A
Anonymous
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Another article on the continuing brucellosis saga....I thought the part about our "not userfriendly USDA" was interesting...They got you coming or going... :roll: 
Loss of herd to brucellosis test leaves couple reeling
'It's just a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach,' Bridger rancher says
By JAN FALSTAD
Of The Gazette Staff
BRIDGER - Leaning slightly against a gusty, chilled north wind, Jim and Sandy Morgan surveyed their ranch south of Bridger.
The heavy-seeded grass was tall enough to wave in the wind. Reservoirs that were ringed with caked mud last summer were now brimming with spring rainwater. Plump Black Angus cows munched clover, calves in tow.
The Morgans' 7-month-old son, Jake, snoozed inside the house on his grandma's lap.
Jim grinned tightly and quipped, "I guess we won just the wrong lottery." The Morgans spent 10 days in early May gathering and matching cows to their rightful calves and riding a full day with six relatives to trail 300 cows to summer pasture.
They had just finished when Brent Thompson, the Billings-based veterinarian for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), called on May 11. A cow from their herd had tested positive for brucellosis. Disbelief was Sandy Morgan's reaction.
"It's just a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach, and we didn't understand all the ramifications," she said. "We didn't understand that the whole herd could be eliminated because of one cow."
They had to saddle up and spend four more days gathering their cattle from the rugged hills and moving them down to the home ranch for testing.
"It was hot, and those poor little calves - their tongues were hanging out," said Mary Heller, a ranch hand who dates Jim's brother, Steve Morgan.
Thompson and other veterinarians drew blood from the vein under the cows' tails, and six more cows tested positive.
The news hit May 18: Montana had brucellosis.
The bacterial disease imported from Europe a century ago can cause abortions in cows, elk, bison and hogs. Brucellosis is so feared that Thompson said there is only one hard rule to protect the nation's herds.
"A state is allowed one positive herd per year, and that herd must be depopulated," he said.
So the Morgans' cows are quarantined at the home ranch up Pryor Creek Mountain Road under mountains coated in a shawl of snow.
Their cows must be slaughtered by July 6 or the state will lose its brucellosis-free status. That will cost most of the state's ranchers months, even years, of paying for brucellosis testing and will cut into sales of Montana's world-class breeding stock.
Montana gets to keep its brucellosis-free status, for now. But if even one more animal from a separate herd tests positive, all bets are off. The tension will drag on for weeks as the extensive investigation tries to find all the cattle that may have been exposed.
It's reflected in the grim faces of the normally happy-go-lucky Morgans and of Bridger-area veterinarian Ray Randall.
"It seems like a radical thing to do to take that whole herd to slaughter, but there's no choice," said Randall, who said he supports the intensive investigation.
"It's really easy to bleed 1,000 cows and wonder why you did it rather than miss one cow," he said. "You don't want to go there."
Last week, North Dakota ordered most Montana cattle to be tested before entering that state. If Montana loses its "free brucellosis pass," local vets will be drawing blood from all export cattle of breeding age until the state goes 12 months without a positive test.
On Friday, the testing continued on cattle that may have been exposed to Jim Morgan's herd.
Steve Morgan leases land from his brother, and blood was drawn from his 45 cows. That was also the case with another 45 at a neighbor's spread. Results won't come back from the Montana State Laboratory in Bozeman until at least the middle of next week because of the holiday weekend.
Cattle on seven other neighboring ranches also will be tested when Thompson and the other veterinarians resume work after Memorial Day.
"We're going to try to get on to everybody as soon as we can," Thompson said.
The herd owned by Sandy's father, Republican state Rep. Bruce Malcolm from Emigrant, tested clean this week. Malcolm sells bred heifers, and over the past few years, he and his wife, Connie, have trucked cows to their daughter's ranch near Bridger.
Malcolm's herd at Emigrant initially was considered the source ranch, especially because of its proximity to Yellowstone National Park, where wandering elk and bison are prone to carry brucellosis.
While visiting his family near Bridger on Friday, Malcolm told the federal veterinarians that because his herd is fine, there should be no reason for more tests in Paradise Valley.
"My place is clear, and that's far enough," Malcolm said. "You don't need to bother my neighbors."
Don Otto, a federal veterinarian from Iowa who happened to be traveling through Montana and who had time to help out, disagreed. He has been down this road in his home state, he said, and it's crucial that all potentially exposed cattle be tested.
"There's a lot of pain, a lot of pain," Otto said. "But the loss of that status is going to cost Montana ranchers a lot of money."
