Cook Strait travel ban on cattle a possibility
A ban is likely to be put on cattle being transported across Cook Strait to stop the spread of the disease Mycoplasma bovis, says Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor.
At the same time he said farmers whose cattle have been infected by the disease may lose their anonymity.
‘‘It [travel ban] may be a necessary precaution in the short term. It’s a border that we should be able to close relatively easily and until we have the disease contained we have to look at every possible option.’’
O’Connor said he would seek the advice of officials. He believed there were about 14,000 cattle movements a year across the strait. Most occurred around Gypsy Day in mid-year, so it would not have a large impact at this time.
He has also asked officials to review the policy of not naming the farms.
‘‘Previous advice is that privacy law prevents us from naming those farms, but I think it could be a useful tool so other farmers can put up their hands and say ‘I brought stock from that property’. It could help the tracking and tracing process,’’ he said.
Speculation was rife about the identity of the farmer where the disease was first detected on July 21. It took the media a week to unearth the fact the farm belonged to South Canterbury’s Aad and Wilma van Leeuwen.
O’Connor’s rethink comes as officials are also reviewing their strategy on dealing with the disease now that it has been discovered Southland.
Ministry for Primary Industries director of response Geoff Gwyn said on Wednesday there would be no more culling of cattle until officials understood the implications of the new finds.
The ministry has culled 3500 cattle to try to contain the disease, and tracking from the infected properties continues. The disease has now been detected on 12 farms, while there is also a ‘‘strongly suspected’’ property in Ashburton.
Three of the farms affected are in Winton, in Southland, and detection of the disease on those farms has been ‘‘deeply distressing’’ for Southern Centre Dairies owners, Alfons and Gea Zeestraten. The ministry said on Tuesday that the disease traced back to the van Leeuwen group of farms. O’Connor called together industry leaders yesterday to emphasise the need for ‘‘absolute’’ adherence to animal movement requirements.
Farmers keeping accurate records of stock movements was a vital part of halting the spread of the disease.
Meanwhile, Waikato Federated Farmers meat and fibre chairman Chris Irons has placed the blame squarely on farmers for making it difficult to trace the disease, by not complying with the National Animal Identification and Tracing (Nait) scheme.
‘‘Nait currently does a good job of tracking animals that are registered and all their movements recorded on the database. But the system is only as good as the data put into it,’’ he wrote on the Stuff website. in the North Island and Riding show jumpers is one of Jess Fahey’s interests away from working as a nurse in the emergency department at Southland Hospital, Invercargill.
Nursing is a big part of her life but she always looks forward to daily contact with horses at the Grove Bush property of her parents, Phil and Jo Fahey.
Before the Faheys’ built a house on the property, the first priority was to construct an arena for the training of Jess’ show jumpers.