The Westerner

Investigators Trace Diseased Cow to Canada

WASHINGTON - The Holstein infected with mad cow disease in Washington state was imported into the United States from Canada about two years ago, federal investigators tentatively concluded Saturday.

Dr. Ron DeHaven, chief veterinarian for the Agriculture Department, said Canadian officials have provided records that indicate the animal was one of a herd of 74 cattle shipped from Alberta, Canada, into this country in August 2001 at Eastport, Idaho.

"These animals were all dairy cattle and entered the U.S. only about two or two-and-a-half years ago, so most of them are still likely alive," DeHaven said.

DeHaven emphasized that the sick cow's presence in that herd does not mean all 74 animals are infected. Investigators are tracking down where the other 73 animals are.

"We feel confident that we are going to be able to determine the whereabouts of most, if not all, of these animals within several days," DeHaven said.

Confirming that the sick cow came from Canada will be crucial for the United States to continue exporting beef because it could retain its disease-free status. The country has lost 90 percent of its exports because of the case, the National Cattlemen's Beef Association estimates, because more than two dozen foreign nations have banned the import of U.S. beef despite claims by U.S. officials that the meat is safe.

Canada found a case of mad cow disease in Alberta in May. The discovery decimated the country's beef industry as its importers cut off trade.

Dr. Brian Evans, chief veterinary officer of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, said it's premature to draw any conclusions about the cow's origins because Canadian and U.S. records that ostensibly refer to the same cow don't agree on key details.

Based on the Canadian records, the diseased cow was 6 1/2-years-old _ older than U.S. officials had thought, DeHaven said. U.S. papers on the cow said she was 4- or 4 1/2-years-old.

The age is significant because the United States and Canada have banned feed that could be the source of infection since 1997.

Farmers used to feed their animals meal containing tissue from other cattle and livestock to fatten them. Countries have banned such feed because infected tissue _ such as the brain and spinal cord _ could be in the meal...

Brazil and Argentina Expect Rising Beef Sales

The emergence of a case of mad cow disease in the United States this week has created an unparalleled opportunity for Brazil and Argentina, two of the main competitors of the United States in the booming international beef export market, to capture new customers, government and industry officials here say.

Cattle in both countries graze on grass; they are not fed ground-up animal parts that have been used as feed elsewhere, a practice believed to transmit mad cow disease.

Brazil already has the most beef cattle in the world, more than 170 million head, and now anticipates a big rise in exports in 2004. In the first 10 months of this year, Brazil earned $3.3 billion from exports of meat, more than a third of it from beef.

"This is a dramatic situation for the United States, and it is a shame that this has happened," said Brazil's minister of agriculture, Roberto Rodrigues. But, he added, "this can open up markets for Brazil."

Neighboring Argentina, with herds numbering more than 50 million cattle and a long tradition of exports to Europe, is expecting similar benefits, as to a lesser extent is Uruguay, with 10.5 million head. Argentina now earns nearly $1 billion a year from beef sales abroad.


Marcus Vinicius Pratini de Moraes, president of the Brazilia Association of Meat Exporters, estimated that beef exports, which have nearly tripled since 2000, could surge as much as 20 percent in volume and value next year.

"Meat prices to producers, which have fallen 20 to 30 percent because of excess supply, should improve quite a bit next year" because of America's absence from key markets, Mr. de Moraes predicted...

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MAD COW NEWS

Mad cow case tough to crack Federal agriculture officials said Friday that there's a chance that they may never know where the Holstein infected with mad cow disease contracted its illness - something experts said could shake the confidence of beef eaters. Efforts to find and recall 10,400 pounds of potentially infected beef also are going slowly, U.S. Department of Agriculture officials acknowledged. So far none of the meat from the animals slaughtered along with the infected cow Dec. 9 at the Washington slaughterhouse has been located, officials said. USDA officials received unconfirmed reports that some of the meat - ground beef and beef patties - may have reached stores, although probably only in the Northwest, agency spokesman Dan Puzo said...Mad cow could slow bulls prolonged investigation into the origin of the mad cow disease found in one cow in Washington state could eat away at market and consumer confidence, making cattle prices continue their free fall, an industry analyst said Friday. The U.S. Department of Agriculture announcement Friday that its investigation into the mad cow case in Washington could take "weeks or months" was "disconcerting," said Rich Nelson, director of research at Allendale Inc., an agricultural research firm in McHenry, Ill. "The market doesn't like uncertainty," Nelson said. "My best guess is that cash cattle prices will reach down to between $70 and $74 (per hundred pounds)." Cow Parts Used in Candles, Soaps Recalled Cow parts - including hooves, bones, fat and innards - are used in everything from hand cream and antifreeze, to poultry feed and gardening soils. In the next tangled phase of the mad cow investigation, federal inspectors are concentrating on byproducts from the tainted Holstein, which might have gone to a half-dozen distributors in the Northwest, said Dalton Hobbs, spokesman for the Oregon Department of Agriculture. Now, it's the secondary parts - the raw material for soil, soaps, candles - that are being recalled...State set to track cattle from Wash Colorado is prepared to act immediately if federal authorities learn that mad cow disease has spread beyond a single dairy cow in Washington state. Agriculture Commissioner Don Ament said Friday that the state is working "full blast" to see how many cattle from Washington came into Colorado and where they went. "In the event something would show up and we need to trace it out, we intend to be ready," Ament said. "We'll have a spreadsheet on where every Washington-state animal has gone." State Veterinarian Wayne Cunningham said Colorado currently is checking into records covering the past two years and is prepared to go back even further if necessary...Risky tissue getting into beef supply, studies show Cattle tissues known to carry the infectious agents behind mad cow disease are making it into the nation's meat supply despite industry and government claims to the contrary. Americans are consuming the tissues in a variety of processed meats, including fast-food hamburgers, taco meat and hot dogs, according to food and health activists who point to several government and academic studies on the matter. Meat industry officials say the high-risk materials - namely the brain and spinal cord - are routinely removed from animals, leaving the rest of the meat safe for consumption. But a 2002 survey by the U.S. Department of Agriculture found "unacceptable" central nervous system residue, including spinal cord tissue, in 35 percent of the meat that ends up in items such as hot dogs, pizza toppings and hamburger...t doesn't like uncertainty," Nelson said. "My best guess is that cash cattle prices will reach down to between $70 and $74 (per hundred pounds)."...2 calves of mad-cow mother quarantined in Wash. state U.S. agriculture officials said Friday that they have quarantined the offspring of a slaughtered Holstein cow that tested positive for mad-cow disease. The action came amid an intensifying search for the stricken cow's origins. The quarantine, which includes herds at two Washington farms, was imposed even though officials said transmission of the disease from mother to calf is considered unlikely. One of two calves is at the same dairy near Mabton, Wash., that was the final home of the diseased Holstein cow, said Dr. Ronald DeHaven, the Agriculture Department's chief veterinarian. The other calf is at a bull calf feeding operation in Sunnyside, Wash., DeHaven said...Dean Urges Gov't. Aid for Beef Industry The former governor, whose state has a large dairy cow population, said the Bush administration failed to aggressively set up a tracking system that would allow the government to quickly track the origins of the sick cow, quarantine other animals it came in contact with and assure the marketplace the rest of the meat supply is safe. "What we need in this country is instant traceability," he said. Dean said such a system should have been set up quickly after the mad cow scare that devastated the British beef industry in the mid- to late-1990s. The Bush administration was still devising its plan when the sick cow was slaughtered Dec. 9, and on Friday the government still hadn't determine the infected animal's origins. "This just shows the complete lack of foresight by the Bush administration once again," Dean said. "This is something that easily could be predicted and was predicted." Dean said as a result the beef industry will suffer enormously. Officials said Friday 90 percent of the foreign markets for American beef have been closed off because of the announcement. Asked if he supported a federal economic aid package for the industry, Dean said: "The answer is, yes, of course I do. The question is how much? And we don't know how much yet."...Advanced Meat Recovery machine under scrutiny A slaughterhouse machine that blasts the last bits of flesh off cattle carcasses already relieved of their more recognizable cuts of beef is coming under increased scrutiny as the discovery of mad cow disease in Washington raises questions about the safety of the nation's food supply. The machinery, known as Advanced Meat Recovery, sometimes also strips off spinal cord tissue, which can slip into the food supply unknown to the consumer. A cow's central nervous system, including the brain and spinal cord, are the most likely to contain the misshapen proteins that most scientists believe cause mad cow disease. Those pulpy pieces of tissue fill out any number of processed foods, including hamburgers, hot dogs, sausage and pizza toppings. They're also reduced down to add flavoring to beef bouillon and stock...Mad Cow Issue Hits U.S. Beef Exports Just days after discovering the nation's first case of mad cow disease, the United States has lost nearly all of its beef exports as more than a dozen countries stopped buying American beef as insurance against potential infection. Gregg Doud, an economist for the Denver-based National Cattlemen's Beef Association, said Friday that the United States, at today's market level, stands to lose at least $6 billion a year in exports and falling domestic prices because of the sick cow. "We've lost roughly 90 percent of our export market just in the last three days," Doud said...FDA blasted over past enforcement of feed ban Long before mad cow disease appeared in Washington, the federal government slammed the Food and Drug Administration for failing to adequately enforce feed regulations, a key piece of the nation's firewall against the disease. On Wednesday, the FDA tried to reassure the public by saying it has "vigorously enforced" a 1997 law that bans the use of meat and bone meal from dead ruminants (cows, sheep and goats) in feed for live ruminants. The agency said more than 99 percent of feed operators are now complying with the law. But in January 2002, the General Accounting Office -- Congress' investigative arm -- criticized the FDA for failing to adequately enforce the feed ban. It said the agency had failed to issue warning letters to violators and inspection records were incomplete, inconsistent, inaccurate and untimely. The FDA's records, investigators said, were "so severely flawed" that they shouldn't be used to assess compliance. "FDA has not placed a priority on oversight of the feed ban," the report said...Mad cow disease likely to be costly to U.S. beef industry Though officials haven't yet estimated the financial fallout from the first U.S. case of mad cow disease, the Bush administration told Congress in 2001 that the beef industry could lose $15 billion. Food safety officials had earlier projected that as many as 300,000 cows could be destroyed if the disease spread like it did in Britain, a prospect diminished by safeguards implemented in response to the British experience with bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE. William D. Hueston, a former Agriculture Department official who directs the Center for Animal Health and Food Safety at the University of Minnesota, said Friday he wouldn't be surprised if up to another two dozen infected cows are found in the United States...Fred Meyer recalls beef The possibility of mad cow disease in the U.S. beef supply struck home in Utah Friday afternoon when Fred Meyer stores asked customers to return recalled ground beef as a precaution. The product had been sold in four western states, including Utah. Fred Meyer officials announced Friday afternoon in a press release, "In response to a voluntary recall by Vern's Moses Lake Meats of raw beef that may have been exposed to bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE or popularly labeled the "mad cow" disease,) Fred Meyer is asking customers of 75 stores in Oregon, southern Washington, Idaho and Utah to return the following product for full refunds. "The targeted product is Interstate Meat, pre-packaged fresh ground beef patties with approximately one pound of 85 percent lean (15 percent fat) ground beef and a sell-by date of Dec. 25, 2003." Although only eight cases, containing a total of 96 packages of ground beef patties, were subject to this recall, Fred Meyer chose to take a broader recall as a precautionary measure...Mad Cow scare forces auction barn to cancel sale The discovery of the first U.S. case of Mad Cow disease on a farm in Washington state has forced at least one eastern Iowa auction house to cancel their sale of beef cattle. "We don't want to cancel the sale, but it doesn't do any good to have the producers come if there are not a sufficient number of buyers," said Randy Hess, manager of Dyersville Sales Co. "The buyers don't know what to bid for cattle." Some producers, such as Robert Bradley, said he has no idea when he will be able to sell his cattle, or how much they'll bring. "My buyer was here this morning before daylight," Bradley said Wednesday. "He wouldn't even put in a bid."...Expect a price drop in beef, but it may take a few weeks Supermarket beef prices, which have been at record highs, are likely to fall as result of the first case of mad cow disease in the United States. But it could take a few weeks before consumers see those lower prices on high-quality meats at their neighborhood grocery stores, according to economic and agricultural experts. The price of a quality roast or steak -- both in supermarkets and in restaurants -- will drop more than lower-grade cuts of beef such as hamburger, they said. "It will probably be mid-January, maybe three or four weeks, before consumers see an impact," Chris Hurt, professor of agricultural economics at Purdue University, said yesterday in a telephone interview. A spot check at several Seattle-area supermarkets found beef prices stable over the last few days...Cattle futures plummet on mad cowCattle futures cratered Friday, a manifestation of continuing concerns over the discovery of mad-cow disease in Washington State earlier this week. In the first trading session since the Chicago Mercantile Exchange moved to expand price limits, benchmark contracts for live and feeder cattle both locked in "limit-down" maximum losses for a single session of 3 cents per pound...MSU economists: Cattle prices could drop 15 percent Marsh and MSU economists Gary Brester and Duane Griffith have compared their computer models of the economic impact of BSE and found their estimates closely agree with those put out by the USDA's Livestock Marketing Information Center. Not all of the countries that buy U.S. beef have banned its imports. The economists estimate that a nine percent decrease in exports, which increases domestic beef supply, could translate into a 13-15 percent decline in fed cattle prices. "That would mean we might be facing a decrease of about $12 to $14 per hundredweight over the next few weeks on slaughter steer prices," said Brester...Editorial: Natural concerns should not give way to panic Wondering if the nation's $175-billion beef industry is the new target is understandable. It's even more natural to question whether the single case discovered here will lead to similar devastation caused in Britain, where 60,000 to 80,000 cows were ultimately affected, and 150 people got the disease. The Bush administration insists the answer to both question is no. And until they say otherwise, the nation, and its beef customers, should resist the panic, instead remembering that America has one of the world's safest food supply systems. Standard inspection practices led to the discovery of the case in question and eventually will answer the burning question: How did this cow get infected?...Editorial: Beef bungling With a beef-cow industry that runs 33 million cattle, a third of which are slaughtered annually, the United States has a lot to lose should a consumer-frightening malady like mad-cow disease infect its herds. So caution is warranted, regarding both careful herd inspection and not jumping to conclusions about the extent of this disease. A single Holstein in Washington state has been found to have had the brain-destroying proteins that cause bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE. In retrospect, just given the size of the herd it would have been surprising if the disease that has tormented Britain, Europe, Japan and Canada since the mid-1980s would not show up in the United States at some point...As Probe of Infected Cow Spreads, So Does Worry Cattle in other states may have eaten the same contaminated feed that infected a Washington state Holstein with mad cow disease, but investigators who want to track the infection to its source are being confounded by the lack of an organized system that would lead them to the herd where the cow was born, officials said yesterday. The lack of a reliable tracking system, and a complex trail of clues, rumors and false leads, mean it could be days or months -- or never -- before all the links are fully explored, officials said. For a nation already jittery about the Holstein, the expanding investigation could spread worry. "The epidemiological investigation becomes a tangled web of different possibilities," said W. Ron DeHaven, deputy administrator and chief veterinary officer at the Agriculture Department. "Some of those do lead back to Canada. Some take us into the state of Washington and other states, as well." For the first time since the mad cow case came to light on Tuesday, DeHaven and other regulators said they are considering strengthening the nation's testing system for mad cow disease, and installing an electronic tracking system that would follow animals from birth to death. They also plan to revisit a controversial USDA policy that allows non-ambulatory animals into the nation's food supply -- the infected Holstein was a "downer" cow -- many food safety advocates and legislative initiatives have unsuccessfully tried to eliminate these animals as a food source...Mad Cow Alerts Began Years Ago For more than three years, consumer groups, members of Congress and scientists have warned of the inadequacy or insufficiency of government efforts to prevent the spread of mad cow disease into the United States. The General Accounting Office, Congress's investigative arm, in 2000 criticized poor enforcement by federal inspectors of a ban on certain types of cattle feed believed to cause the spread of the disease. Sixteen months later it issued a second report making similar criticisms...US mad cow link questioned in Creutzfeldt-Jakob cases Family and friends of American victims of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, the fatal brain disorder sometimes linked to mad cow disease, on Friday questioned whether the wasting illness that killed their loved ones was actually due to eating contaminated U.S. beef. After federal authorities said on Tuesday that a cow in Washington state was found to have mad cow disease, public health experts have been calling for a review of the U.S. Agriculture Department's screening procedures for cattle. But some victim's families have gone further, saying that the human form of the disease may have already hit the United States and that the government has been lax in its testing possible links and enforcing safety standards...Bush Still Eating Beef Despite Scare, Aide Says President Bush, the former governor of the nation's top cattle state, has no plans to stop eating beef despite growing worry about mad cow disease, a White House spokesman said on Friday. "He's continued to eat beef," White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters traveling with the president to his ranch. The U.S. food supply is safe and public risk from the discovery of the disease is low, McClellan added. The president had had beef "in the last couple of days," McClellan said...

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NEWS ROUNDUP

NYT Editorial: Tongass Travesty The Bush administration has pulled another thread from the intricate legal tapestry shielding the national forests from excessive logging. On Tuesday, it announced that the Tongass National Forest in Alaska would be denied protections provided by the so-called roadless rule, a federal regulation prohibiting the building of roads -- and by definition most commercial activity -- on 58.5 million acres of national forests. The administration presents the new policy as a necessary tonic for southeast Alaska's depressed economy, and as a necessary response to a state lawsuit that it says it could never have won. The reality is otherwise. This is essentially a holiday gift to Senator Ted Stevens and Gov. Frank Murkowski, both of whom have lobbied for the resumption of the clear-cutting that has already stripped the nation's only temperate rain forest of a half million acres of old-growth trees. The announcement came wrapped in the same deceptive packaging that has camouflaged much of this administration's forest policy. The most egregious example was the Forest Service's disingenuous assertion that the new policy would allow logging on only 300,000 acres of the Tongass, or about 3 percent of the 9.6 million roadless acres that are earmarked for protection...Editorial: Tongass roads lead to nowhere U.S. taxpayers can howl as loudly as environmentalists over Bush administration plans to expand logging in Alaska's Tongass National Forest. Predictably, the proceeds from timber sales will be less than the cost of preparing the sales and building roads, so the expense to the national treasury is a serious question...Efforts to round up wild horses will continue in national forest An effort to round up horses in the Carson National Forest will continue despite an announcement from the U.S. Forest Service that it had been suspended. The Forest Service announced this week that the roundup in the Jarita Mesa Wild Horse Territory within the El Rito Ranger District had come to an end without a single horse captured. But Carlos LoPopolo, director of the New Mexico Horse Project, said his organization intends to fulfill its contract, which expires Tuesday. "The Forest Service misspoke," LoPopolo said. "We are going to try and get the job done."...Justice Dept. official knows the West As assistant attorney general for environment and natural resources, Sansonetti, 53, occupies a crucial but little-known post in the Justice Department. He and his staff of 450 lawyers handle all environmental litigation for the federal government. A big man with a round face, a taste for the good life and a mean game of tennis, he's the only one of John Ashcroft's assistants to hail from west of the Mississippi. And he says that's brought an important understanding of the issues for a division of the Justice Department where two-thirds of the cases come from the West. After all, until 1989, it was known as the Lands Division...Flying with ducks, thinking like them key to wildlife survey Ducks and geese aren't the only ones flying south for the winter -- they're being joined by members of the U-S Fish and Wildlife Service. Some 16 pilot-biologists fly with the birds from the Arctic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico, including Alaska and Canada. It's all part of the largest and possibly most reliable wildlife survey in the world...`Split estate' sparks conflicts between developers, landowners The separation of surface and mineral rights occurred across the West when the government retained the mineral rights to large swaths of land it manages. Many private landowners, particularly during the Depression, sold the rights to raise money. Colorado law requires notifying property buyers if mineral rights aren't included. State and federal government officials throughout the region also urge companies to try to negotiate agreements with surface owners and can require bonds to cover damages. The Bureau of Land Management office in Farmington, N.M., which oversees most of the 20,000 wells in the gas-rich San Juan Basin, has produced a video on landowners' concerns to show to industry employees. In Wyoming, ranchers and state and industry representatives have drafted procedures for mediating disputes. The state has 40,300 wells, with thousands more planned...Energy expansion prompts concern over air pollution in Four Corners Plans to add thousands of natural gas wells in the Four Corners region has prompted concern among state and federal agencies about skyrocketing air pollution. San Juan County, N.M., has only one-fifth of the Albuquerque area's population of 557,000. Yet state air-quality experts say the area posts some of the highest levels of surface ozone in the state. "It is surprising," New Mexico Air Quality Bureau manager Mary Uhl told The Denver Post. "Most ozone problems in the United States occur in metropolitan areas with populations greater than a million."...Editorial: Lift the ban We've explained here before why we believe a ban on the carrying of firearms in U.S. national parks is based on a dangerous delusion, given that visitors to these often remote areas aren't somehow magically immunized against criminals or attacks by animals. Americans shouldn't have to surrender their Second Amendment rights or an effective means of self-defense, we've pointed out, when visiting their own "public" lands. While firearms are permitted on most national forests and lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management, they are forbidden in all but a few national parks. Drug gangs are understandably drawn to nation parks and state and federal forests due to their remoteness, and an ability to operate there with little fear of detection. But an added appeal must be that the gangs know they have little chance of encountering campers or hikers who are armed and able to defend themselves...Leases could net Wyoming millions Details of a series of coal deals that could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars and lead to mining 1.5 billion tons of coal in the southern Powder River Basin were released this week by the Bureau of Land Management. The leases ultimately will provide substantial revenues to the state of Wyoming when the federal government pays the state its share of the lease payments...