Brucellosis is spread by animals who lick or ingest aborted fetuses or come into contact with infected reproductive tissues or fluids. It's a disease that affects breeding animals 18 months or older.
Neither APHIS nor the Morgans know the source yet.
However, in recent years, a herd of about 200 elk was hanging around Belfry and Bridger until two special hunts cut its numbers.
"Before those damage hunts, you could walk out to the road and see them come off the hills and go back after eating a belly full of corn," Jim Morgan said.
He wonders if those elk may have wandered out of the park, down the Meeteetse Trail, down Line Creek and carried brucellosis to the Bridger country. Or maybe it came from other cattle.
Jim and Sandy wonder how to negotiate a fair price with APHIS for spring-weight calves that normally would be sold in the fall, when they would bring twice the money. They wonder how to buy replacement cattle in a tight market when prices are at near-record highs.
And Sandy is having trouble grasping the loss of genetics that her namesake and grandfather, Alex Sandy Malcolm, started 65 years ago.
"You spend years weeding out the cows who don't do well in this country and breeding the best and working hard and then the phone rings and it all changes," she said. "It's just like going to a funeral before it happens."
The Morgans have 110 cows running on other land that will be tested. If those come back negative, the cows will form the nucleus of another herd. They are also buying 40 more heifers from Malcolm. Still, they estimate it may take at least four years to rebuild.
"If you keep the heifers, it's two years before they can raise a calf, so it's a time-consuming project," Jim Morgan said.
And there's one more box canyon in the Morgans' lives.
For the past year, they've negotiated a loan to refinance their ranch through a local bank. The note would be guaranteed by Farm Credit Services, part of the USDA.
The good news came two weeks ago.
"We'd been approved and, finally, we could breathe a sigh of relief," Sandy said.
Then the USDA officer heard about the brucellosis tests and called the Morgan's banker to say, "I might have to pull my horns in on their loan."
So the agency that is forcing the slaughter of their 300 cows, even for a just cause, may be denying them the loan they need.
"Every rancher runs on a tight budget," Jim Morgan said. "We'll be looking at the same bills with a lot less income."
The random streak of bad luck that brought brucellosis to seven cows in their herd continues to puzzle the couple.
As Connie Malcolm stroked the blond head of her sleeping grandson, she smiled and said, "It's all about him now."
"Yes, but these are his cows, too," her daughter said.
http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2007/05/26/news/state/20-diagnosis.txt
Loss of herd to brucellosis test leaves couple reeling
'It's just a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach,' Bridger rancher says
By JAN FALSTAD
Of The Gazette Staff
BRIDGER - Leaning slightly against a gusty, chilled north wind, Jim and Sandy Morgan surveyed their ranch south of Bridger.
The heavy-seeded grass was tall enough to wave in the wind. Reservoirs that were ringed with caked mud last summer were now brimming with spring rainwater. Plump Black Angus cows munched clover, calves in tow.
The Morgans' 7-month-old son, Jake, snoozed inside the house on his grandma's lap.
Jim grinned tightly and quipped, "I guess we won just the wrong lottery." The Morgans spent 10 days in early May gathering and matching cows to their rightful calves and riding a full day with six relatives to trail 300 cows to summer pasture.
They had just finished when Brent Thompson, the Billings-based veterinarian for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), called on May 11. A cow from their herd had tested positive for brucellosis. Disbelief was Sandy Morgan's reaction.
"It's just a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach, and we didn't understand all the ramifications," she said. "We didn't understand that the whole herd could be eliminated because of one cow."
They had to saddle up and spend four more days gathering their cattle from the rugged hills and moving them down to the home ranch for testing.
"It was hot, and those poor little calves - their tongues were hanging out," said Mary Heller, a ranch hand who dates Jim's brother, Steve Morgan.
Thompson and other veterinarians drew blood from the vein under the cows' tails, and six more cows tested positive.
The news hit May 18: Montana had brucellosis.
The bacterial disease imported from Europe a century ago can cause abortions in cows, elk, bison and hogs. Brucellosis is so feared that Thompson said there is only one hard rule to protect the nation's herds.
"A state is allowed one positive herd per year, and that herd must be depopulated," he said.
So the Morgans' cows are quarantined at the home ranch up Pryor Creek Mountain Road under mountains coated in a shawl of snow.
Their cows must be slaughtered by July 6 or the state will lose its brucellosis-free status. That will cost most of the state's ranchers months, even years, of paying for brucellosis testing and will cut into sales of Montana's world-class breeding stock.
Montana gets to keep its brucellosis-free status, for now. But if even one more animal from a separate herd tests positive, all bets are off. The tension will drag on for weeks as the extensive investigation tries to find all the cattle that may have been exposed.
