison, elk and other animals to miscarry. It has been largely eradicated outside the Yellowstone region of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, where it lingers in wildlife.

Lyndsay Cole with the Agriculture Department's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service said the agency's new rules give states more control over managing brucellosis within their borders. They also recognize that periodic transmissions from wildlife-to-cattle should be treated differently from cattle-to-cattle transmissions.

"In these cases that are popping up, we recognize that the chance of (an infected) cattle herd spreading it to other herds is slim to none as long as they are quarantined and the infected animals removed," she said.

Montana state veterinarian Marty Zaluski called the shift in federal policy a game-changer for brucellosis management in livestock.

Instead of the heavy hand of the Department of Agriculture coming down on states with infections, Zaluski said agriculture officials are finally acknowledging the Yellowstone region is unique.

The states must agree to essentially draw a line around a disease hot zone near the park. The most stringent brucellosis restrictions — vaccination requirements and blood tests for animals being shipped out of state — are reserved for livestock producers inside the zone, known as the designated surveillance area.