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NCBA Advisory

December 26, 2003

To: NCBA Member Organizations
Contact: Rick McCarty, NCBA Denver 303-694-0305
Kendal Frazier 303-694-0305

Subject: BSE Updates

Dec. 26, 2003 BSE Information Update

-This is the third day of the USDA investigation.
-The International Reference Laboratory in Weybridge, England on Dec. 25 reviewed the slides of the BSE tests performed in the United States and concluded that they were interpreted correctly - positive. The lab is conducting its own further tests for confirmation on tissue sent for testing.
-A third premise in Washington state is under quarantine. That is a bull calf feeding operation in Sunnyside, Wash. That is where the calf recently born to the infected cow was sent. The calf is in a facility with 400 other bull calves ranging in age from 7 to 30 days.
-As part of the trace-forward investigation, the other two calves born to the infected cow have been identified. One died at birth in 2001. The other is in the index herd and under quarantine with the other 4,000 animals.
-Investigators are looking at two paths in the trace-back investigation. One is a livestock market where the owner of the infected cow bought animals in October 2001. The other is a dairy cow finishing herd of about 100 animals.
-FDA continues to believe that the infected animal consumed contaminated feed early in its life as the incubation period for BSE is four to six years. The infected cow is believed to be 4 to 4 ½ years old. It was alert but non-ambulatory at time of slaughter.
-It is too early for USDA to speculate about indemnity plans for cattle owners.
The list of countries with temporary beef bans against the United States has grown from the 10 reported Dec. 24 with USMEF reporting 18 countries. Almost all export trade has stopped, as has been the protocol in this situation. Canada still permits imports of U.S. beef from cattle under 30 months of age.
-USDA on Dec. 27 is sending a trade delegation to Japan led by David Hegwood, special counsel to Secretary Veneman, along with former NCBA staff member Chuck Lambert.
-NCBA has called on the Bush Administration to make resumption of beef exports the top trade priority within the Administration, and for the Administration to use all resources available to it to minimize the period of trade disruption.
-NCBA has called on USDA to step up the timeline for creating and implementing an animal ID program. This work was already in progress and NCBA has been a leader in the program. But even if such a system had recently been put in place, as in Canada, there would be limitations. In Canada, animals could be traced forward rapidly because they were younger animals that had been born into the system. Trace-back was problematic because older animals don't have birth-to-harvest documentation.
-As part of its BSE surveillance plan, USDA has been increasing the number of animals it tests. In FY2003, 20,526 have been tested. The goal for FY2004 is 38,000.
-NCBA is calling for USDA to implement a "test and hold" program on carcasses where the animal is being tested for BSE.

Media Coverage

NCBA held its third tele-news conference call with the news media today. The more than 60 news media that participated in the call included ABC News, NCB News, CNN, Associated Press, The New York Times, Nation's Restaurant News, Meat Processing Magazine, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and the Baltimore Sun. In addition, NCBA spokespersons conducted interviews with all the major print and television network and cable outlets. We continue to deliver the message that U.S. beef is safe and that we are working with the government to find out the origin of the cow and the cause of the Washington BSE case.

An editorial by NCBA President Eric Davis has been submitted to USA Today for Monday publication. The editorial reassures consumers that U.S. beef remains the world's safest.

Terry Stokes to Meet Monday in Washington D.C. With Government Officials

NCBA CEO Terry Stokes will be in Washington D.C. Monday to meet with high ranking government officials to discuss trade and other issues about the BSE case. NCBA has organized a meeting Monday with a coalition of industry organizations to discuss the many issues surrounding the BSE incident.

Positive Reassurance Statement from the American Culinary Federation

Ed Leonard, president of the American Culinary Federation (ACF), issued a statement to all professional chefs concerning the Washington state BSE case. "The American Culinary Federation accepts the statement by Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman that the risk to the nation's food supply and human health resulting from this single incident is extremely low, "said Leonard, a certified master chef and executive chef of Westchester Country Club in Rye, N.Y. "We are confident in the systems implemented by the U.S. beef industry and U.S. government to ensure the safety of America's beef supply." The entire ACF statement can be found at http://www.acfchefs.org/media/pr031224.html.

Additional information can be found at www.BSEinfo.org

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MAD COW NEWS

Why mad cow scare won't sap U.S. economy

Prices for live cattle futures on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange were down the maximum limit (1.5 cents per pound) Wednesday to 89.175 cents. After trading limit-down for two consecutive days, the limit will be increased to 3 cents. If they trade limit-down for another two days, the limit will be increased again to 5 cents per pound.

Assuming the worst -- that all exports of U.S. beef will stop -- suggests that a drop in demand of 9 percent is the immediate effect. This would push cattle futures prices down by roughly 8 cents per pound, and would mean just four days of limit-down trading.

But because we will see an additional drop in demand due to a decline in domestic consumption, the price is likely to fall by even more. We suspect that price declines could reach roughly 30 percent, and that cattle futures prices may fall to as low as 60 cents per pound -- eight days down the limit.

But there's an intereseting aspect to recent trading in live cattle futures on the Merc. On Dec. 9, the same day the cow in question was slaughtered, the live cattle future traded limit-down. It then fell sharply again on Dec. 10. It appears that someone knew something. In the following two weeks, cattle prices rose again, and by last Tuesday, were almost back to their Dec. 8 level.

Someone, somewhere, is breathing a huge sigh of relief that the USDA finally made this information public late Tuesday...

Canada won't widen mad cow clampdown

It came as no surprise yesterday when U.S. authorities said they had received early confirmation that a Holstein cow in Washington state was infected with the disease, said Dr. Brian Evans, Canada's chief veterinarian. American authorities are now awaiting the final results of independent tests from world specialists in England, expected by the end of the week.

It's not likely even that will lead Ottawa to change its decision to restrict just a few beef products, rather than close the border entirely as some other countries have done, said Evans, chief veterinary officer with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. "It doesn't change our response to the U.S. circumstance as it currently is and ... (the finding) is what was expected," Evans said in an interview.

Meanwhile, a top U.S. official and a veterinarian familiar with the probe into where the animal came from said the infected cow may have brought in the disease from outside the state or country.

They both mentioned Canada as one place from which cattle have been imported...

Mad cow scare likely to tighten meat screening

As the American beef industry struggles with its first case of mad cow disease, the Department of Agriculture is debating whether to do far more screening of meat and change the way meat from suspect animals is used, department officials say.

The officials would not say exactly what they would recommend but acknowledged that European and Japanese regulators screen millions of animals using tests that take only three hours, fast enough to stop diseased carcasses from being cut up for food.

American inspectors have tested fewer than 30,000 of the roughly 300 million animals slaughtered in the last nine years, and get results days or weeks later...

BSE blame flows north

Anguish voiced by Canadian beef producers last May is being eerily echoed by Washington State cattlemen living near the latest ground zero for mad cow disease.

And a common suspicion emerges in their expressions of fear and loathing -- that Canada could well be the source of their impending misery.

"There are a lot of rumours that cow came from Canada and if it's true, they'll never open the border again," said Rod Vandegraff, whose family operates a large cattle feedlot in Sunnyside, about 10 km from Mabton, Wash., where the sick cow was found...

Experts debate possible effects of disease on USA's food supply

Now that agriculture officials are certain that a 4-year-old Holstein cow in Washington state is the USA's first case of mad cow disease, millions of Americans are left to wonder: Should beef still be, as the ad campaign says, "what's for dinner"?

Experts say many common cuts of beef pose no risk -- boneless steaks and roasts, for instance. But critics of the USA's multibillion-dollar cattle-feeding industry say loopholes in rules meant to prevent the disease still allow ground-up cow parts to be fed to cattle, a known way to transmit the fatal disease.

Consumer advocates also question meat-processing methods that scrape every bit from the bone. A federal survey last year found 35% of such meat contains spinal and nervous system tissue, the most infectious material in a diseased animal.

But some researchers think it could have occurred by chance when a normal protein in the cow mutated into a prion. Fred Cohen, a pharmacologist at University of California at San Francisco and Prusiner's colleague, believes that happened in the case this week and one last spring in Canada. If so, such occurrences are likely to be rare. Scientists at a federal lab in Ames, Iowa, have examined the brains of tens of thousands of suspicious-looking cows over the past several years and identified the disease only once.

The cattle industry downplays the possibility of a spontaneous occurrence. Gary Weber, executive director of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, calls it "a theory that most, if not all (mad cow) experts that I talk to dismiss. ... There is no evidence."...

Denver Post Editorial: Restore confidence in beef

One case of mad cow disease in the United States isn't cause for public panic - but it's also not an excuse for official complacency. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, state officials and the beef industry must take additional steps beyond those already announced.

Mad cow disease - also known as bovine spongiform encephelopathy, or BSE - doesn't seem to jump directly from animal to animal. Instead, it appears to spread when cattle eat feed that contains ground-up bits of infected animals. So the USDA needs to do more than just trace where meat from the infected animal was shipped. The agency also should find out what the infected animal had eaten, what other cattle consumed the same products, and where meat from those animals went.

The health risks to humans are likely very low - but they're not zero. The top priority must be protecting human health, even if that means imposing short-term hardship on the beef business...

Officials insist woman's death not related to mad cow disease

Doctors don't know how a Lucas woman contracted Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, but they're sure it didn't come from eating tainted beef.

Creutzfeldt-Jakob is a rare disease that afflicts about 3,600 people each year in the United States, including two or three in Kansas officials said. On Sunday, 62-year-old Linda Foulke died of the disease.

Doctors insist the type of CJD that killed Foulke was not the kind that results from eating beef from cattle with mad cow disease. The variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, known as vCJD, has been confirmed in only 153 cases around the world - 143 of them in Britain...

Beef groups seek to close borders to imports

South Dakota Stockgrowers Association and its national affiliate, R-CALF USA, have called on the United States to close its borders to all imports of live cattle, beef and livestock feed until the suspected case of mad cow disease in Washington state is more fully investigated.

"There are a number of investigations taking place to answer questions about this cow," Stockgrowers president Ken Knuppe said in a news release. "Until we know more about this situation, we believe the safest move is to halt imports. We know that certain types of feed can cause this disease, and although those feed products are outlawed here in the U.S., they may not be in other countries."

An R-CALF news release said the rationale for closing the border is based on the likelihood that if BSE were found in the United States, it would most likely have entered through imported ruminants or ruminant products. The news release also said the border closure would prevent the buildup of excess supplies of beef and cattle, thus lessening the harmful impact of the case on the U.S. cattle market...

Washington Post: Origin of Sick Cow Sought

In tracking records from the Sunny Dene Ranch in Mabton, which acquired the cow in October 2001, Agriculture Department officials had initially said that one of two herds in Washington state was the birth herd. Identifying this herd is crucial, because the cow was probably infected before it got to Mabton.

It now appears that the cow has had another previous home, which may even have been out of the state or out of the country. Each step back that investigators go to find the birth farm increases the number of ways the infection might have spread elsewhere.

"While we initially went from the index herd where we found two locations, we are tracing back further from there," W. Ron DeHaven, USDA's deputy administrator and chief veterinary officer, said last evening. "It gets to be a spider web of possibilities from there."

Regulators want to find the birth herd and the sources of the infected Holstein's feed to predict which other cattle may have eaten the same feed and are at risk. Every extra step in their search dramatically complicates efforts to clamp down on the source of the disease.

A veterinarian in the Yakima Valley familiar with the investigation but who asked not to be identified said he had learned that the "cow didn't spend her whole life in the state of Washington." In recent years, a large number of cattle have been imported into the Yakima Valley, primarily from Canada, following a rapid expansion of local dairy herds, according to another veterinarian, Ernie Munck. "I have several clients that have brought in cows from Canada," said Munck, a large-animal veterinarian from Prosser, Wash. "One client brought in a few truckloads from Ontario."...

Japan to increase NZ beef exports

The Japanese government would try to increase imports from New Zealand and Australia by sending officials there as early as January, officials at its Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries told the Japan Today newspaper.

Only New Zealand and Australia now remain as sources of Japan's beef imports, with the rest of the world's top 10 suppliers all being hit by either foot-and-mouth disease or BSE, the farm ministry official said...

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NEWS ROUNDUP

Off-Road Officials Take To The Trails For Some Four-Wheeled Investigation On November 17, several members of Colorado off-road agencies, coalitions and clubs came together for what would be best termed a "ride of the minds." These experienced forest riders set out on ATVs for a full day's ride to share ideas and better understand current usage of the Rampart Range Recreational Area. This forested high-mountain maze of trails may see as many as 250,000 riders a year. Along these trails located just outside Denver, discussions took place that touched on trail markers and what information should be added, how to better inform riders of local trail issues and get them involved, overviews on trail management and thinning projects being conducted In the area... No food around bears, order says After two years of revisions, the U.S. Forest Service has approved an order to keep food away from bears in more parts of western Wyoming's Bridger-Teton and Shoshone national forests. The expanded order, which replaces one implemented 13 years ago, was signed last week by regional foresters Rick Cable and Jack Troyer. It will take effect March 1, Bridger-Teton spokeswoman Mary Lendman said. The order spells out how human and animal food, dead game animals, garbage and hygiene items should be stored by forest users so they do not attract bears. Federal land managers contend the order is necessary to deal with increasing bear and human encounters and ensure human safety. It has been criticized by several Wyoming counties, which have threatened to challenge it in court. They claim it will hurt tourism and increase outfitter expenses. More than 700 human-bear conflicts have been reported in the area the past two years. Wildlife biologists believe the number can be reduced if food is hung in trees or locked in containers...P.B. one of 3 sites Forest Service to study ATV impact The Mark Twain National Forest has targeted three southeast Missouri sites popular for illegal use by four-wheel drive and all-terrain vehicles for a study aimed at encouraging more responsible land use. The proposal would open 144 miles of trails for use by enthusiasts of state-licensed off-highway vehicles in forests near Potosi, Fredericktown and Poplar Bluff, Mark Twain National Forest spokeswoman Charlotte Wiggins said Tuesday. As part of the proposal, 67 miles of roads and trails now being driven on illegal in ecologically sensitive areas would be closed, she said...Colorado Wild suing Forest Service In an eleventh-hour effort to stop the logging of trees burned in the Missionary Ridge Fire, Colorado Wild on Tuesday sued the Forest Service. The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Denver, asks that the agency be found in violation of the National Forest Management Act and the National Environmental Policy Act. It claims the intended logging is arbitrary, capricious and an abuse of discretion. It also asks that no logging occur until the agency complies with the national laws...SLC denies landowners motor access Owners of land in the upper reaches of Big Cottonwood Canyon's Cardiff Fork have won approval from the U.S. Forest Service to access their property with motor vehicles. They now face a potentially larger obstacle: Salt Lake City. On Tuesday -- a day after the Forest Service granted four landowners a permit to use motor vehicles on forest-managed portions of a dirt road -- city officials said the property owners may not use such vehicles on the part of the road that goes through city-owned property...Column: The Endangered Species Act On Dec. 28, the Endangered Species Act (ESA) turns 30. But before celebrating the grand anniversary of this landmark federal legislation, we should ask ourselves a sobering question. What has the ESA really accomplished in the past three decades? The answer gives little cause for celebration. For starters, the ESA has done precious little to help endangered animals. Since the act's passage, seven American species have gone extinct. Meanwhile, while more than 1,260 species have been listed as "endangered" or "threatened," only 10 North American species have "recovered," often due to efforts unrelated to the ESA. Even worse, the ESA has often backfired, prompting needless destruction of wildlife habitat as it expanded from its initial mission of helping endangered species to blocking economic activity across the country...Wolf caught by Paradise Valley trapper A wolf that had wandered far afield was captured in the Paradise Valley last week, just a few days after a resident pack had attacked sheep for the first time. The wolf, a male at least 2 years old, wore a radio collar and ear tags and had last been spotted west of Salmon, Idaho, on Oct. 22, according to Carter Niemeyer, wolf recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Idaho. That same wolf was captured Dec. 19 by a leghold trap south of here, in the Eight Mile area. The trap is owned by a private trapper seeking coyotes, who notified authorities when he found he had captured a wolf instead. The wolf had traveled about 180 air miles, which translates into a lot more than that, considering the rough country between central Idaho and the Paradise Valley...2 Eastern Montana men admit sale of frozen walleyes Gerald Lynn Beason, 54, of Circle, and Aaron Keith McIntyre, 31, of Glendive, pleaded guilty Tuesday to an indictment charging them with Lacey Act violations by illegally transporting wildlife in interstate commerce. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kris McLean said that in May 1999, McIntyre approached two undercover agents of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and asked whether they were interested in buying 3,000 pounds of frozen walleye that a friend had for sale. McIntyre provided the agents with Beason's phone number...Pilgrim family appeals case to higher court Lawyers for the Pilgrim family filed an emergency motion Wednesday in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, seeking to overturn a recent decision by a federal court judge in the family's legal battle with the National Park Service. Pacific Legal Foundation, which is representing the family, asked the appeals court in San Francisco to grant emergency access over a historic mining route to their property inside Wrangell-St. Elias National Park...Robert Redford gets heated up about the Bush environmental agenda, global warming, clean energy and worms Redford's environmental activism has gone beyond renewable-energy advocacy, from lobbying for the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act in the 1970s to holding international conferences on global warming in the '80s to campaigning for pro-environment Democratic politicians in the '90s (which he says he also plans to do in the 2004 elections). Still, even the great horse whisperer has a few environmental skeletons in his closet. A onetime race car driver and former owner of various all-terrain vehicles (not to mention a major player in notoriously eco-insensitive Hollywood), Redford freely admits to having been "extremely hypocritical" in the past. After reading the following Grist interview, though, even the purist of environmentalists will have to admit that few celebrities -- or politicians and activists, for that matter -- have shown as much dogged dedication to the environmental movement as Robert Redford...Court blocks Bush air pollution rules A federal appeals court on Wednesday blocked some of the Bush administration's changes to the Clean Air Act from going into effect, dealing a major setback to one of the White House's biggest environmental decisions. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia agreed with 12 states and several major cities that argued they would face irreparable harm to their environments and public health from the changes. The judges ordered the Environmental Protection Agency not to implement its rules change until the panel can make a final determination about the case. That court challenge, which could last well into the next year, takes aim at an EPA rule making it easier for utilities, refineries and other industrial facilities to make repairs in the name of routine maintenance without installing additional pollution controls...Thirsty West eyes water-rich farms Ron Aschermann could barely eke out a living raising melons, cucumbers, tomatoes or other crops on his 300-acre farm. But quitting the business will earn him more than $1.2 million. Aschermann and scores of others farmers on the high plains of southeastern Colorado are selling water, which once produced melons, to the Denver suburb of Aurora. The prairie will retake land that has long known the plow. The same thing is happening across the West as the nation's fastest-growing region shifts more water from farms to thirsty cities. Billions of gallons changed hands last year in eight Western states, and even more will flow in years to come. California recently approved a 75-year shift of water from desert farms to San Diego, the biggest transfer of its kind in U.S. history...Tribe wins $17.8 million contract A $17.8 million contract to build part of the Ridges Basin Dam was awarded to the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe's construction company, Weeminuche Construction Authority, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation announced Tuesday. The contract, the fifth and largest to be awarded to the Ute company so far, is part of a $500 million project to build the Animas La-Plata Project the dam, a 120,000-acre-foot reservoir, a pumping station and a pipeline. It brings to nearly $60 million in contracts awarded to Towaoc-based Weeminuche to build portions of the project, designed to settle water rights claims of the Ute Mountain Ute, Southern Ute and Navajo tribes...Old West craft: Valley home to finest bookmakers in the business Cowboy boots helped put the Valley on the map. In old workshops, unsung masters of the trade use awls, hammers and antique Singer sewing machines to craft their art. On the heels of presidents and princes, movie heroes and country stars, their boots left marks that stretch into the far corners of the globe. In 1925, Abraham Rios opened a small boot shop in Raymondville after leaving his home in Mexico, where he learned the old family trade of leatherwork. Soon, cowboys off the King Ranch were taking their business to Rios...Gee, what a second go-round A 14-year-old horse has changed Mickey Gee's life. The Wichita Falls, Texas, steer wrestler says he is returning to the rodeo tour full-time again this year. All of this because of a horse named Wasp. After surprising the rodeo world by winning the world steer wrestling championship in 1999 at 24, he might as well have been in the witness protection program for the last three years. Very few people heard from him. He only went to small Texas rodeos, and not very many of them...