It's reflected in the grim faces of the normally happy-go-lucky Morgans and of Bridger-area veterinarian Ray Randall.
"It seems like a radical thing to do to take that whole herd to slaughter, but there's no choice," said Randall, who said he supports the intensive investigation.
"It's really easy to bleed 1,000 cows and wonder why you did it rather than miss one cow," he said. "You don't want to go there."
Last week, North Dakota ordered most Montana cattle to be tested before entering that state. If Montana loses its "free brucellosis pass," local vets will be drawing blood from all export cattle of breeding age until the state goes 12 months without a positive test.
On Friday, the testing continued on cattle that may have been exposed to Jim Morgan's herd.
Steve Morgan leases land from his brother, and blood was drawn from his 45 cows. That was also the case with another 45 at a neighbor's spread. Results won't come back from the Montana State Laboratory in Bozeman until at least the middle of next week because of the holiday weekend.
Cattle on seven other neighboring ranches also will be tested when Thompson and the other veterinarians resume work after Memorial Day.
"We're going to try to get on to everybody as soon as we can," Thompson said.
The herd owned by Sandy's father, Republican state Rep. Bruce Malcolm from Emigrant, tested clean this week. Malcolm sells bred heifers, and over the past few years, he and his wife, Connie, have trucked cows to their daughter's ranch near Bridger.
Malcolm's herd at Emigrant initially was considered the source ranch, especially because of its proximity to Yellowstone National Park, where wandering elk and bison are prone to carry brucellosis.
While visiting his family near Bridger on Friday, Malcolm told the federal veterinarians that because his herd is fine, there should be no reason for more tests in Paradise Valley.
"My place is clear, and that's far enough," Malcolm said. "You don't need to bother my neighbors."
Don Otto, a federal veterinarian from Iowa who happened to be traveling through Montana and who had time to help out, disagreed. He has been down this road in his home state, he said, and it's crucial that all potentially exposed cattle be tested.
"There's a lot of pain, a lot of pain," Otto said. "But the loss of that status is going to cost Montana ranchers a lot of money."
Brucellosis is spread by animals who lick or ingest aborted fetuses or come into contact with infected reproductive tissues or fluids. It's a disease that affects breeding animals 18 months or older.
Neither APHIS nor the Morgans know the source yet.
However, in recent years, a herd of about 200 elk was hanging around Belfry and Bridger until two special hunts cut its numbers.
"Before those damage hunts, you could walk out to the road and see them come off the hills and go back after eating a belly full of corn," Jim Morgan said.
He wonders if those elk may have wandered out of the park, down the Meeteetse Trail, down Line Creek and carried brucellosis to the Bridger country. Or maybe it came from other cattle.
Jim and Sandy wonder how to negotiate a fair price with APHIS for spring-weight calves that normally would be sold in the fall, when they would bring twice the money. They wonder how to buy replacement cattle in a tight market when prices are at near-record highs.
And Sandy is having trouble grasping the loss of genetics that her namesake and grandfather, Alex Sandy Malcolm, started 65 years ago.
"You spend years weeding out the cows who don't do well in this country and breeding the best and working hard and then the phone rings and it all changes," she said. "It's just like going to a funeral before it happens."
The Morgans have 110 cows running on other land that will be tested. If those come back negative, the cows will form the nucleus of another herd. They are also buying 40 more heifers from Malcolm. Still, they estimate it may take at least four years to rebuild.
"If you keep the heifers, it's two years before they can raise a calf, so it's a time-consuming project," Jim Morgan said.
And there's one more box canyon in the Morgans' lives.
For the past year, they've negotiated a loan to refinance their ranch through a local bank. The note would be guaranteed by Farm Credit Services, part of the USDA.
The good news came two weeks ago.
"We'd been approved and, finally, we could breathe a sigh of relief," Sandy said.
Then the USDA officer heard about the brucellosis tests and called the Morgan's banker to say, "I might have to pull my horns in on their loan."
So the agency that is forcing the slaughter of their 300 cows, even for a just cause, may be denying them the loan they need.
"Every rancher runs on a tight budget," Jim Morgan said. "We'll be looking at the same bills with a lot less income."
The random streak of bad luck that brought brucellosis to seven cows in their herd continues to puzzle the couple.
As Connie Malcolm stroked the blond head of her sleeping grandson, she smiled and said, "It's all about him now."
"Yes, but these are his cows, too," her daughter said.
http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2007/05/26/news/state/20-diagnosis.txt
