The dirty business of shipping untagged cattle (Canada)

I had a long and sometimes emotional conversation yesterday with Saskatchewan rancher Ken Habermehl. He recently was cleared of any wrong doing in a hearing regarding the shipment of cattle to a community pasture in May 2009, where it was found upon arrival that seven animals did not have CFIA approved RFID ear tags. Habermehl maintains he checked all 200-plus head at his farm south of Outlook before about 10 trailer loads of animals were hauled 67 kms to pasture. And when the CFIA inspector – the Button Cop - found seven animals with no tags Habermehl did everything possible to re-tag those animals. He still ended up with a charge of failing to tag cattle and a potential $500 fine. It took nearly a year and a half of legwork that culminated in a one-day hearing in June, and then three more months of waiting for a ruling by the tribunal in late September that quashed the charge and fine. Habermehl and his witnesses, and apparently many other beef producers, maintain the approved RFID tags don’t stay in – they have a poor retention rate -- and livestock owners who do their best to make sure these permanent tags are properly installed in the ear, shouldn’t be penalized if they fall out either through normal animal activity, or in the congestion of transit...more