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Officials Say Death Not Related to Mad Cow

Doctors say a Kansas woman who died from Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease did not get it from eating tainted beef.

Creutzfeldt-Jakob is a rare disease that afflicts about 3,600 people each year in the United States.

A 62-year-old Lucas woman died Sunday of the disease.

Doctors say the type of disease that killed her was not the kind
that results from eating beef from cattle with mad cow disease...

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U.K. Lab Confirms Mad Cow Case in U.S.
British Lab Provides Confirmation of Case of Mad Cow Disease in U.S., Agriculture Officials Say

British lab provided initial independent confirmation Thursday that the United States has its first case of mad cow disease, U.S. agriculture officials said. Federal investigators labored to trace the path the infected animal took from birth to slaughter.

Scientists at the Veterinary Laboratories Agency in Weybridge, England, told the Agriculture Department they concur with the reading of tests on the stricken Holstein cow that led U.S. officials to conclude the animal had the brain-wasting disease, U.S. officials said.

"We are considering this confirmation," said USDA spokeswoman Alisa Harrison, adding that the English lab still will conduct its own test using another sample from the cow's brain. Final test results on the cow from Washington state were expected by the end of the week, she said.

Professor Steven Edwards, chief of the British lab, said those results already have been given to USDA. But Edwards refused to disclose whether the tests show that the animal had mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy.

Meanwhile, Harrison said, investigators were working through the holiday to prevent a potential outbreak of the deadly disease and to calm public fears about the food supply. Government officials have said there is no threat to the food supply because the cow's brain and spine nerve tissue where scientists say the disease is found were removed before it was sent on for processing...

U.S. Beef Banned by 15 Nations

Major American trading partners have banned U.S. beef since the government on Tuesday revealed the discovery of a case of mad cow disease in Washington state, threatening to seriously damage an industry that had been enjoying growing exports and the highest prices in years.

Japan is the largest export market for U.S. beef, followed by South Korea, Mexico and then Canada, according to USDA's economic-research service.

Japan, Mexico, South Korea, Russia, Egypt, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Colombia, Singapore, Thailand, Brazil, Malaysia, Australia, Chile and Ukraine have all banned U.S. beef imports, the U.S. Meat Export Federation said. The countries represent about 87 percent of volume and value for beef exports.

U.S. ranchers export about 10 percent of domestic production. Overseas sales were projected to reach $3.2 billion this year, Mr. Dierlam said. Industry and government officials want those markets reopened as soon as possible...

Some local stores pulling meat from shelves

PORTLAND - The state was lending a hand to federal investigators tracking down shipments of meat and byproducts from the first reported mad cow case in the nation while several grocery chains decided Wednesday to remove meat possibly linked to the animal with the disease.

Safeway Inc. has stopped selling all fresh ground beef products from an Oregon supplier that received meat from the affected cow, said spokeswoman Bridget Flanagan.

"We're doing this voluntarily out of an abundance of caution," Flanagan said.

Safeway, which has 120 grocery stores in Oregon and southwest Washington, will re-evaluate its meat-buying practices and look for another supplier, she said.

Boise, Idaho-based Albertsons also released a statement asking customers to voluntarily return ground beef packages with a sell-by-date of Dec. 25 bought at their Oregon, Washington and northern Idaho stores.

Representatives for Albertsons, Fred Meyer, Safeway and WinCo Foods all said their chains get ground beef from Interstate Meat Distributors in Clackamas - one of two Oregon-based distributors that received parts of the tainted cow. All four chains have voluntarily removed ground beef produce from the affected distributors...

Organic Beef Industry Expects More Sales

Organic beef producers predict the U.S. mad cow scare will boost demand for their meat, which comes from animals fed only milk, grasses and grains from birth to slaughter.

Mad cow disease, officially known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy or BSE, is believed to be spread through cattle feed containing protein or bone meal from infected cows or sheep. Although the government banned feeding cattle such products in 1997, organic food advocates say the law has loopholes and is poorly enforced.

U.S. organic beef standards, which took effect in October 2002, provide for certification of producers whose practices have passed muster with either a state or private inspector. The standards include an all-vegetable diet once the animal is weaned.

``We will now see a huge increase in the demand'' for organic beef, which currently accounts for no more than 1 percent of U.S. beef sales, predicted Ronnie Cummins, national director of the Organic Consumers Association, of Little Marais, Minn.

Nick Maravell, owner of Nick's Organic Farm, said he sold all the beef from his small, but growing, Black Angus herd in Adamstown, Md., almost immediately after the autumn slaughter. Maravell, vice chairman of the Maryland Organic Food and Farming Association, said he expects next year's crop of six animals to go just as fast...

Mad cow scare not seen as a boon by poultry, pork producers

New concerns about U.S. beef safety don't offer any glee to producers of pork and poultry - they figure Americans' concerns about one food can easily translate to suspicions about others.

"This is not good for chicken," said Bill Roenigk, an official with the National Chicken Council. "Consumers should be and are concerned about their food supply. Anything that jeopardizes consumer confidence in the food supply is not good for us."

But an even bigger issue for U.S. agriculture will be how deeply Americans' confidence is shaken in the safety of the overall meat supply.

"It's just anybody's guess," said Jon Caspers, president of the National Pork Producers Council and a hog farmer in Swaledale, Iowa. "Markets don't deal with these things very often. It is hard to predict."

Now, concerns about food safety could have a negative effect for all producers, said Mike Ovesen, executive director of the Kentucky Pork Producers...

Nevada suspends import of Washington cows

Nevada agriculture officials have suspended the importation of dairy cattle from Washington state as federal officials try to trace the history of the animal that tested positive for mad cow disease.

State veterinarian David Thain said the ban will remain in place until federal investigators determine where the infected cow was born and locate other animals from that herd.

``We will do whatever is necessary to protect Nevada's cattle industry,'' Thain said Wednesday.

``We just don't know how widespread it is at this time.''...

Many Watching How Mad Cow Policy Unfolds

The Bush administration's handling of the mad cow case - a delicate balance between protecting the health of consumers and of the beef cattle industry - is being closely watched in farm states crucial in a close presidential race.

The nation's Farm Belt with its rural, more conservative states is at the core of President Bush's electoral strength. But some farm states - like Iowa, Missouri and Wisconsin - are competitive swing states.

``Politicians are going to have to move very quickly,'' said political analyst Floyd Ciruli of Colorado, where beef cattle are a crucial part of the state's economy. ``The psychological and political implications get well ahead of what's actually happening.''

``We want the government to make science-based decisions, not decisions based on emotion and distortion,'' said Dee Likes, executive vice president of the Kansas Livestock Association. The beef cattle is the largest industry in Kansas, so any missteps by government officials could severely hurt the state's economy.

A top priority for the administration and the beef industry is to prevent widespread panic about the food supply, while determining whether the case is isolated.

``What you don't want is for it to grow into a major national crisis the way it did in Britain,'' said presidential scholar Charles Jones...

US mad cow scare may benefit NZ

New Zealand beef producers could reap increased exports to Asia in the wake of the mad cow disease scare in the United States, farmers predict.

But there are also fears of a temporary downturn in the US - the destination for nearly 60 per cent of New Zealand's $1.6 billion-a-year export beef market - as consumers turn off beef.

Federated Farmers meat and fibre chairman Ian Corney said yesterday that the clampdown on US beef by several Asian countries could prove a windfall for beef farmers in New Zealand, which remains free of BSE.

"There certainly will be an opportunity there. I wouldn't expect it will be a bonanza. It will be an opportunity we will be able to capitalise on. We don't like capitalising on other people's misfortune, but that's what makes the world go round."

Consumers might also switch from eating beef to lamb, he said...

U.S. beef entered Korean market without proper test procedures

Despite mounting fears over a potential outbreak of mad cow disease in Korea, U.S. beef has entered the nation without going through proper test procedures for the disease, a government official said yesterday.
Also, since no "country of origin" label is required on the meat sold in restaurants, experts fear some American meat may be misrepresented as Korean.

"We need to inspect each cow's brain tissue to discover mad cow disease to know whether the beef from the United States is infected or not. But we have followed the convention of not testing any imported beef for mad cow disease," an Agriculture Ministry official said.

"What we do is just check the cow-growing and processing system in the import markets."

Accordingly, some U.S. beef in Korea may carry the fatal disease, he explained...

Texans Say They Will Still Make Menudo

The menudo will still simmer and the barbacoa will still roast in the Rio Grande Valley, despite news that a cow may have contracted mad cow disease.

``It's a tradition. We just eat it twice a year,'' 55-year-old Rosa Morales said Wednesday as she selected spices to season the 20 pounds of frozen beef tripe she had just loaded into her shopping cart.

Morales said she was shopping for a friend who had misgivings about fat content but wasn't worried by reports that a U.S. cow may have had mad cow disease. One fear of mad cow is that humans can get variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob, an incurable disease, by eating tissue from infected animals--specifically from the brain and spinal cord.

Menudo, a spicy soup made from the lining of the cow's stomach, and barbacoa, made from the cow's head and brain, are the Mexican border version of the holiday Christmas ham.

Menudo is usually boiled in large pots for eight or more hours with red chilies, onions, garlic, and hominy.

Barbacoa is likewise made to feed crowds, with the meat traditionally wrapped in burlap bags with onions, garlic, and cilantro and roasted overnight in 2-foot deep holes in the back yard. It is typically served on Sundays...

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LA Times: Disease May Spoil Dairy, Meat Profits

On a typical day, beef broker Rod Bolcao of Chino collects as much as 60 cents a pound for the 300 to 400 dairy cows he moves to slaughterhouses around the West. Wednesday was anything but typical.

The best deal he could wrangle was for 30 cents, and he was stuck holding more than 60 head of cattle. Suddenly, Bolcao lamented, "there is no market."

With investigators still trying to piece together just what happened at a farm in Mabton, Wash., meatpackers in California said they were wary of buying much in the way of supplies, and middlemen such as Bolcao were holding off cutting deals with cattle farmers because they didn't want to end up stuck with a bunch of beef they couldn't move.

"People," Bolcao said, "are just shutting their doors for now."...

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LA Times: Tainted Feed Suspected in First U.S. Case of `Mad Cow' Disease

Agriculture Department officials said Wednesday that the dairy cow that tested positive this week for "mad cow" disease, a first in the United States, probably contracted the illness through feed containing tainted animal parts, despite a federal ban on putting such materials in cattle feed.

The diseased cow was born about 1999, officials said, two years after a federal rule took effect that was designed to stop cattle from receiving tainted feed. Officials said they could not speculate whether a violation of the rule had led the animal to become infected.

The rule stated that cattle feed may not contain most proteins from mammals. It was intended to prevent a repeat of Britain's "mad cow" crisis, in which the disease was thought to have infected more than 183,000 cattle in the 1980s and 1990s, primarily because proteins from diseased animals were fed to healthy ones.

Dr. Stephen Sundlof, director of the Center for Veterinary Medicine at the Food and Drug Administration, said compliance with the feed rule was only about 75% when it was enacted in 1997. It has since risen to 99%, he said...

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Blood closely screened against human variant of BSE

Experts have suspected that the disorder, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, might be spread through blood transfusions.

In November 1999, UBS began deferring donors who had spent time in the United Kingdom from 1980 to 1996, which is the period extending from the probable beginning of the mad cow disease outbreak in cattle in the United Kingdom to when safeguards were fully implemented.

Additional restrictions were added in May 2002, and as of October 2002, UBS defers donors who have traveled to or lived in Europe for a total of five years or more between 1980 and the present, including time spent in the United Kingdom between 1980 and 1996; are members of the U.S. military, are civilian employees or dependents of military employees who spent a total of six months or more on or associated with military bases in certain European countries between 1980 and 1996; or received a blood transfusion in the United Kingdom since 1980.

The Food and Drug Administration ordered these deferrals because of the possible risk of transmission of new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease...

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New York Times: Expert Warned That Mad Cow Was Imminent

Ever since he identified the bizarre brain-destroying proteins that cause mad cow disease, Dr. Stanley Prusiner, a neurologist at the University of California at San Francisco, has worried about whether the meat supply in America is safe.

He spoke over the years of the need to increase testing and safety measures. Then in May, a case of mad cow disease appeared in Canada, and he quickly sought a meeting with Ann M. Veneman, the secretary of agriculture. He was rebuffed, he said in an interview yesterday, until he ran into Karl Rove, senior adviser to President Bush.

So six weeks ago, Dr. Prusiner, who won the 1997 Nobel Prize in Medicine for his work on prions, entered Ms. Veneman's office with a message. "I went to tell her that what happened in Canada was going to happen in the United States," Dr. Prusiner said. "I told her it was just a matter of time."

...Animals that eat infected tissues can contract the disease, setting off an epidemic as animals eat each other via rendered meats. But misfolded proteins can also arise spontaneously in cattle and other animals, Dr. Prusiner said. It is not known whether meat from animals with that form of the disease could pass the disease to humans, he said, but it is a risk that greatly worries him.

Cattle with sporadic disease are probably entering the food chain in the United States in small numbers, Dr. Prusiner and other experts say.

...The only way to learn what the United States is facing is to test every animal, Dr. Prusiner said. Existing methods, used widely in Europe and Japan, grind up brain stem tissue and use an enzyme to measure amounts of infectious prions. Animals must have lots of bad prions to get a clear diagnosis.

Newer tests, by a variety of companies, are more sensitive, cheaper and faster. Dr. Prusiner said that his test could even detect extremely small amounts of infectious prion in very young animals with no symptoms. Sold by InPro Biotechnology in South San Francisco, a single testing operation could process 8,000 samples in 24 hours, he said.

British health officials will start using the test in February, Dr. Prusiner said. If adopted in this country, it would raise the price of a pound of meat by two to three cents, he said.

"We want to keep prions out of the mouths of humans," Dr. Prusiner said. "We don't know what they might be doing to us."...

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Mexico Willing to Lift Ban on US Beef

In Mexico, an Agriculture Ministry official says his country is willing to lift its ban on U.S. beef, as soon as the United States proves that a suspected case of mad cow disease in Washington State is an isolated one.
The pledge comes from Food Safety Director Javier Trujillo. He says his primary concern is the health and welfare of consumers, and the Mexican cattle industry. But in the interests of bilateral trade, Mexico, which is one of the three largest importers of U.S. beef, is willing to be flexible.

"The very day that we have concluded that this is actually an isolated case, I would be prepared to lift the ban the following day," says Mr. Trujillo. "Otherwise, we have the obligation, as well as the authority, to keep the restrictions as we can justify scientifically."

Mr. Trujillo says a team of Mexican and Canadian specialists is planning to travel to the United States as early as next week to work with U.S. colleagues to investigate the situation...

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Washington Post Editorial: Cow Madness

NO ONE WANTS American food regulators to emulate the British government minister who, in 1990, made his daughter Cordelia eat a hamburger on television to prove that his country's mad cow epidemic was harmless to humans. Nevertheless, it is important that the detection of a single U.S. cow with the illness more correctly known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) be put into perspective. After the disease was first discovered in Britain -- and after scientists there first claimed that it could be passed from cows to beef-eating humans -- some predicted the onset of a mass epidemic, with tens or even hundreds of thousands of people contracting Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), the human version of the illness.

But despite the fact that the epidemic proved to be far more widespread among cattle than predicted, affecting some 180,000 animals, the human impact has been far more limited than expected, with about 140 deaths thought to have been related to CJD, and not all of those were for certain. The links between the human and bovine versions of the disease are not well understood: Clearly, not everyone who ate infected meat caught the disease. Some CJD victims are thought to have contracted the illness from blood transfusions, not beef.

The means by which the disease spreads among cattle are not fully understood either. Although it seems clear that the British cattle epidemic was caused by the use of feed that contained ground bone meal -- a feed that is now banned in this country -- there also seem to be naturally occurring incidences of BSE as well as of scrapie, the version that appears in sheep. Until the source of the U.S. case is known, it is important not to jump to conclusions about how widespread the disease might be.

The discovery of a single cow with the illness does not, in other words, merit a consumer boycott of beef or a mass cattle slaughter on the scale that took place in Britain. For that matter, foreign boycotts of U.S. beef, while understandable until more facts are known, probably are not warranted either. In Europe, BSE has been used as a thinly veiled excuse to provide extra protection to domestic farmers. It wouldn't be surprising to see a recurrence of that phenomenon.

