- WINNIPEG (Canadian Press)
- Manitoba's first anthrax outbreak this year
- has left nine cattle dead.
-
- Federal and provincial officials were crossing their
fingers Thursday
- hoping that because the farm is relatively isolated in
the community of
- Sprague, and almost 20 kilometres away from the next
nearest cattle
- operation, no other farms will be affected by the outbreak.
-
- Federal officials have been busy isolating and treating
the animals since
- they first arrived at the farm of Holger Schoenbach on
Sunday.
-
- "All I know is they have vaccinated every animal,"
Alfred Schoenbach,
- Holger's father, said Thursday.
-
- Dr. Blaine Thompson, a veterinary program specialist
with the Canadian
- Food Inspection Agency, said the farmer's almost 400
cattle will be
- quarantined for 30 days.
-
- Emerson MLA Jack Penner said many farmers had already
vaccinated their
- herds this year after last year's anthrax outbreak about
50 kilometres
- away in Vita, Man., the worst in almost 20 years.
-
- "Until last year that area of the province had never
seen the disease,"
- said Thompson.
- "This farmer will be able to use the land for his
cattle, but to minimize
- his risk he'll have to vaccinate his herd every year."
-
- Anthrax can be in the soil for years, only causing an
outbreak during wet,
- hot weather like what the area, located about 140 kilometers
southeast of
- Winnipeg, has been experiencing.
-
- It was a common disease among buffalo herds when they
still freely roamed
- the prairie decades ago, but the disease, contracted
by eating grass, does
- not spread from animal to animal.
-
- Thompson said because the herd was only vaccinated on
Sunday, more cattle
- could die before the outbreak is stopped.
-
- Provincial veterinarian Dr. Allan Preston said the dead
cattle are being
- burned in a shallow trench on the farmer's land.
|