But the administration also must act quickly to maintain confidence in the industry. Its announcement yesterday of a recall of 10,000 pounds of meat that passed through the slaughterhouse on the same day as the infected cow was another step in that effort. The British government's big mistake, at the time of that epidemic, was to cover up facts and hide statistics. Official secrecy led to increased anxiety. Over the next few weeks, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which has long claimed it is prepared for an outbreak of the disease, will be on trial. The competence of U.S. inspection and detection teams will be tested, and so will the department's ability to communicate with the public. The British lesson is clear: If more facts are revealed, consumers will feel safer, and the industry is less likely to suffer permanent damage.

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MAD COW NEWS

'We Were Lucky About One Thing' Company Owner Says Meat All Went to Same Customer

There was homemade Christmas fudge in the room where butchers pull on their rubber boots. And just past a sign that said, "Beef. It's What's For Dinner," there were dozens of Christmas cards from longtime customers of Vern's Moses Lake Meats.

But every last drop of holiday cheer on this Christmas Eve had been drained out of this old one-story slaughterhouse on the southwestern edge of Moses Lake, a farm town in eastern Washington's semi-desert country. It was here that the first cow in the United States to test positive for mad cow disease was slaughtered two weeks ago.

"I have so much nervous energy I prefer to stand," said Tom Ellestad, who, with his older brother Larry, runs the meat company where the Holstein cow was slaughtered.

Pacing on the walkway in front of the faded red, concrete-block slaughterhouse that his father bought 33 years ago, Tom Ellestad said he learned less than 24 hours ago that the infected cow had been butchered here...

Meat Industry Feels Fallout; Groceries Offer Assurances

The economic fallout from the discovery of a single case of presumed mad cow disease in Washington state continued yesterday, as the shares of food-related companies tumbled, groceries and restaurants rushed to reassure anxious customers, and the beef export industry faced a ban on shipments.

At the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, trading in cattle futures locked up immediately after the market opened when prices fell as much as allowed in a single day. More declines are expected in trading tomorrow, and exchange spokesman John Holden said the market has expanded the allowable price drops, "hopefully to find a price at which they're willing to trade."

The price for 100 pounds of live cattle fell $1.50 yesterday on the Chicago exchange, to close at $90.85. The price will be allowed to fall an additional $3 on Friday and $5 on Monday.

The ban on U.S. beef imports by several countries sent a shudder through the meat industry. "It's not insignificant," said James H. Hodges, president of the American Meat Institute Foundation, during a media briefing. Last year about $3.6 billion in American beef was shipped overseas...

Inspection Practices Examined, Using Meat From 'Downers' Decried

When a cow or steer cannot walk to slaughter, it is called a "downer." Some have broken legs, while others may have been trampled in the railroad car on the way to the stockyards. Still others, however, are sick, and at least one -- slaughtered Dec. 9 in Washington state -- was infected with mad cow disease, according to the Department of Agriculture.

The case, the first reported in the United States, has triggered a reappraisal of the inspection procedures that the Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration use to regulate meat processing from the slaughterhouse to the rendering plants that transform an animal's last remains into meat and bone meal feed.

For years, consumer groups and some lawmakers have complained about the practice of slaughtering downers. This year, a provision in the Senate's Agriculture appropriations bill to ban the practice was removed from the final version of the legislation, which still awaits action by the Senate...

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MAD COW NEWS

More countries halt US beef imports

China, South Africa and Colombia have joined at least 13 other nations, including the top two foreign markets for US beef, in banning imports from America after reporting its first suspected case of mad cow disease.

Japan, the world's biggest importer of US beef, announced a temporary ban less than three hours after US Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman said initial tests had shown that a cow from the state of Washington may have the deadly brain-wasting disease.

South Korea and Mexico, the second and third biggest US markets, Australia, Russia, Brazil, Chile, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Peru, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand have also suspended imports.

In Brussels, the European Union said that it had no plans to impose extra restrictions on imports of US beef to add to protective measures that were already in place.

Canada imposed a temporary ban on some US beef products after initially saying it would await the outcome of tests by a British laboratory before taking action.

It will still allow the import of products it defines as low-risk like cattle destined for immediate slaughter, boneless beef from cattle under 30 months of age, dairy products as well as semen, embryos and protein-free tallow.

The most important export markets are Japan, Mexico, Canada, South Korea, and Hong Kong...

Mad cow sends meat shares down

Stocks in meat-packing companies and restaurant chains fell quickly Wednesday as investors reacted to the first reported case of mad cow disease in the United States.

The response on Wall Street reflected concern over decisions by at least 11 countries to cut off U.S. beef imports, and the potential that the reports might turn consumers away from buying hamburgers and steak.

Several companies heavily reliant on beef consumption lost ground in the shortened day of trading Wednesday. McDonald's Corp. fell more than 5 percent to $23.96. Wendy's International was off nearly 5 percent at $37.79. Tyson Foods, which relies on beef for nearly half of its business, saw its shares drop nearly 8 percent to $12.90...

Gov't Trying to Trace Life of Diseased Cow

Federal officials scrambled Wednesday to trace the life of the first U.S. cow believed infected with mad cow disease (search) while trying to contain the growing economic damage from a now-suspect food supply.

Federal and state-level officials worked to trace the Holstein's history before it came to its last home, Sunny Dene Ranch (search) in Mabton, Wash., in 2001. Agriculture Department chief veterinarian Ron DeHaven said officials have identified two livestock markets in Washington where the animal could have been purchased, but he did not identify them.

Because the brain-wasting disease is usually transmitted through contaminated feed and has an incubation period of four to five years, it is "important to focus on the feed where she was born," DeHaven said...

US states hesitate to ban Washington beef

Anxious state agriculture officials in the western United States were Wednesday scrambling ward off the threat of mad-cow disease after the discovery of the country's first suspected case.

But states near the northwestern state of Washington, where the first suspected case was detected, were hesitating to ban cattle and beef from Washington, even as countries across the globe halted beef imports.

In Oregon, which shares its northern border with Washington, agriculture officials said they would consider a quarantine of cattle from Washington if the situation required it, but had no immediate plans for a ban.

"No quarantine has been imposed by Oregon at this time," Bruce Pokearney, spokesman for the Oregon Department of Agriculture, told Agence France-Presse.

Agriculture officials in Colorado first banned and then early Wednesday lifted the embargo on cattle from Washington state following the discovery of mad cow disease there.

But State Veterinarian Wayne Cunningham said Colorado would not permit any cattle feeds from Washington to enter Colorado until investigation proved that they were safe...

2 Wash. State Cos. Violated FDA Rules

Two firms in Washington state, where mad cow disease was apparently found in a cow, violated government regulations designed to prevent cattle from contracting the disease, records show.

The Food and Drug Administration said the violations were minor and posed no health risks, but an environmental group wants the agency to investigate whether those problems contributed to the infection of the Holstein cow.

An October 2002 inspection found that M&E Seed & Grain Co. of Prosser, a feed mill, violated FDA regulations that were enacted in 1997 to prevent mad cow disease, officially known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE. Those rules lay out procedures to prevent mammal parts from being mixed into cattle feed.

Violations also were found at a second company, RTK Producers of Moses Lake, a trucking firm that handles animal feed, in June 2002, but a March 2003 follow-up inspection found no problems.

Both firms had only minor violations that could be easily corrected, such as missing paperwork, according to Dr. Stephen Sundlof, director of the FDA's Center for Veterinarian Medicine. The FDA records do not list the specific violations...

Tory call for checks on US-NHS blood

The discovery of BSE in a cow in the USA has raised questions over the safety of US blood products used in NHS hospitals, it has been claimed.

Since 1999, as part of the Government's drive to stop the spread of variant Creuzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) - the human form of 'mad cow disease' - Britain has sourced all plasma for blood products from the USA, where BSE was unknown until this week.

Conservative health spokesman Andrew Lansley has called on the Food Standards Agency to make checks to ensure American blood remains safe...

Atkins Advisory on the Mad Cow Disease Situation

Atkins Nutritionals Inc. is confident that the U.S.D.A. will do its very best to protect the American food supply with its full resources, as it has always done.

As can be seen in the recipes featured throughout the Atkins Web site and in our many books, we encourage a wide range of protein sources, including poultry, fish and shellfish, pork, lamb, nuts, eggs, soy and cheese. Many of our followers have been succeeding on Atkins as a weight-control program and a lifestyle for many years without the inclusion of beef in their diets. In short, while beef can be a nutritious and satisfying part of the ANA, it is not essential to it. Consumers have a wider range of choices with Atkins.

The risk for humans contracting mad cow disease is extremely remote for a variety of reasons. We encourage all Americans to seek facts and resist sensationalist hype that is often encouraged by activist groups with their own particular bias. However, for those of you who remain concerned about the current situation, be assured that you can continue to enjoy the many health benefits of the Atkins lifestyle, thanks to a wide range of protein sources available...

USDA halts livestock risk insurance due to mad cow

The U.S. Agriculture Department said on Wednesday it would temporarily suspend livestock risk protection insurance due to volatile market conditions caused by the first U.S. case of mad cow disease.

The USDA said it would stop accepting applications for Specific Coverage Endorsements for Fed Cattle and Feeder Cattle under the federal Livestock Risk Protection Insurance Policy.

"It is expected that this (mad cow disease) discovery will have a significant effect on the price of cattle for the foreseeable future," the USDA said in a statement.

Producers that have already purchased insurance will continue to receive coverage, the USDA said. However, the USDA said ranchers would not be able to insure additional cattle until further notice...

Have Yourself A Merry Little Burger (Rush Limbaugh)

So don't eat your dog - or the spinal cord and brain of any potentially infected cow. Are we clear on that? Are we also clear, as one caller who said he had 30 years in the field pointed out, that your supply of vegetables is also at risk? Nobody stands up for the beef industry in this country. It's just assumed here that all beef is potentially tainted, even though we know very little about this disease and how or if it's transmitted to humans.

Eating meat is one of those politically incorrect behaviors that the mainstream press will use any excuse to jump all over. Plus, they love to scare you because it gets you watching. The safety features worked in Washington State - but they worked at Three Mile Island, too. That didn't stop the media from screaming, "Oh, what could have happened!" This country was not built by vegetarians, folks. I have no problem with those who simply don't eat meat, but I object to the militant, extreme nuts among you...

Laboratory Backlog Delayed USDA Test for Mad Cow

A tissue sample from a Washington state dairy cow sat in a federal laboratory for a week before it was tested and diagnosed as mad cow disease because of a backlog of samples, the U.S. Agriculture Department said on Wednesday.

Head USDA veterinarian Ron DeHaven said all brain samples from "downer" cattle -- animals too sick or injured to walk -- are sent to its federal laboratory in Ames, Iowa. The lab tested 20,526 head of cattle for mad cow disease last year.

The USDA defended the length of time it took to diagnose the disease.

"There was no delay here other than normal processing and the fact that we are testing tens of thousands of samples a year in that laboratory," DeHaven told reporters...

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MAD COW NEWS

Chicago Mercantile Exchange Accelerates Expanded Daily Price Limit Schedule
in Cattle Contracts

CHICAGO, Dec. 24, 2003 – The Business Conduct Committee of Chicago
Mercantile Exchange Inc. (CME) met this morning at 11:00 a.m. Central time to
consider whether an emergency action was required to respond to market activity
following the announcement of the discovery of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy
(“Mad Cow Disease”) in one Holstein dairy cow near Mabton, Washington. Holstein
cattle are not deliverable on CME’s cattle contracts.

After full consideration of the impact on the cash and futures markets, the
committee unanimously voted to accelerate CME’s schedule for expanded daily price
limits in its live cattle and feeder cattle futures contracts. For the live cattle futures
contract, on Friday, Dec. 26, the daily price limit will be $0.03 per pound. If the
December 2003 or February 2004 contract month is locked either up or down the limit at the close on Friday, then the limit on Monday, Dec. 29, and on Tuesday, Dec. 30 will be expanded to $0.05 per pound. If either contract month is locked limit at the close of trading on Tuesday, Dec. 30, the limit on Wednesday Dec. 31 will continue to be $0.05 per pound. Otherwise it will revert to $0.03 per pound. The same accelerated schedule will be in effect for feeder cattle futures.

Trading hours for both contracts on Friday, Dec. 26, will be the planned holiday
hours of 9:05 a.m. to 12:00 noon Central time, the same hours that traded today. At
today’s open, trading in live cattle and feeder cattle futures opened down the $0.015 per pound daily limit and remained down the limit for the rest of the trading day.
CME’s daily price limit schedule was revised on Oct. 15, 2003. The schedule
that applied prior to today’s emergency action was as follows:

• If either of the two contracts in the even month cycle nearest to expiration settles
on the limit bid for two successive days or on the limit offer for two successive
days, the price limit shall be raised to $0.030 per pound for all contract months.
• If the daily price limit is $0.030 and either of the two contracts in the even month
cycle nearest to expiration settles on the limit bid for two successive days or on
the limit offer for two successive days, then the price limit shall be raised to
$0.050 per pound for all contract months.
PAGE 2
• If the daily price limit is $0.050 and neither of the two contracts in the even month
cycle nearest to expiration settles on the limit bid or limit offer, without regard to
market direction, then the daily price limit for all contract months shall revert to
$0.030 on the next business day.
• If the daily price limit is $0.030 and neither of the two contracts in the even month
cycle nearest to expiration settles on the limit bid or limit offer, without regard to
market direction, then the daily price limit for all contract months shall revert to
$0.015 on the next business day.

Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. (www.cme.com) is the largest futures exchange in the United States. As an international marketplace, CME brings together buyers and sellers on its trading floors and GLOBEX® electronic trading platform. CME offers futures and options on futures primarily in four product areas: interest rates, stock indexes, foreign exchange and commodities. The exchange moved about $1.4 billion per day in settlement payments in the first 11 months of 2003 and managed $34.1 billion in collateral deposits at Nov. 30, 2003. CME is a wholly owned subsidiary of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Holdings Inc. (NYSE: CME), which is part of the Russell 1000® Index. Chicago Mercantile Exchange, CME and GLOBEX are registered trademarks of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. Further information about CME and its products is available on the CME Web site at www.cme.com.
# # #
03-194

Statement U.S. Meat Export Federation
President and CEO Philip Seng

Wednesday, December 24, 2003

With the USDA announcement Tuesday (Dec. 23) that a single presumptive positive case of BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy, commonly known as "mad cow disease") had been diagnosed in a Washington state dairy cow, the U.S. Meat Export Federation immediately committed its full resources in 13 offices worldwide to begin dialogs with agricultural officials and meat industry partners. Our message was simple: the U.S. beef production system is safe and the discovery of a single case of BSE doesn’t change this fact. In addition, we have assured our trading partners that maintaining a safe and wholesome food supply for our domestic consumers and export customers remains our highest priority. The discovery of this single case is proof that our system of safeguards and surveillance has worked.

Unfortunately, many of our trading partners have taken immediate action to temporarily close their borders to U.S. beef. Beef exports last year were valued at more than $3.2 billion and were on track to exceed that level in 2003. We are committed to doing everything we can, working closely with the USDA-Foreign Agricultural Service, to restore our trade as quickly as possible.
Our message to our trading partners includes the following points:

• The United States government will work to ensure that the investigation is rapid, accurate and thorough, and we will keep our trading partners and the Organization of International Epizootics (OIE) informed of all developments.
• As part of our BSE response plan, the farm from which the suspect animal came has been quarantined.
• The plant where the Holstein cow was slaughtered was not a participant in the beef export verification (BEV) program, meaning it does not export beef.
• USDA and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have developed and are implementing emergency response plans to prevent the unlikely spread of the disease.
• The U.S. recognizes that the OIE has established guidelines for trade in animals and animal products from countries that have detected cases of BSE. The U.S. government and private industry have been working with the OIE in advancing the science and application of safe trade in animal and animal products. This is especially important for countries that have put in place effective measures over a number of years to manage the risk of BSE and have taken aggressive steps to respond – as the U.S. has done.
It is also important to remember the following:
• The suspect animal was an adult Holstein cow that was non-ambulatory at time of slaughter.
• The animal was from a farm in Mabton, Washington, about 40 miles southeast of Yakima, which has been quarantined.
• The animal was slaughtered in a small, federally-inspected packing plant in Moses Lake, Washington, and all specific risk materials (such as spinal cord, brain, intestine) were rendered and not allowed into the human food chain.
• The animal was tested as part of USDA's BSE surveillance program. The presumptive positive was diagnosed using two tests, one of which was the immunohistochemistry test, which is recognized by World Animal Health Organization as the gold standard test for BSE. The brain samples were then flown to the Central Veterinary Lab at Weybridge, England. Confirmation is expected in three to five days from now.
• The animal was processed and, although there is no risk of infectivity in the meat, USDA will attempt to trace the product from this animal.
There is more than ample reason to maintain confidence in the U.S. beef production system, and USMEF and USDA will do everything in their power to communicate this confidence to our trading partners worldwide.

R-CALF USA Requests Specific BSE Mitigation Actions

(Billings, MT) In a letter to President Bush and United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Ann Veneman, on the day of USDA’s announcement of a possible finding of BSE in a Washington state dairy cow, R-CALF United Stockgrowers of America (R-CALF USA) President Leo McDonnell requested that the United States “Immediately close the United States border to all imports of live cattle, beef, and both raw and manufactured livestock feed until the circumstances surrounding the suspected case [of BSE] are fully disclosed and understood.”

In its letter, R-CALF USA first praised the United States for its foresight in implementing meaningful safeguards to both minimize the risk of introducing Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) in the United States and for making preparations for the possibility that the disease may breach the nation’s firewalls. “Unfortunately, the United States may be facing its first case of BSE,” the letter stated.

McDonnell explained that the closure of the border is necessary to mitigate both the potential damage the live cattle market might sustain and to maintain consumer confidence in the nation’s beef supply following USDA’s announcement of the suspected BSE case. R-CALF USA had called an emergency meeting on the day of USDA’s announced finding and drafted its letter at the request of United States cow/calf producers, feeders, and livestock auction yard representatives participating in the meeting.

R-CALF USA said the rational for making the request to close the border was based on the high probability that if BSE were found in the United States, it would most likely have entered through imported ruminants or ruminant products; that the border closure was further needed to maintain the economic viability of the U.S. live cattle industry as it would prevent the build-up of excess supplies of beef and cattle, thus mitigating the potential for price-depressing oversupplies; it would allow the U.S. to rule-out that imported feed was the source of the suspected infection; and that such action would demonstrate that the United States considers the maintenance of a viable cattle industry and the health and safety of consumers a high priority.

McDonnell concluded his letter by stating, “We view this request as an essential step in preserving our domestic market and protecting consumer confidence.”

(30)

R-CALF USA, the Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, United Stockgrowers of America is a national, non-profit cattle association representing cattle producers in the areas of trade and marketing. R-CALF USA has approximately 9,000 individual members in 46 states and 52 affiliated local and state cattle and farm organizations. For more information, visit www.r-calfusa.com or call 406-252-2516.

NCBA Advisory

December 24, 2003

To: NCBA Member Organizations
Contact: Rick McCarty, NCBA Denver 303-694-0305
Kendal Frazier 303-694-0305
Subject: BSE Updates

Dec. 24, 2003 BSE Information Update

The cow

The cow is a Holstein from a two-premise Washington State dairy operation with approximately 4,000 head. Those operations have been quarantined. No animals may leave the premises.
The animal was purchased into this dairy herd in October 2001 as a two-year old cow. The cow's age is estimated to be 4 to 4 ½ years old.
It was purchased by the dairy from one of two livestock auction markets in October of 2001. The records of the auction markets are being investigated.

The cow was culled Dec. 9 due to paralysis associated with calving difficulty.
The USDA veterinarian did an ante-mortem inspection and found nothing remarkable; the condition was consistent with birthing injury. The inspection by the USDA veterinarian at slaughter agreed with the original finding.

A sample was collected as part of routine surveillance. That sample arrived Dec. 11 at the National Animal Veterinary Services Laboratory in Ames, Iowa, which handles all BSE testing. Results showing positive for BSE were received on Dec.22

The presumptive positive samples were sent to the international reference laboratory in Weybridge, England for confirmation and were scheduled to arrive Dec. 24. Results are expected in three to five days.

The Investigation

Federal agencies such as APHIS, FDA and FSIS and the state of Washington have teams on the ground working the investigation.

The on-farm investigation is focused on two premises at this time as the animals in the dairy were commingled. The dairy's owners are very cooperative and have good records.
Work is underway to trace the animal back to its birth herd. USDA may have information on this in a day or two. Once that is done, there will be a trace forward.
The federal government intends to identify every herd this animal moved through, and other animals that moved in and out of those herds during the stay of the infected animal.

It is common to test offspring of suspect animals.

FSIS is investigating four operations that may have received product from the infected animal.

FDA is trying to trace the feed sources for the animal, as contaminated feed is the only known way to transmit the disease. It is believed that the contaminated feed was consumed prior to coming to the farm where it was culled.

FDA has issued a statement regarding its investigation of the potential involvement of FDA-regulated products associated with a BSE-presumptive cow in Washington State. http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/2003/NEW00999.html

All feed facilities are inspected once a year. There are 1,826 facilities approved to handle ruminant material. Presently, there are only two out of compliance. When the feed ban was put in place in August of 1997, about 75 percent of the operations were in compliance. Now that is 99.9+ percent.

Food Safety

The potentially infectious material - central nervous system tissue such as the brain and spinal cord - never entered the human food chain. Any tissue at risk for harboring the infectious agent went into rendering.

Verns Moses Lake Meats, a Moses Lake, Wash., establishment, which processed the animal along with 19 others on Dec. 9, has issued a voluntary recall of 10,140 pounds of beef. This represents all the meat from the 20 carcasses. This is a Class II recall, meaning the beef poses an extremely low likelihood of risk to human health. This step is being taken as part of the "abundance of caution" surrounding this issue.

Economic Impact

As of noon, at least 10 of our trading partners had implemented temporary bans against importing U.S. beef. This includes the largest export markets of Japan, Mexico, South Korea and Hong Kong. Exports account for about 10 percent of total U.S. production.
The United States is discussing the issue with our trading partners. Some have offered their help.

U.S. Meat Export Federation reports that at least 44,000 metric tons of beef are in transit to these countries.

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange traded the limit down on Dec. 24. The CME will be open Friday for a shortened trading session (9 am to noon), as regularly scheduled.
The CME's Business Conduct Committee Dec. 24 voted to accelerate CME's schedule for expanded daily price limits in its live cattle and feeder cattle futures contracts. http://www.cme.com/abt/news/03-194PriceLimits5779.html

For the live cattle futures contract, on Dec. 26 the daily price limit will be 3 cents per pound. If the December 2003 or February 2004 contract month is locked either up or down the limit at the close on Friday, then the limit on Dec. 29 and Dec. 30 will be expanded to 5 cents per pound. Otherwise, it will revert to 3 cents per pound.

The same accelerated schedule will be in effect for feeder cattle futures at the CME.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission said it will be monitoring the market for any potential manipulation.

The temporary loss of export markets is consistent with how the world has responded to news of BSE. Prior to the Canadian situation, that reaction was based on public perception. After the Canadian incident, the U.S. recognized that the science does not support a complete trade ban, that there are certain low-risk materials that can be traded. We need to base trade on science, not perception and this is the direction the United States is working toward.

The Canadian government announced today it was instituting import restrictions to limit the range of ruminants and ruminant products eligible to be imported from the U.S.
http://www.inspection.gc.ca/english/corpaffr/newcom/2003/20031224e.shtml

Additional Message Points as of 12/24

As USDA has confirmed, none of the specified risk materials from this cow, such as central nervous system tissue or spinal cord, entered the food supply. The BSE agent is found in those materials, not in meat like steaks and roast.

U.S. cattlemen applaud the abundance of caution that USDA is taking in this investigation and will cooperate fully in the process.

Cattle in the high BSE risk population (over 30 months) are market cows and bulls. Of the annual slaughter of approximately 35 million, only about 6.4 million animals are market cows and bulls and an NBA audit found that only 0.8% of these animals were non-ambulatory at slaughter. This represents only 0.14% of total animals slaughtered.

U.S. exports represent less than 10 percent of total U.S. beef production. In 2002, Japan represented 2.9 percent of total beef production, Mexico represented 2.3 percent, Korea represented 2.2 percent and Canada represented .8 percent.

Over the past 5 years, the United States has accounted for 47.9 percent of all Japanese beef imports. On average, the United States accounted for 84 percent of all Mexican beef imports.

It is too early in the investigation to predict any additional safety measures beyond the long-running and highly effective firewalls that have been in place for several years: import ban, feed ban and the U.S. BSE surveillance program, which identified this single case.

Media Summary

NCBA spokespersons continued to do interviews with all the national cable and network television outlets and numerous newspapers including USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and USA Today. NCBA held a technical and economic telephone news conference briefing with reporters from 72 media outlets including the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Associated Press, National Public Radio, Des Moines Register and many others. During the briefing the NCBA officers and staff and Cattle Fax staff stressed that the U.S. beef supply is safe and that the BSE agent has not entered the food supply. NCBA Chief Executive Officer Terry Stokes is scheduled to appear on Fox News with Tony Snow on Saturday evening, December 27.

Rick McCarty
Executive Director - Issues Management
National Cattlemen's Beef Association
rmccarty@beef.org
303/850-3361

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Mad Cow News

Russia suspends U.S. beef imports

Russia has suspended imports of U.S. beef following the first case of mad cow disease in the United States.

Russian agriculture minister Alexei Gordeyev told the Interfax news agency that the move followed official U.S. notification of the first mad cow case at a farm in Washington state.

"In connection with that, the veterinary service decided to temporarily suspend shipments of U.S. beef to Russia in accordance with the law," Interfax quoted Gordeyev as saying...

S.Africa bans U.S. beef-related imports

South Africa on Wednesday issued a precautionary ban on beef-related imports from the United States following the first U.S. reports of mad cow disease, the Department of Agriculture said.

"A precautionary ban has been issued on the importation of all possible risk materials from the USA," the department said in a statement, adding that all beef and beef products currently for sale in South Africa were considered absolutely safe for human consumption.

A department spokesman said the ban would cover chiefly imports of beef by-products such as dogfood, adding that South Africa did not import meat or live cattle from the United States.

Hong Kong halts U.S. beef imports after suspected mad cow case

Hong Kong halted imports of U.S. beef and beef products Wednesday after the discovery of a suspected case of mad cow disease in the United States.

The United States was Hong Kong's top source of chilled and frozen beef in 2002, accounting for 17,000 tons out of 53,000 tons in total imports, according to government statistics.

U.S. Meat Export Federation statistics showed the United States exported US$14.4 million worth of beef to mainland China and US$57.7 million of beef to Hong Kong. The two regions combined make up the fifth largest overseas market for U.S. beef...

Russia, Ukraine may suspend U.S. beef imports

Russia and Ukraine said on Wednesday they would follow the lead of big U.S. beef importing countries and suspend imports if the first U.S. case of mad cow disease was confirmed to them officially.

"A concrete decision will be taken after the Russian veterinarian service gets official confirmation of a case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy," Yevgeny Nepoklonov was quoted as saying by Interfax news agency.

A spokesman for Ukraine's state veterinarian department said a suspension would be "automatic" upon confirmation...

EC not planning to ban American beef

The European Commission has no plans to ban American beef imports - already restricted since mad cow disease hit the UK.

One outbreak of BSE across the Atlantic will not alter the current regime of trade curbs, said a spokeswoman.

America has been on the European Union's "at risk" list for beef trade for years, with import restrictions still in place partly because of the BSE threat but also because of a continuing dispute over the use of beef hormones.

"We have had a number of restrictive measures in place for a long time.

Restaurant industry acts to allay consumers' fears

When mad cow disease was discovered in an isolated herd in Alberta last spring, Americans blinked, but kept eating beef.

The question facing the nation's restaurant industry is whether consumers will be as forgiving after the first mad cow case was discovered on American soil.

Kathy Sullivan, shopping at the meat section of Star Market in Dorchester yesterday evening, said she was planning to make beef stew for Christmas. "I have the same menu every Christmas. It's tradition." But she said she would also prepare turkey, "so if people are nervous, they have their choice of what to eat."...

Beef import bans could cost U.S. billions

With a growing list of countries banning U.S. beef imports because of mad cow disease fears, the impact on the U.S. economy could be in the billions.

The United States is the leading exporter of beef in the world, totaling about $3.5 billion for 2003, according to Philip Seng, president and CEO of the U.S. Meat Export Federation in Denver.

"This would be significant if we were to lose even half our export sales," he said. "This would be a very debilitating development in the United States."...

'Canadian beef in trouble'

A farmer whose entire herd was destroyed after it was linked to mad cow disease says the first suspected case in the U.S. has left him fearing for Canada's beef industry.

"It's not good. Canadian beef is in trouble again as far as I'm concerned," Mel McCrea, 65, said yesterday. "It won't be a good Christmas for a lot of beef producers."

"If say Korea, Japan and them Asia countries close the borders to United States beef, we won't have any place to ship our beef to and we can't butcher it all here in Canada," said McCrea...

Officials to review origin of Nevada beef supply

News from the state of Washington that mad cow disease might have entered the United States sent Nevada officials to the record books to determine whether any of the state's dairy cows came from the Pacific Northwest.

But officials insisted that safeguards in place are adequate to protect the state and country's beef supply from the disease, known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy...

The worldwide spread of 'mad-cow' disease

One case of the deadly "mad-cow" disease was found in a sick animal in Washington state and was being investigated, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman said yesterday. The following are key dates in the spread of mad-cow disease, believed to be transmitted by contaminated meat-and-bone meal fed to cattle:...

US mad cow case stirs restaurants, shops in Japan

Restaurants and food retailers in Japan on Wednesday were rattled by news of the first case of mad cow disease in the United States, a major beef exporter to Japan.

With memories still fresh of the outbreak of the brain-wasting disease in Japan, public fears about beef safety are expected to mount anew and damage beef consumption.

Japan on Wednesday halted imports of US beef until their safetyis confirmed following the announcement Tuesday by the US government that it had found its first case of mad cow in Washington State.

Japan has reported nine cases of mad cow disease since 2001...

News of quarantine stuns, angers, scares Mabton-area farmers

Farmers and ranchers in Mabton, southeast of Yakima, were angry and confused yesterday after the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced a dairy cow from a local farm had been infected with "mad-cow" disease.

Meanwhile, cattle ranchers up and down the Yakima Valley predicted a potentially devastating effect on the industry's recent recovery. The industry is experiencing all-time high prices, largely at the expense of Canadian producers, who are reeling from the discovery of mad-cow disease in Alberta in May.

Although the Canadian incident has been described as a single, isolated case, there was some suspicion reported at the time, still unconfirmed, that the cow in Alberta may have had links to cattle in the United States. No other information was available last night on that suspicion. One of the biggest questions to be answered is how the Mabton Holstein became infected...

Oregon Distributor Holds Beef Shipment; Wash. Co. Recalls Beef

The discovery of the first suspected U.S. case of mad-cow disease in Washington state has caused federal inspectors to instruct at least one Oregon meat distributor to hold its beef shipments. Also late Tuesday, a Washington meat company voluntarily recalled more than 10,000 pounds of raw beef.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that Vern's Moses Lake Meat Co., in Moses Lake, Wash., had voluntarily recalled 10,410 pounds of raw beef that may have been exposed to tissues containing the infectious agent. The Moses Lake establishment is one of several that may have received the meat, officials said...

CU expert 'shocked' that meat processed

A leading Colorado authority on the human version of mad cow disease said Tuesday he was "shocked" that meat from a sickened cow apparently made it into the food supply.

Patrick Bosque, a neurologist at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, was reacting to the news that a dairy cow in Washington state appears to be the country's first case of mad cow disease.

Initial reports suggest officials knew the cow was a so-called "downer" animal - those exhibiting symptoms of a neurological or other disease - but was still slaughtered for its meat...

Australia Could Benefit From Asian Bans On US Beef

Already, industry players are expecting Australia and New Zealand, the biggest competitors of U.S. beef products, to benefit from the fall-out.

Thus far, Australia has had no case of BSE.

If the disease can't be contained in the U.S., Japan "will have to look for alternative sources of U.S. beef, which means more Australian or New Zealand beef" in the coming year, according to a Japanese government official.

Australian Agriculture Minister Warren Truss said the country's beef exporters could increase their supplies to Asian markets, following the discovery of the suspected mad cow case...

Mad cow case hits McDonald's shares

McDonald's shares dropped suddenly in after-hours trading Tuesday after the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported that tests indicated a Washington state Holstein had the nation's first case of mad cow disease.

Cattle markets and shares of major meatpackers and producers are expected to experience similar declines beginning Wednesday, analysts said, in a shift that would reverse the good fortunes the U.S. cattle industry has enjoyed this year...

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Mad Cow News

Taiwan halts US beef imports

TAIWAN today halted beef imports from the United States on fears of mad cow disease, joining several other Asian countries.

The move came after a cow in Washington state tested positive for mad cow disease.

If the disease was confirmed, U.S. beef would face a seven-year export ban, said Chiang Yi-nan, the chief of the COA's Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine.

Feds Hold Meat From OR Distributor

The discovery of the first suspected U.S. case of mad cow disease in nearby Washington state is cause for concern in Oregon, as federal inspectors instructed at least one local meat distributor to hold off its shipment.

"It's not going any place. We'll do what we have to do to keep the product from being distributed," said an official at the Willamette Valley Meat Company in Portland, who confirmed that inspectors had visited the meat facility earlier in the day.

But the company official, who refused to give his name, stressed that inspectors have not yet determined if the meat from a Holstein cow suspected of having the disease made its way to Portland. "We don't even know for sure if that cow was sent here," he said...

Dollar calm as market shuns mad cow case

The dollar traded in tight ranges against major currencies on Wednesday as a holiday-thinned market brushed aside robust U.S. data and news that mad cow disease had been discovered in the United States.

"There's a little bit of covering going on right now (due to the mad cow scare), but very few people are changing their positions because of it," said Toshihiro Azuma, a manager at Sumitomo Trust and Banking...

Canadian Cattlemen's Association to Stand Behind US Ranchers

As the United States awaits final test results from England which will confirm or deny the presence of mad cow in one Washington state animal, Canadian ranchers announce their intention to support their US counterparts.

The head of the Canadian Cattlemen's Association, Neil Jahnke, said that US beef should not be shut out at Canadian borders, and that his industry will be standing behind US ranchers...

Mad cow fear seen stirring markets

Stocks of national restaurant chains that serve hamburgers and steaks dropped in after-hours trading yesterday, shaken by news of the first reported case of mad cow disease in the United States.

Analysts expected active trading today in the shares of companies such as McDonald's Corp. and cattle futures contracts that change hands on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange...

Seven Nations Halt U.S. Beef Imports

Japan and South Korea halted imports of U.S. beef on Wednesday after a cow in Washington state tested positive for mad cow disease, depriving American exporters of two of their largest overseas markets.

Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Taiwan and Australia followed suit...

Australia halts US beef imports

AUSTRALIA has placed a temporary hold on US beef imports following a mad cow disease scare in the United States, the agriculture minister said today.

"The Australian government has decided to temporarily hold beef products imported from the US at the border pending more information," Warren Truss said in a statement...


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Discovery could fetter domestic beef sales

The possible discovery of mad cow disease in Washington state could dampen sales just as the beef industry is enjoying some of the highest prices on record and a 10 percent increase in demand since 1998.
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“All cattle people have lived in dread of this, and if it does to American cattle prices what it did to Canadian cattle prices, producers are going to go broke,” says Mike Goldwasser, a producer from southwest Virginia.
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A case of mad cow disease was discovered in Canada in May. The United States has banned live cattle imports from Canada since then, though some beef products are allowed.
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While the discovery of bovine spongiform encephal-opathy is bad for beef — including growing export markets — it could lift prices of pork and other meats if consumers seek alternatives.

“The lack of information is what is going to drive (beef) prices in the near term,” says Harry Baumes, managing director of agricultural services at Global Insight.
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The cattle industry is the largest segment of U.S. agriculture, with about 800,000 producers. In 2003, U.S. cash receipts from livestock and livestock products are expected to hit $98.3 billion, nearly half the forecast $202 billion in farm cash receipts, says analysis firm Cattle-Fax.
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A fall in prices could hurt agriculture-dependent states, particularly in the West and Southwest, that had been reaping the benefits of an improved farm economy, including a runup in beef prices. Beef retail prices in November posted the highest one-month rise in 25 years, according to federal data. Prices have fallen in recent weeks.
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Prices have been fueled by the low-carbohydrate, high-protein Atkins diet and drought-reduced supply.

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NEWS ROUNDUP

Administration Opens Alaska's Tongass Forest to Logging Capping more than 10 years of intense controversy over the fate of some of the nation's last remaining old-growth forest, the Bush administration yesterday finalized the opening of 300,000 acres of Alaska's Tongass National Forest for logging and other development. "This is the end of a very long process," said Mark Rey, undersecretary for natural resources and the environment at the Department of Agriculture, which oversees the national forest system. "We used the best scientific information available to strike a balance between protecting as much as we could . . . while maintaining a small part of the Tongass for use and management to sustain the 72,000 people who live in southeastern Alaska." The administration's action was not unexpected. After years of maneuvers and counter-maneuvers by advocates and opponents of Tongass logging and the involvement of all three branches of government, the Agriculture Department proposed its final rule in June as part of an agreement in which the state of Alaska -- which wanted the land opened -- promised to drop a lawsuit against the federal government...Southeast Alaska timber industry celebrates logging decision A decision by the Bush Administration to exempt prime timberland in the Tongass National Forest from Clinton-era logging protections was praised in Southeast Alaska on Tuesday. Steve Seley owns Pacific Log and Lumber in Ketchikan, one of the few sawmills still operating in the Panhandle. He recently completed a $1.4 million expansion and was counting on the decision to stay in business. Gov. Frank Murkowski -- a Republican who continued the lawsuit brought by his Democrat predecessor -- said it was good news for the struggling Southeast economy...Catron commissioners testify at U.S. House panel hearing Forage conditions cannot be improved without addressing forest health. Wildfire danger cannot be reduced without addressing forest health. Forest health cannot be addressed without involvement of local human resources and local solutions...Commissioners approve grazing ordinance The committee will advise the Catron County Board of Commissioners on strategies, methods and opportunities for improving range, watershed and livestock stewardship practices and programs. The committee will also develop, implement and foster healthy rangeland and livestock stewardship programs and practices in cooperation, consultation and coordination with the BLM, the U.S. Forest Service, and other agencies involved in range, watershed and livestock stewardship programs and practices...Endangered Species Act survives five decades
Thirty years ago this month, the Nixon administration and a nearly unanimous Congress celebrated the signing of the Endangered Species Act, the nation's premier law for the protection of biological diversity. That may have been the last time harmony reigned over anything related to the species protection law. Today, the act is more controversial than ever, with both supporters and critics agreeing that species protection has become mired in lawsuits and countersuits by environmentalists and industry. Administration officials and key Republican members of Congress say the act is fundamentally "broken" and needs to be rewritten. "The current act and the way it's been implemented has been a failure in recovery of species and, at the same time, it has caused a huge amount of conflict with private landowners," said House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo, R-Calif. "I don't think anybody can look at the act and say it has been a success."...Endangered Species Act fact box The Endangered Species Act, the nation's premier law protecting biological diversity, turns 30 this month. Here's a quick look at the law and some of the controversies related to it:...SIERRA CLUB PICKS WORST BUSH ADMINISTRATION ENVIRONMENTAL EXPLOITS OF 2003 Tripling allowable levels of mercury pollution, shifting the burden of toxic clean up from polluters to taxpayers, and undoing rules for cleaning up America's dirtiest power plants topped a laundry list of Bush administration exploits to weaken decades environmental progress in 2003. "The Bush administration is systematically turning back 30 years of environmental progress," said Carl Pope, Sierra Club executive director. "You really have to go back to the McKinley administration in the late 19th century to find so many gratuitous giveaways to special interests looking to exploit our air, water, and natural areas. Americans want a 21st century administration that can deliver forward-thinking environmental solutions."...Column: Another Big Green Election Year Raid History lesson time -- again. Anyone wondering how the hapless Big Greens would respond to their latest defeat, the passage of the Wyden/Feinstein Stealthy Timber Act (HFI), need look no further than the foundation-sponsored agenda of the Headwaters 13th Annual Forest Conference, set for this coming January 29th in Ashland, Oregon. With no current legislation slated (read: DC-based fundraising opportunities), the Big Greens have once again decided to mine the grassroots for issues they can take over and grab the money. Also as important to the Big Greens is delivering the grassroots vote to the Democratic Party. Both these entrenched goals nicely fall under the rubric of this year's conference -- titled, "Mobilizing the Grassroots in 2004." It's there, as well, in the impossibly inane choice of Les AuCoin featured in not one, but two two-and-a-half hour "State of the Movement" plenary sessions. AuCoin is titled, "Former Congressman and forest advocate" in the conference agenda. Of course, as a Congressman, the only forest advocating he did was for the forest to be horizontal...Kill grey squirrels to save the native reds (UK) WILDLIFE experts are urging people to trap and shoot grey squirrels in a bid to save the region's native red squirrel population from extinction. Red Alert North West is lending traps to residents in a bid to wipe out the grey squirrel at Formby red squirrel reserve - home to the region's largest population of the endangered species...A legal victory for endangered species An appellate court approved the state's new approach to saving endangered species yesterday, rejecting builders' arguments against the expanded protections. The state last year began restricting development around wetlands connected to other wetlands where endangered species had been seen. In the past, the state had just protected the immediate vicinity of the sighting...Management of thriving gray wolf debated The sound of success pierces the cold, still air like a stiletto. Howls of gray wolves announce their dominance over the food chain from the park's Lamar Valley to the ranches of Montana, less than a decade after wildlife biologists returned them to their traditional habitat. Bringing wolves back from the brink of extinction is being hailed as an ecological triumph, so much so that the federal government reclassified the animal this year from "endangered" to "threatened." The next step toward removal from the protected species list is for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to transfer responsibility for wolf management to game officials in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, possibly late next year...Local hawk becomes object of study The Laramie Raptor Refuge took in a ferruginous hawk that was found on a prairie near Laramie. The hawk could help scientists further their knowledge of West Nile virus. What Catherine Symchych, director of the refuge, finds most interesting about the bird is that testing has shown though WNV is not in the hawk's blood, the virus is in its feather follicles...Editorial: Political Science OVER THE PAST several days, the Bush administration has changed its mind about the scientific merits of two environmental issues. For this administration, which has so often preferred to stick to bad ideas rather than admit they are bad, and which has seemed so addicted to political manipulation of science, such changes are worth noting -- particularly as both are still open to further manipulation... Peril in the Wind Industry The freezers at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Department in the Sacramento Valley are overflowing with the decapitated and mangled bodies of golden eagles, kestrels and red-tailed hawks, victims of the whirling blades of wind turbines. Scientists estimate as many as 44,000 birds have been killed over the past two decades by these towering machines in the Altamont Pass, east of San Francisco. Although the rows of spinning blades at Altamont Pass turn wind into electricity and make Alameda County less dependent on fossil fuel, they are also the end of the line for many predatory birds whose annual migration route includes the pass. The area is also home to the largest resident population of golden eagles in the lower 48 states. Concentrating on their prey on the ground, the birds fly into the blur of the windmill blades...Holy Waters Northern waters are freezing as you read this, forcing ducks and geese to head south. According to this year's waterfowl breeding survey, huge numbers of birds are headed your way. Will you be in the right spot when the flights are at their peak? If you want to be sure to get good hunting, head for one of these four holy waters of waterfowling -- places where the shooting is fast, the scenery is beautiful, and the birds never seem to stop flying...Unique facility looks for signs of foul play These are examples of evidence that comes into the National Fish and Wildlife Forensics Laboratory, the only one of its kind in the world. Like television's popular ``CSI'' show or real-life police crime labs elsewhere, this one examines evidence to try to link victim to crime scene to suspect. The only difference is that the victims here are animals...Judge stands by his snowmobiling rule; blames feds for timing A federal judge Tuesday refused to suspend his order to eliminate snowmobiling in Yellowstone National Park by next winter. In clarifying his position, Judge Emmet Sullivan, of Washington, D.C., also blamed the federal government for the timing of his decision, which arrived the day before the park was scheduled to open for the winter season last week. The Blue Ribbon Coalition and the International Snowmobiling Manufacturers Association, both pro-snowmobile groups, and the state of Wyoming had asked for a stay of Sullivan's ruling. He denied that request Tuesday, finding "clear violations" of federal laws by the government and an absence of any persuasive new evidence...Park returning visitor deposits The main concession company at Yellowstone National Park has started refunding money to visitors who planned to snowmobile in the park this winter without a commercial guide. A federal judge on Dec. 16 overturned a Bush administration plan to set aside a ban on snowmobiles in favor of a allowing quieter and less polluting machines into Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks. Because of the ruling, those who had reservations to come into Yellowstone without a commercial guide will not be allowed in. Hours after the ruling, Yellowstone Superintendent Suzanne Lewis said those people will get the cost of their reservation refunded...Editorial: Punished for the Truth UNLESS WISER HEADS in the upper reaches of the Bush administration prevail, underlings in the Interior Department are about to deliver a low blow to honesty and integrity in government. For responding with the truth to questions from The Post and other news outlets about staffing in her department, U.S. Park Police Chief Teresa Chambers has been placed on leave and notified that superiors in the National Park Service and Interior want her fired. And what was the chief's transgression? She said her understaffed department had to curtail critical patrols in Park Service jurisdictions beyond the Mall, such as major parkways and crime-ridden U.S. parkland in neighborhoods, because of Interior Department orders requiring more officers to guard downtown national shrines. The impending action ought to be reversed. Ms. Chambers should be commended for speaking up for public safety. The Interior Department underlings trying to muzzle her are the ones who should be on their way out the door...A Christmas Tree Grows -- and Grows -- in Oregon This is a story about a giant outdoor Christmas tree and a penny-pinching logger. To celebrate the season, the logger turns on the lights in the tree every day at 4:30 p.m. To save money, he turns them off at 11 p.m., when he figures everyone in the greater Boring area is either asleep or darn well should be. (The Portland suburb of Boring, by the way, owes its name not to a pervasive and localized ennui but to an early settler, W.H. Boring.) This story could begin 50 years before Columbus discovered America. That's when the logger's tree -- a Douglas fir -- was a seedling. It could also begin in 1949. That's when the logger, Glenn Althauser, then 21, bought a patch of wild wooded land and discovered the big tree on a bluff overlooking the roiling Clackamas River...the decorations are strung with a helicopter!...Gay footage will stay in Lincoln Memorial video Footage of gay rights demonstrations will not be removed from a videotape shown at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C, according to spokespeople from the National Park Service and the Human Rights Campaign. Earlier reports in various news outlets said the gay images would be removed...Animals Give an End of the Year Cheer; The Fund for Animals Celebrates 2003 Victories The Fund for Animals is celebrating a banner year for animal protection and looking back on some of the year's biggest achievements. "We have made great strides this year to improve the lives of animals across the country," said Michael Markarian, president of The Fund for Animals. "We hope to continue that success through 2004 and beyond." Some of The Fund's accomplishments this year include:...BLM burns juniper slash near Cedar Fort Cedar Fort residents who spotted columns of smoke on the mountain west of town on Monday Dec. 15 didn't need to worry about a wildfire. In fact, the smoke was from 200 small, controlled fires that the Bureau of Land Management set and monitored on BLM land in order to reduce the threat of wildfire to the town...Disease outbreak threatens bighorn sheep Arizona Game and Fish Department personnel are in the midst of a bighorn sheep roundup in the Silver Bell Mountains near Tucson. The biologists are capturing, treating, and releasing desert bighorn sheep in mountains located on the Ironwood Forest National Monument in an effort to protect these native animals from an outbreak of pink-eye, which can have fatal consequences if not treated. Pink-eye can lead to blindness � and that's a big problem for a bighorn...Pecos water lawsuit delaying water purchase program State Engineer John D'Antonio says the state has agreed to about $25 million worth of land and water rights purchases along the Pecos River, but can't close on them until a long-running water rights lawsuit is resolved. The state, federal water managers and several Pecos irrigation districts announced early this year they had reached a settlement agreement on a 50-year-old water rights adjudication case that focuses on the Carlsbad area. However, a few parties have filed notice that they intend to protest the proposed settlement... Column: Attorney General Lockyer's Hot Air Lawsuit So, when I read that several elected state attorneys general were suing the federal government to get more regulations over more of our life to "do something" about ''global warming,'' I got worried. These 11 attorneys general (including California's Bill Lockyer) want the Environmental Protection Agency to enact stringent new rules on emissions into the atmosphere. With variations in details, all the suits seek regulation of carbon dioxide emissions. Also all are founded on shaky science. Also all could cost you your job, your car, and/or many other nice things which you are accustomed to enjoying in our technologically advanced society...Presidential candidates stack up on eco-issues There's been a lot of political analysis concerning why former Vice President Al Gore backed Howard Dean for the Democratic presidential nomination and who in the party has the best chance of beating President Bush in the next election. But little has been said about which Democrat has the best chance of appealing to environmentalists. Green groups like the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Greenpeace have voiced strong opposition to White House policies on the environment. And the League of Conservation Voters (LCV), Washington's green political machine, says eco-issues may not always be the most important subjects to voters, but they're still influential in crucial swing states...EPA, NSF garner management honors The National Science Foundation and the Environmental Protection Agency received the Presidential Award for Management Excellence last week, the highest honors for management success in the federal government...Cloned half-asses from Idaho hold promise for livestock industry Today, the world's first cloned animals in the horse family, three half-asses from Idaho, are doing much better than many of the clones of other species. "They're developing normally and all quite healthy," said Dirk Vanderwall, professor of veterinary and animal science at the University of Idaho. "We're not seeing any of the health problems seen in the clones of other species like cattle or sheep." Between May and June, the team of researchers in Idaho and from Utah State University in Logan witnessed the birth of three genetically identical mules. Idaho Gem, Idaho Star and Utah Pioneer are all identical clones created using genes from the same fetal skin cell obtained from a family of champion racing mules, Vanderwall said...Nature Conservancy buys land near Yellowstone The Nature Conservancy of Idaho has bought an easement on a ranch west of Yellowstone National Park, preserving 158 acres from development while also protecting the land for cattle grazing, wildlife habitat and open space. The property owned by Gordon and Jane Hunt borders a piece of Henry's Lake shoreline protected by another easement...Nebraska restricts Wyoming cattle Nebraska has become the third state to impose restrictions on Wyoming cattle since a herd was found with brucellosis earlier this month, officials announced Tuesday. Colorado and California had earlier implemented restrictions after a herd in western Wyoming's Sublette County tested positive for the disease, which causes cattle to abort and, in rare cases, chronic flu-like symptoms in humans...Coyotes encroach suburbs, eat pets Some Laketon Township residents are fearful that coyotes in the area could be a threat to children as well as family pets. One of them, Lisa Knudsen-Gerling, says wandering coyotes recently snatched her Yorkshire terrier from her yard at 500 Buys, and have killed several neighborhood cats. She says an area resident reported seeing coyotes chewing on the siding of his house. "This is a little bit ridiculous," she said. "They're coming right up to the houses."...Argentina Pushes To Restart Beef Exports To U.S Argentina is eager to regain the 20,000-metric-ton market share for fresh beef that it once had in the United States, and officials are pressing the USDA to lift some of the restrictions placed on trade 2 1/2 years ago because of a cattle disease outbreak. USDA officials completed an exploratory mission this month to begin evaluating cattle conditions there, but Argentina Agriculture Minister Miguel Campos said he urged USDA Secretary Ann Veneman in a December meeting to accelerate the progress. The U.S. border slammed shut to Argentine beef in June 2001, after outbreaks of the highly contagious foot-and-mouth disease were reported in northern regions of the country. USDA officials said, however, the department now believes cattle there had been infected far earlier...

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USDA refused to release mad cow records

WASHINGTON, Dec. 23 (UPI) -- Although the United States Department of Agriculture insisted the U.S. beef supply is safe Tuesday after announcing the first documented case of mad cow disease in the United States, the agency for six months repeatedly refused to release its tests for mad cow to United Press International.

The USDA claims to have tested approximately 20,000 cows for the disease in 2002 and 2003, but has been unable to provide any documentation in support of this to UPI, which first requested the information in July.

In addition, former USDA veterinarians tell UPI they have long suspected the disease was in U.S herds and there are probably additional infected animals.

USDA Secretary Ann M. Veneman announced late Tuesday during a hastily scheduled news briefing that a cow slaughtered Dec. 9 on a farm in Mabton, Wash., had tested positive for mad cow disease. The farm has been quarantined but the meat from the animal may have already passed into the human food supply.

The slaughtered meat was sent for processing to Midway Meats in Washington and the USDA is currently trying to trace if the meat went for human consumption, Veneman said.

The fear is mad cow disease can infect humans and cause a brain-wasting condition known as variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease that is always fatal. More than 100 people contracted this disease in the United Kingdom after a widespread outbreak of mad cow disease in that country in the 1980s.

An outbreak of mad cow disease in the United States has the potential to dwarf the situation in the United Kingdom because the American beef industry is far larger and U.S. beef is exported to countries all over the globe.

"We're talking about billions of people" around the world who potentially have been exposed to U.S. beef, Lester Friedlander, a former USDA veterinarian who has been insisting mad cow is present in American herds for years, told UPI.

The USDA insisted the case is probably isolated and the US beef supply is safe. "I plan to serve beef for my Christmas dinner," Veneman said, "and we remain confident in the safety of our food supply."

Responded Friedlander: "She might as well kiss her (behind) goodbye, then."

Veneman went on to say she had confidence in the USDA surveillance system for detecting mad cow and protecting the public, noting the agency has tested more than 20,000 cattle for the disease this year.

This represents only a small percentage of the millions of cows in the U.S. herd, however, and experts say current procedures are unlikely to detect mad cow.

The Washington cow was tested because it was a so-called downer cow -- a cow unable to stand on its own -- which is a sign of mad cow disease. However, the United States sees approximately 200,000 of these per year or about 10 times as many animals are tested for the disease.

USDA officials told UPI as recently as Dec. 17 the agency still is searching for documentation of its mad cow testing results from 2002 and 2003.

UPI initially requested the documents on July 10, and the agency sent a response letter dated July 24, saying it had launched a search for any documents pertaining to mad cow tests from 2002 and 2003.

"If any documents exist, they will be forwarded," USDA official Michael Marquis wrote in the letter.

Despite this and a 30-day limit under the Freedom of Information Act on responding to such a request, the USDA never sent any corresponding documents. The agency's FOI office also did not return several calls from UPI placed over a series of months.

Finally, UPI threatened legal action in early December if the agency did not respond.

In a Dec. 17 letter to UPI from USDA Freedom of Information Act Office Andrea E. Fowler, the agency wrote: "Your request has been forwarded to the (Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service) for processing and to search for the record responsive to your earlier request."

To date, the USDA has not said if any records exist or if they will be sent to UPI.

"It's always concerned me that they haven't used the same rapid testing technique that's used in Europe," where mad cow has been detected in several additional countries outside of the United Kingdom, Michael Schwochert, a retired USDA veterinarian in Ft. Morgan, Colo., told UPI.

"It was almost like they didn't want to find mad cow disease," Schwochert said.

He noted he had been informed that approximately six months ago a cow displaying symptoms suggestive of mad cow disease showed up at the X-cel slaughtering plant in Ft. Morgan.

Once cows are unloaded off the truck they are required to be inspected by USDA veterinarians. However, the cow was spotted by plant employees before USDA officials saw it and "it went back out on a special truck and they called the guys in the office and said don't say anything about this," Schwochert said.

Veneman said the Washington case "does not pose any kind of significant risk to the human food chain."

Friedlander called that assessment, aptly enough, "B.S." Referring to the USDA's failure to provide their testing documentation to UPI, he said, "The government doesn't have records to substantiate their testing so how do they know whether this is an isolated case." The agency also cannot provide any assurance that this animal did not get processed for human consumption, he said.

Schwochert agreed with that, saying the USDA's sparse testing means they cannot say with any confidence whether there are additional cases or not.

Both Schwochert and Friedlander said the report of a mad cow case would devastate the U.S. beef industry.

"It scares the hell out of me what it's going to do to the cattle industry," Schwochert said. "This could be catastrophic."

Only hours after Veneman's announcement, Japan -- the biggest importer of U.S. beef -- and South Korea both banned the importation of American meat.

The American Meat Institute, a trade group in Arlington, Va., representing the U.S. meat and poultry industry, maintained the U.S. beef supply is safe for human consumption.

"First and foremost, the U.S. beef supply is safe," AMI spokesman Dan Murphy told UPI. "We think its safe for U.S. consumers to eat."

This is because infectious prions, thought to be the causative agent of mad cow and vCJD, are not found in muscle tissue that comprises hamburgers and steaks, he said. They are generally located in brain and spinal cord tissue.

However, recent studies have suggested prions may occur, albeit in smaller numbers, in muscle tissue, and bits of brain and spinal cord tissue have been detected in hamburger meat.

Other protective measures have also been put in place that should protect consumers, Murphy said.

Mad cow disease is thought to be spread by feeding infected cow tissue back to cattle -- a practice that was common in the United Kingdom and is thought to have contributed to their widespread outbreak. The practice has been banned in the United States by the Food and Drug Administration since 1997, which should help ensure this is "an isolated case," Murphy said.

A report from the General Accounting Office issued just last year, however, found some ranchers in the United States still violate the feed ban and do feed cow tissue to cattle.

The GAO concluded: "While (mad cow disease) has not been found in the United States, federal actions do not sufficiently ensure that all (mad cow)-infected animals or products are kept out or that if (mad cow) were found, it would be detected promptly and not spread to other cattle through animal feed or enter the human food supply."
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Steve Mitchell is UPI's medical correspondent. E-mail sciencemail@upi.com


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Beef industry sweats over 'mad cow' spectre

The discovery of a suspected case of mad cow disease in Washington state could deal a heavy blow to the livestock industry and other beef-dependent businesses, possibly even U.S. restaurant chains.

Japan and South Korea temporarily halted imports of U.S. beef Tuesday and there is concern that other countries will follow, cutting off a critical market for U.S. beef producers, especially for higher-priced cuts. U.S. beef and veal exports to Japan alone were valued at about $843 million in 2002. There is precedent for a shutout of beef imports: When a single case of mad cow disease was detected in Canada in May, the United States immediately closed its borders to imports of Canadian beef, as did many other countries.

Restaurant chains also are likely to be hurt by the discovery, both in the stock market and possibly in sales. Indeed, stocks of the major fast-food chains fell in extended trading Tuesday, and those declines will likely continue today. The drops could be even more severe today because it is a short trading day that typically has light volume, which exacerbates volatility in the market.

Some analysts predict the hardest-hit businesses may be restaurants that specialize in red meat -- from mass-market chains like Outback Steakhouse to, perhaps, the tonier purveyors of $23 filets.

"This is also about the higher-end steakhouses," said John Glass, a restaurant analyst with CIBC World Markets, who does not own any restaurant industry stocks. "There's less latitude on the menu. You can go to McDonald's and get chicken."

Still, for chains like McDonald's and Burger King, the fear of public reaction is real. In some countries, such as Germany and Japan, consumption of beef fell as much as 30 percent immediately after the discovery of mad cow disease -- although in Canada, the nation rallied around its beef industry and meat consumption actually increased.

Right now, no one knows just how the U.S. public will react, but the nation's biggest restaurant chains already have started a campaign to assure customers that their beef supplies are safe.

"The meat packer in question has no connection whatsoever to McDonald's supply chain," said a statement from the nation's largest fast food company Tuesday night. The company expressed confidence that U.S. regulators "are investigating this situation very seriously and are taking all the appropriate steps necessary to safeguard the beef supply."

Ironically, the beef industry has been enjoying several years of growing consumption and higher prices, which some experts attribute to the popularity of the meat-centered Atkins diet. The industry's value is estimated at $175 billion by the National Cattlemen's Beef Association.

"In the last three years we've seen a significant increase in beef demand and consumption," said John Nalivka, a consultant to the cattle industry. But that could change quickly if mad cow disease is in fact present in a U.S. livestock operation.

"I'm not going to play it down," he said. "It's obviously a concern."

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Two more countries ban US beef.

Malaysia joins beef bans

MALAYSIA has suspended the import of beef from the United States because of mad cow disease fears, matching similar action taken by other Asian governments.

The decision, which took effect immediately, was a "precautionary step," Hawari Hussein, director general of the Department of Veterinary Services, told The Associated Press.

Mr Hawari said the move would not have much impact on consumers in Malaysia, which imports about 290 tons of beef annually from the United States...


Singapore bans US beef imports

SINGAPORE has banned beef imports from the United States on fears of mad cow disease. The ban could last at least six years.


The Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority of Singapore said the suspension of US beef imports went into effect immediately.

The move came after a cow in Washington state tested positive for Bovine Spongiform Enchephalophalopathy, or mad cow disease.


Singapore would not import beef from the United States again until it certifies that it has been free of the disease for six years, the authority said in a statement.

Singapore imposed a similar ban on Canadian beef in May following a case of the illness in northern Alberta.

Singapore this year imported 988 tons of beef from the United States, valued at 12.2 million Singapore dollars, it said...

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Minnesota ranchers brace for domino effect

Minnesota ranchers and animal-health officials were awaiting the fallout today on what many see as the worst crisis to hit the U.S. beef industry: the first presumed case of mad cow disease in the nation.

After the discovery of the disease in a dairy cow in Washington state, Japan and South Korea became the earliest in a string of nations expected to close their borders to U.S. beef exports -- just as they and the United States did to Canadian beef after a lone case of mad cow disease was diagnosed in Canada last May.

The U.S. announcement of a preliminary finding of mad cow, also known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), came after domestic livestock markets had closed Tuesday. It's expected to send cattle and beef prices tumbling today as some consumers decide to avoid that meat.

Minnesota's beef sector drew $891 million in farm receipts in 2001, the most recent figures available. The state has about 2.47 million head of beef and dairy cattle valued at $1.9 billion.

Ranchers such as Steve Brake, president of the Minnesota State Cattlemen's Association, said they hope the U.S. investigation will proceed quickly and reassure consumers that U.S. beef is safe.

"We have to get out there and stand up and say, 'This one case is not going to devastate the food supply in our country,' " Brake said.

Minnesota officials had not changed any rules on import or export of cattle as of Tuesday night. They were awaiting more information from the lead federal agency, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

"It's a very important event," said Paul Anderson, assistant director of the Minnesota Board of Animal Health. "We're certainly watching it very closely."

At Cargill Inc., the global agribusiness giant headquartered in Minnetonka, spokesman Mark Klein and other officials in the company's beef business were gauging the Japanese market and waiting to see what will happen on the futures market in Chicago today.

Before the ban on Canadian beef, Canada exported 70 percent of its beef to the United States and also exported to more than 30 other nations.

After its case was discovered, Canada's cattle markets slowed to a trickle, beef cattle fattened and lost value, and ranchers lost millions of dollars collectively. Yet Canadian consumption of beef remained relatively strong.

The United States consumes most of its domestic beef supply, exporting only about 10 percent of its supply, said Ron Eustice, executive director of the Minnesota Beef Council.

Prices tumble

On Tuesday, companies that rely on beef sales saw their stock prices fall in after-hours trading. Shares of CKE Restaurants, which owns the Timber Lodge Steakhouse, Hardee's and Carl's Jr. chains, fell as much as 7.1 percent, while McDonald's dropped 3.7 percent and Wendy's fell 2.3 percent.

On the other hand, shares of Australian Agricultural Co. rose as much as 6.4 percent as investors bet that demand for Aussie beef will increase. Australia is the world's largest beef exporter.

After the news May 20 that BSE had been found in Canada, U.S. beef prices tumbled about 5 percent. But they quickly rebounded, rallying nearly 50 percent to the highest levels since futures trading began in 1986...

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Two stories from tomorrow's New York Times

Inspections for Mad Cow Lag Those Done Abroad

In discussing the case of mad cow disease apparently found in Washington State, Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman said yesterday that her department had tested 20,526 cattle for mad cow disease last year. But that is only a small percentage of the 35 million commercially slaughtered each year.

Because no domestic cases of mad cow disease have been found before, the United States has never put in place the kind of stringent testing done in Japan and some European countries, where every animal is supposed to be tested before humans can eat it.

Inspectors are supposed to view cattle outside slaughterhouses and weed out any having trouble walking. Those with signs of brain disease are to be ruled unfit for human consumption and sent to a rendering plant.

That appears to have happened with the Washington cow. Yesterday, Elsa Murano, under secretary of agriculture for food safety, said its brain and spinal column had been sent to such a plant, to be turned into protein feed, oils and other products. It is the brain and spinal cord that are the most likely to be infected with prions, the misfolded proteins that can lead to a mad-cow-like disease in humans.

This does not guarantee that infected matter will never make its way into the human food supply, critics noted yesterday.

Under Food and Drug Administration regulations issued in 1997, it is illegal to feed protein made from cows, sheep, deer and other so-called ruminants to other ruminants. But it is still legal to feed the rendered protein to pigs, chickens and other animals. Those animals in turn can be rendered and fed to cows or sheep. Also, beef blood and beef fat can be fed to calves.

"You can go into any feed store and buy Calf Starter or calf milk substitute," said John Stauber, co-author of "Mad Cow U.S.A." a 1997 book that warned that the disease could reach this country. "We're weaning calves on cattle blood proteins, even though we know blood plasma can carry the disease."

Also, said Sheldon Rampton, Mr. Stauber's co-author, questions have been raised about how effective the F.D.A. bans on feeding across species are.

If an animal becomes infected, the incubation period of the disease is between three and eight years, so the detection of one animal with the disease suggests that others may have been infected by the same source but have not yet been found.

Mr. Stauber said an F.D.A. memo written in 1997 predicted that if a single case of encephalopathy was found in the United States and a total ban on all feeding of animal protein to animals immediately enacted, it was still possible that as many as 299,000 infected cows would be found over the next 11 years.

In the past, the hooves and horns were used for gelatins and bone and blood meal as fertilizer and the fat became soap. But with the invention of chemical soaps and fertilizers in the 1960's, other uses had to be found for the waste, and the animal protein market developed as a cheap way to bulk up animals.

Danger to the Public Is Low, Experts Say
ven if beef from one infected cow got into the food supply, the chances that any consumer would develop mad cow disease are extremely low, experts on the disease say.

"One can derive a fair bit of comfort from statistics and epidemiology," said Dr. Fred Cohen, a professor of pharmacology at the University of California at San Francisco who is an expert on mad cow disease. "Put the question into context. When there were 60,000 to 80,000 infected cows in the U.K., approximately 150 people out of 60 million developed the disease." Here in the United States, Dr. Cohen said, "one cow is not likely to translate into any cases."

The primary safety concern is to avoid eating any nervous system tissue from an infected animal.

The Department of Agriculture says that whole cuts of beef — steaks, chops roast — are generally safe to eat because mad cow disease is not known to affect the muscle meat. The disease occurs in the central nervous system of the animal.

Critics of the Agriculture Department, who say the agency has resisted taking the steps needed to keep mad cow disease out of the food supply agree that muscle meat is safe but offer more specific steps the public can take to protect itself.

Caroline Smith DeWaal, director of food safety for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said a consumer should:

• Avoid ground beef unless they grind it themselves from a whole piece of muscle meat.

• Avoid brains, beef cheeks, neck bones.

• Avoid any meat that comes from the head and any meat that is taken from close to spinal column or containing bone that is part of the spinal cord, like T-bone, which was banned in some European countries during the outbreak in Britain.

• Avoid pizza toppings, taco fillings, hot dogs, salami, bologna and other products that contain not only ground beef but beef from machinery that squeezes out bits of meat that cling to the spinal column and other bones.

In a survey conducted in 2002 by the Agriculture Department, products for 34 processing plants that use such machinery, known as an advanced meat recovery system, were tested and 35 percent of them tested positive for central nervous system tissue.

Mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, is caused by a protein, called a prion, that folds itself into an abnormal shape that has several lethal properties. When a misfolded prion comes into contact with a healthy prion, it can cause the healthy proteins to misfold as well, starting a deadly chain reaction.

The abnormal prions form clumps that kill brain cells, leaving holes. Brain and nervous tissue are destroyed, resulting in death.

Then, if a healthy human or animal eats meat or processed foods contaminated with misfolded proteins, the disease can take hold. The dose needed to cause an infection, however, is not known.

Animals can contract B.S.E. in two ways. Most commonly, they get it from eating feed that has been contaminated by infectious prions. They can also develop the disease spontaneously when a normal prion mutates and starts the chain reaction, a process that leads to spontaneous infection in an estimated one in a million cows, deer and other mammals.

Infectious prions enter the body through the gut and are passed to the brain through lymph and other immune cells. They are found mostly in the brain but can exist for quite some time in peripheral tissue like tonsils, appendixes and lymph nodes in muscle. Misfolded prions have also been identified in white blood cells, a fact that led blood banks to ban blood donations by people who lived in Britain at the height of the epidemic.

Prion diseases go by many names. The sporadic form of the disease in humans is called Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease or C.J.D. When people contract it from eating infected beef, the disease is called variant C.J.D. In deer and elk it is chronic wasting disease.

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U.S. Expert Thought Mad Cow Was Unlikely in U.S

America's foremost mad cow expert George Gray thought it unlikely that bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE (news - web sites)) would find its way into the United States until Tuesday's news of the first reported case.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman said Tuesday a single sick dairy cow in Washington state had tested positive for the brain-wasting disease found mainly in Europe.

"I thought it was unlikely but it's not totally surprising," said Gray, a Harvard professor who spent three years studying the disease and its origins for the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis.

In the first major risk assessment of what would happen if mad cow was found in the United States, Gray and a team of academics found in 2001 that chances were the disease would not become a serious threat to herds or to the American food supply chain.

Asked how he thought the disease had arisen in the United States, a perplexed Gray told Reuters, "It proves only one thing ... that somehow it got here."

He downplayed the chances of mad cow disease becoming a wider problem. "I really think that significant spread in this country is highly unlikely," he said.

"We are never going to have the UK's 1,000-a-week cases. We're never going to get to that situation I can say pretty confidently," he added.

Gray said the U.S. government safeguards were adequate enough to deal with the disease, which has never been found in the country before. In May, Canadian officials found a lone case of mad cow disease in an Alberta animal and were never able to pinpoint the cause.

The disease was relatively unknown in the United States until around 1996 when Britain acknowledged that people had died by eating mad-cow-infected meat.

"This is a time to learn a little more and not to panic," Gray cautioned. "Steps taken over the last 15 years means that this disease is unlikely to spread significantly in the U.S," he added.

"I'd say stay calm and let's see what we can learn about this and then figure out what the next steps are. To me there are still things that have to be learned," he said.

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U.S. Mad Cow Case Rattles Asian Markets

The first U.S. case of mad cow disease rattled Asian investors Wednesday, while the dollar hovered near recent lows in thin holiday trade, failing to take advantage of broadly upbeat U.S. economic data.

Japan and South Korea halted imports of U.S. beef after officials said mad cow disease, which devastated the British agriculture industry in the 1990s, had been found in a cow in Washington state.

The news sent shares of McDonald's Corp (MCD) down 3.7 percent in after-hours trade and analysts expected beef and grain prices to fall sharply when trade resumed Wednesday on fears about the impact on America's $27 billion cattle industry. Shares in Japan edged down 0.03 percent to 10,369.85 by the midday break as the mad cow scare hurt McDonald's Holdings Co. Ltd. and Prima Meat Packers Ltd. Japan is the largest importer of U.S. beef.

``The mad cow news is hitting some individual shares, but any larger impact is still unclear,'' said Hiroaki Kuramochi, head of global equities at Credit Lyonnais.

Japan's McDonald's Holdings fell more than three percent, while Prima dropped over four percent. The disease has killed more than 100 people in Britain and Europe, while there have been no confirmed cases in Japan...

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Colorado imposes cattle ban

The Colorado Department of Agriculture has imposed a ban against the importation of cattle from Washington state after a case of mad cow disease was discovered there.

The ban involves all cattle from Washington older than 30 months and is effective immediately.

Mad cow disease strikes cattle older than 30 months. The case from Washington is the first time the disease has been discovered in the United States.

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Australian exporters watch US mad cow case

The Austrailan beef industry says it expects to feel the shockwaves from the discovery of a case of mad cow disease in the United States.

The US Government has confirmed the country has its first case of mad cow disease, in the west coast state of Washington.

Cattle Council of Australia president Keith Adams says the case is bad news for Australian exporters sending product into the lucrative market.

He says he is not even thinking about the possibility of any positives coming from potential worldwide bans on US beef exports.

"This is bad news for everbody - there's no upside to this," he said.

"USA is one of our major markets and if this is true, if this is actually a confirmed case of BSE [bovine spongiform encephalopathy], then there will in a short period of time be a hell of a glut of beef in the US owing to the fact that they won't be able to export in the immediate future, so they'll have a mountain of beef."

But one of the biggest independent exporters of Australian beef, Sanger Australia Limited, says the news is not all doom and gloom.

The company's Richard Raines says the case shows that the testing regime for mad cow disease is working worldwide, which should comfort consumers.

He says after the detection of mad cow in the US it is almost certain that Japan and Korea will ban any beef imports from the US, opening the door for increased Australian sales.

"Australia is still at this stage in a very enviable position of being on the lowest risk category," he said.

"We've had no incidents here and touch wood, keep the fingers crossed, we won't.

"But if America is excluded from Asia, which will be the main market for their exports, if we were able to replace some of those exports that could be a windfall for Australia."

A spokesman for Trade Minister Mark Vaile says it is too early to comment on what the trade implications for Australia might be.

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And now the animal rights folks take their shot at the cattle industry.

Mad Cow Case Comes a Week After Ruling

The United States' first major mad cow scare comes just a week after a court decision reviving a lawsuit against the government's policy on so-called "downer" animals so sick or injured they must be dragged to market.

The suit, pushed by members of the New York-based animal rights group Farm Sanctuary, claims the Department of Agriculture is not doing enough to protect consumers from mad cow disease in the meat of downed animals.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals resurrected the 1998 lawsuit last week, finding a lower judge had wrongly dismissed the case. In dismissing the case, the judge found the possibility of infection from mad cow disease in America too remote to justify the suit.

The appeals panel disagreed, ruling 2-1 that the man who brought the case, Michael Baur, had "successfully alleged a credible threat of harm from downed cattle."

Most of the estimated 130,000 downed animals brought to slaughterhouses every year are milk cows who are no longer productive.

USDA officials declined to comment on the resurrection of the lawsuit last week but defended their screening procedures. Officials said every immobile animal goes through a pre-death and post-death inspection and any animal exhibiting possible symptoms of neurological disease is checked for mad cow disease.

Department officials have been reluctant to support an across-the-board ban on downer animals, which often end up in pet food, in the human food supply. They've warned that a ban would lead farmers to bury the sick and injured animals on the farm instead of sending them to be rendered, raising the risk that diseases would spread to other livestock and wildlife.

Rendering, a process that basically cooks meat that goes into food for pets and livestock, kills most disease.

Farm Sanctuary president Gene Baustin argued the USDA's insufficient efforts have risked both human and animal health, and suggested consumers might be "eating the evidence" of a serious health risk.

Opponents of the use of downed animals tried to get a ban on the practice through Congress earlier this year. The measure passed in the Senate but failed in the House.

The sponsor of the House measure, Rep. Gary Ackerman of New York, said Tuesday that both the industry and the federal government had failed to heed warnings. Ackerman argued the fallout from the single case could have a crippling effect on the meat industry.

Wayne Pacelle, a lobbyist for the Humane Society of the United States, called on the government to impose an immediate ban on "the slaughter of any downed animals for human consumption."

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Quarantine to figure in mad cow probe

WASHINGTON - The government is depending on a mix of quarantine and detective work to figure out how mad cow disease apparently infected a cow in Washington state.

The nation's mad cow emergency plan - never before used - is to cordon off any cattle that could have come into contact with the infection.

Keeping any possibly infected cow out of the food chain is crucial, as a human version of the disease that literally eats holes in the brain is believed spread by eating meat tainted with infected brain or nerve tissue. The human illness, with the unwieldy name new variant Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease, has claimed 143 victims in Britain and 10 elsewhere, but none so far in the United States.

Already, the farm near Yakima, Wash., has been quarantined as the government awaits the last of three tests on the suspect cow's tissue to confirm the presence of BSE, bovine spongiform encephalopathy. That final test is performed in Britain, where BSE first erupted in cattle in 1986.

Once confirmed, all the animals in that herd probably will slaughtered so their brains, too, can be tested, said Food and Drug Administration Deputy Commissioner Lester Crawford, a veterinarian who oversees the agency's BSE work.

Key is tracing the source of the first infection to see how the U.S. firewall against this disease was breached.

Beef and cattle imported from countries known to have BSE has long been banned.

But the nation's main defense is a 1997 ban on giving cattle feed made from the protein or bone meal of sheep or other mammals - because that feed is thought to be the way mad cow disease originally spread.

So the first question is whether the cow was illegally imported or ate feed that illegally contained BSE-bearing protein.

Another possibility depends on the cow's age, which wasn't immediately known. If the cow was more than 6 years old, she could have received tainted feed before the FDA's ban began, Crawford noted. The disease's incubation period can be as long as eight years.

A second part of the probe is to trace every cow the ill one - and any others found to be ill - came into contact with, so they also can be quarantined and tested to see if the infection spread.

Canada has had two cases of BSE-infected cows, once in 1993 and once last spring, but never was able to pinpoint the source of infection, Crawford noted. "We would hope to be able to nail it down," he said.

Scientists have long warned it was only a matter of time before BSE reached U.S. cattle, because safeguards can't be foolproof.

Still, "we have in place a system in this country to dramatically reduce the risk of any infected bovine getting into the food system and being consumed," said Michael Osterholm of the University of Minnesota, who has advised the federal government on food-safety issues.

"One case does not make for a crisis," he stressed.

Extra layers of protection come at slaughterhouses, where inspectors prevent sick animals from being killed for human consumption.

In addition, the Agriculture Department had the brains of more than 20,000 cows tested for signs of BSE in the last year, triple the number from previous years.

Any non-ambulatory cow, like the Washington one, as well any cow with signs of neurological disease and all cows over 30 months old - because BSE is more common in old cows - are tested, said the National Cattlemen's Association.

Critics say there are loopholes. Europe tests far more cattle for BSE, for example. Also, BSE is caused by rogue proteins called prions that collect in the cow's brain, spinal cord and other nervous system tissue. Processors are supposed to remove the spinal cord to minimize health risks, although a 2002 report found not all processors completely follow that rule. The Agriculture Department last spring began more careful testing to ensure compliance.

"Virtually every aspect of our BSE prevention program will be reevaluated," said FDA's Crawford.

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Canada weighing its response to possible outbreak of mad cow in U.S.

OTTAWA (CP) - Federal Agriculture Minister Bob Speller huddled with officials Tuesday evening as Ottawa absorbed the news its largest trading partner may have been hit by a case of mad cow disease.

Speller, who couldn't be immediately reached for reaction, has been Canada's minister of agriculture for only 10 days. Still, U.S. authorities notified his office "with a head's up that this was happening" late Tuesday afternoon as U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman publicly announced that country's first-ever case of mad cow disease was suspected.

The case is thought to involve a single cow in Washington state.

A single case of mad cow in Alberta last May led to rapid border closures to Canadian beef exports, devastating the industry, particularly in Western Canadian provinces.

The crisis has abated since September, when the United States began accepting some boneless beef cuts. Since then, more than 60,000 tonnes of beef have moved into the United States and Mexico - all from animals under 30 months of age, which are believed at lower risk of contracting the brain-wasting disease.

Closing Canada's border to U.S. beef exports as well as live cattle, which at times graze in southern reaches of Prairie provinces, is one possibility federal officials were weighing Tuesday evening.

Meanwhile, in the U.S., Veneman hastened to assure American consumers that the meat they buy is safe.

"We remain confident in the safety of our food supply," said Veneman.

Consumers in both Canada and the U.S. should be reassured that the food inspection system is sound, said former federal agriculture minister Lyle Vanclief.

"It's not a situation as it was a few years ago over in the United Kingdom where there was an estimate of up to two million animals (with the disease) that had been in the system over a period of time," said Vanclief, who was federal minister during the height of Canada's mad cow crisis.

"Things have moved, the science has advanced since that time and people can be very, very comfortable that the system in both Canada and the United States can detect this type of situation and keep the product out of the food chain."

Veneman told a news conference a single Holstein cow that was either sick or injured - thus never destined for the U.S. food supply - tested presumptively positive for the brain-wasting illness.

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Western US states react to Washington mad cow case

LOS ANGELES, Dec 23 (Reuters) - Agriculture officials from Western states on Tuesday expressed confidence that the discovery of a case of mad cow disease in Washington state was not the start of an outbreak, even as they hurried to check their records for recent cattle movements from the state.

Nevada officials said the state would block the entry of Washington dairy cattle and New Mexico put an emergency response team on alert. Otherwise, Western states were taking a wait-and-see approach, downplaying the risks from the potentially fatal disease to cattle and humans alike.

In California, the nation's most populous state, officials said no special precautions would be taken, even though other cases of infection might be linked to the dairy cow that tested positive for the disease near Yakima, Washington.

"We have had extremely strong programs in place for many years," California state veterinarian Richard Breitmeyer said. "The fact that we have found a case is very unfortunate but it does not change the fact that the food supply is safe."

But he added that another animal could have eaten the same feed that infected the cow in Washington: "It wouldn't surprise me if more than one animal got the disease from that source."

A confirmed case of mad cow disease, also known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), has never been found in the United States. The U.S. cattle industry has long feared an outbreak, which could result in billions of dollars of losses.

David Thane, the Nevada state veterinarian, said the state would pull up the records of all the dairy cattle that came from Washington in the last five years.

"We'll also continue along the lines of not allowing any dairy cattle in from Washington ... until we get a better idea of how widespread this is," he told Reuters.

CAUTIOUS RESPONSE

Many state agriculture officials said they would not be hasty to act since the disease was not contagious between animals and could not travel fast.

"We will not be considering imposing restrictions until we have a confirmed diagnosis," Lara Azar, press secretary to Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal, told Reuters.

"Being a dairy animal, it should be pretty easy to trace because they have records of what they are fed," said Jan Busboom, professor of meat science at Washington State University in Pullman, Washington.

Texas, Kansas and Nebraska, three of the largest beef-producing states, said they had seen no sign of the disease in their own herds, and they had been monitoring for years.

The National Agricultural Statistics Service reported 11 million cattle on feed for feedlots with capacity of 1,000 or more head in Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas and Washington as of Dec. 1.

"We hope this one isolated case, or at least we hope it was isolated, will be the end of BSE in our country, and that is what we would expect," Kansas Livestock Commissioner George Teagarden said. "Canada had one case and they haven't had any since." (Additional reporting by Michael Kahn and Jim Christie in San Francisco and Jon Herskovitz in Dallas) (Editing by Michael Miller; Reuters Messaging: ben.berkowitz.reuters.com@reuters.net; +1 213-955- 6781; ben.berkowitz@reuters.com))

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S.Korea temporarily suspends U.S. beef imports

SEOUL, Dec 24 (Reuters) - South Korea has temporarily suspended imports of U.S. beef after the first U.S. case of the deadly mad cow disease was found in a sick animal in Washington state, the agriculture ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.

The statement said the government would take the same action as it had taken against Canadian beef earlier this year. South Korea banned beef imports when Canada reported its first case of mad cow disease in a decade in May.

The United States accounted for two-thirds of South Korea's total beef imports between January and October, when the U.S. shipped 208,636 tonnes of beef, according to the South Korean agriculture ministry's Web site.

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Here's how a tabloid in England is reporting the BSE case.

Mad cow case rocks US

AMERICA was in a state of fear last night after a case of mad cow disease was suspected in Washington state.

A tissue sample from the sick animal was being flown by military jet to Britain for testing.

Health experts in the States, where beef is the staple diet, will have to wait up to five days for confirmation of the disease.

McDonald’s quickly put out a statement saying its supplies were not affected. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman, reflecting the current nervousness in America, said: “This incident is not terrorist-related.”

The U.S. cattle industry has long feared an outbreak of BSE, which could result in billions of dollars of losses. Mad cow disease has been linked to 130 human deaths in Europe, mostly in Britain.

In the 1980s and 1990s, the UK destroyed 3.7million cattle.

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Transcript of News Conference with Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman on BSE

Tuesday, December 23, 2003
Washington D.C.

SECRETARY VENEMAN: We are here this afternoon on such very short notice. Joining me today are Bill Hawks, USDA's Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory programs; Dr. Elsa Murano, our Under Secretary for Food Safety; and Dr. Ron DeHaven, our Deputy Administrator for Veterinary Services at the Animal Plant Health Inspection Service and our chief veterinarian here at USDA.

They will assist me in answering any questions that you have.

Today we received word from USDA's National Veterinary Services Laboratories in Iowa that a single Holstein cow from Washington State has tested as presumptive positive for BSE or what is widely known as mad cow disease.

Despite this finding we remain confident in the safety of our food supply. The risk to human health from BSE is extremely low. The animal tested was a downer cow or nonambulatory at the time of slaughter and was identified as part of USDA's targeted surveillance program.

The sample was taken on December 9th. It was tested and retested at our Ames facility using two tests including immuno-histo-chemistry, which is recognized as the “gold standard” for the detection of BSE by the World Health Organization and OIE, the Organization of International Epizootics.

A sample from this animal is being flown on a military aircraft to the central veterinary laboratory in Weybridge, England in order to confirm this finding. Our traceback indicates that the animal comes from a farm in Mabton, Washington, about 40 miles southeast of Yakima, Washington.

As part of our response plan that farm has been quarantined. After the animal was slaughtered meat was sent for processing to Midway Meats in Washington State. USDA's Food Safety Inspection Service is working quickly to accurately determine the final disposition of the products from the animal.

Even though the risks to human health is minimal based on current evidence, we will take all appropriate actions out of an abundance of caution.

Since 1990 the U.S. Department of Agriculture has had an aggressive surveillance program in place to ensure detection and a swift response in the event of the introduction of BSE in this country. As part of that program we developed a response plan to be used if BSE is identified in the United States.

While this is a presumptive finding, we have activated that response plan today. We are making the appropriate notifications and confirmations under the plan and start-up activities are beginning.

I have been in contact with Secretary Ridge and I would emphasize that based on the information available this incident is not terrorist related nor is it related in any way to our nation's heightened alert status. I cannot stress this point strongly enough.

The safety of our food supply and public health are high priorities of this Administration and high priorities of USDA. In the last year we have tested 20,526 head of cattle for BSE, which is triple the level of the previous year of 2002. The presumptive positive today is a result of our aggressive surveillance program. This is a clear indication that our surveillance and detection program is working.

USDA has been training and planning for several years in case this situation presented itself. We continue to protect the U.S. food supply and the public health and safeguard American agriculture.

In October we announced findings from the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis that found that even if an infected animal were introduced into the U.S. animal agriculture system, the risk of spreading is low based on the safeguards and controls we have already put in place.

As part of our response to this situation we will provide daily briefings to update the public on the status. We will continue to provide you all of the information that we possibly can and do so as quickly as possible.

We have released this finding even before final confirmation in the U.K. because of our confidence in the testing that has already been carried out, and in the interest of protecting the food supply and public health. Information is available on our web site at www.usda.gov, and we will be updating that information frequently.

We will also have regularly recorded updates for you, and you may call a toll-free number, 1-866-4USDA-COM.

While this incident would represent the first finding of BSE in the United States, we have worked hard to ensure that our response is swift and effective. We will continue to work with partners such as the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Homeland Security to protect our food supply and the public health.

At this time of year many Americans are making plans for the holidays and for food. We see no need for people to alter those plans or their eating habits or to do anything but have a happy and healthy holiday season. I plan to serve beef for my Christmas dinner. And we remain confident in the safety of our food supply.

I want to thank you all again for being here on this late hour and on such short notice. But we did feel it was important to update you on this important situation. Thank you. And we will be glad to take your questions.

PARTICIPANT: Danielson, Bloomberg News. Is there any connection with this finding to the incident in Alberta, Canada? That perhaps that cow came down from Canada in any way?

SECRETARY VENEMAN: It is way too early to tell, but I would think that the situation of trying to put those two incidences together would be doubtful, primarily because they're different kinds of animals. This was a Holstein cow.

MR. FAUVY: Randy Fabi with Reuters. Have you alerted any of your trading partners to this incidence, and, if so, have they--have any countries taken action against, close their borders to U.S. beef exports?

SECRETARY VENEMAN: Again, it's very early, Randy. We have--we are in the process of notifying a whole range of people at this point, including our trading partners, and I can't at this point anticipate what they may do in response to this announcement.

MR. SALANTE: Jonathan Salante with the Associated Press. What steps, if any, are you specifically taking to prevent the spread of this disease, and what assurances do we have that the beef is--that the other beef is not contaminated?

SECRETARY VENEMAN: Well, I think it's very important to recognize that this disease does not spread easily. One of the things that people are very confused about, and I found it as we went through situation when Canada had a single case of BSE is a lot of times people don't understand that this is not foot and mouth disease; it's not that highly contagious disease that you often see spread so quickly as you did in the U.K. at the beginning of 2001. So it's important to make that distinction.

We have been taking steps since 1990 to protect our beef supplies from this disease. We implemented a feed ban; we have required the removal of any kind of risk materials from an animal like this one, a downer animal, and we have a whole series of actions that have been taken to reduce, substantially, the risk to public health from this disease if it ever were found. And that's why we continue to believe that this finding, while unfortunate, does not pose any kind of significant risk to the human food chain.

MS. NAGEL: Sara Nagel, Fox News. Can you tell us who this will affect, what the chances that it could become more widespread here in the U.S. are?

SECRETARY VENEMAN: Well, I think at this point it's hard to tell, but again, the unfortunate find of a single case in Canada earlier this year gave us some experience of the type of investigation that we now have to do. We did not know when the Canada investigation started, whether or not there would be more cases or whether or not it would be an isolated case. Indeed, after several months of checking into the situation, it turned out to be an isolated case.

It is too early at this point to say whether or not this will be an isolated case. What I can tell you that we're doing is we're going back to the farm where this cow came from. We will be doing a complete investigation on farm and tracing the animal back to its origin.

MR. RIVALL: Sorry, Audy Rivall, ABC News. Tell us a little bit more about this particular farm. What do you plan to do about the other animals? Are you saying that it was quarantined, and you're--and it's going to test the other--the cows there? And also, how concerned are you that the public outcry of people here on the street hear "mad cow" there could be some sort of hysteria associated with that? How concerned are you about that? And, certainly, you must agree that it's a possibility, are you not?

SECRETARY VENEMAN: Well, I would certainly hope that people will remain confident in the food supply. As I said, we in some ways had some experience with this because of the one find in Canada. What we found because of the actions that were taken both in Canada and in the United States with the case earlier this year is that demand for beef did not diminish partly because we believe the people in North America know that we have the strongest food safety systems in the world. We have the protections in place, and again, I, personally, do not hesitate to recommend to anyone that beef is absolutely safe to eat.

As to the farm, your other question, again we're in the very early stages of the investigation. We have a complete book of protocols that we're following with regard to how we would deal if we ever had an outbreak of BSE. We're following all those steps, including we've already located the farm, and that farm will be quarantined and an investigation will begin. Again, this was very recent breaking news so we're taking all steps that we can, and we will be continuing to update you, as we indicated.

MR. DUNN: I'm (inaudible) Dunn from the Washington Post. Could you give us some sense of narrative about the farm? Why was this particular farm being studied? Was this animal significant in some way that you did tests on this animal? How many other animals were there on this farm? How many other farms are approximate to this farm?

SECRETARY VENEMAN: Okay, first of all, the test was not done on the farm. The test was done when the animal was presented at the slaughter facility, and it is our standard operating procedure that what they call downer animals will be tested if they--if they come to the slaughter facility as a downer animal.

The farm has been identified since we got the test results back from the animal. We've then gone to the plant just this afternoon, found where the animal came from, and that's where the investigation will begin in terms of looking at whether or not there is any other impact on cows on that farm. But at this point the information with regard to the farm and the surrounding areas is still pretty preliminary. I don't have that information at this point.

MR. FABI: Randy Fabi with Reuters. I'm just--what is the likelihood that any of this cow made it into the food supply? I know that you have contacted the meat suppliers. Is there a recall underway?

SECRETARY VENEMAN: That's--that, Randy, is what we're trying to identify at this point. We do believe that the product from the animal went to two further processing plants. This plant was a very small plant. It just slaughters a few animals, and our current understanding, and again it's very preliminary, is that that product did go to further processing plants. But again, one thing that is important to remember is that muscle cuts of meats have almost no risk. In fact, as far as the science is concerned, I know of no science to show that you can transmit BSE from muscle cuts of meat. So the fact that it's gone to further processing is not significant in terms of human health. But we are doing the trace backs. We are looking at trace forwards, where did the product go. And we will take appropriate actions as we make the determinations as to where the product is and what has happened to it.

I think we -- I mentioned one of them, but there is actually two.

DR. MURANO: Let me first reiterate what the Secretary just said. You should know that the tissues that are the infectious tissues from an animal that has BSE, that is the central nervous system tissues, the brains, spinal cord and so forth, of this animal did not enter the food supply. Those tissues to rendering. So they did not enter the food supply. That's very important to know.

Now, the muscles cuts, as the Secretary said, went from the slaughter facility to another facility that did the deboning and that facility is Midway Meats, as the Secretary mentioned. Then from there we believe that it went to two other facilities. One is called Willamette and the second one is called Interstate Meat, both in Washington State.

Again, the muscle cuts are where there is virtually no risk of BSE. The material, the brain, spinal cord, distal ileum, which is where the BSE agent resides, those materials did not enter the food supply.

PARTICIPANT: (inaudible) with CNN. You said the health risks are minimal but what if someone did eat meat contaminated with this. What are the health risks?

SECRETARY VENEMAN: Well, again as Dr. Murano just indicated, there is virtually no chance that the meat has been contaminated and the agents, that would be the high risk agents in any animal have been removed from this particular animal so we really don’t believe that there is—we believe that the risk of any kind of human health effect is extremely low.

PARTICIPANT: Yes, but what if you find another animal on the farm that is contaminated.

DR. MURANO: Well, you should know that the agent that causes mad cow disease as I said earlier resides mainly in those tissues that I mentioned, the brain, spinal cord, distal ileum, which were removed from this animal and sent to rendering so they were not in the food supply. The scientific community believes that there is no evidence to demonstrate that muscle cuts or whole muscle meats that come from animals that are infected with mad cow disease agent themselves—the meat itself is effective to human beings. There is no evidence to show that and that is as far as we can state that. It’s a good thing obviously that the infectious materials from this animal were removed and sent to rendering which is something that we do as standard practice on these downer animals that are tested by APHIS.

PARTICIPANT: Christopher (inaudible) with Reuters. I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit more about what is going to be happening in the U.K. specifically and what your timetable is for getting final results on those tests?

SECRETARY VENEMAN: Well, as I indicated, the sample is being flown to a laboratory in the U.K. which is one of the world's best laboratories for analyzing BSE. And that will take a number of days, probably -- probably three to five days to get final results on that sample.

So, again, we are getting it there as quickly as we possibly can. But the results that we have been able to confirm in our own laboratories have been something that we felt that we ought to take action on.

PARTICIPANT: You have said that you have quarantined the farm itself. Have you imposed any kind of quarantine on the slaughterhouse at the three facilities that are downstream?

SECRETARY VENEMAN: Well, we have people that have gone into the slaughterhouse as well as are going into the downstream facilities, starting to review records. But we will be doing a complete review and investigation of the entire food chain where this animal might have been transferred during the process.

Well, I don't think you would normally impose quarantine on a plant. You impose quarantine on a farm. But we will be doing an investigation of the plants to determine exactly where the product might have gone.

[Pause.]

SECRETARY VENEMAN: Well, we are taking all appropriate action. We first need to identify where the product went before we can take action. I am not saying that we are not taking action. As I said in my opening remarks, we are going to take all appropriate actions based upon the investigation.

I know that the tendency is to want to know all the answers right away. And we decided that we couldn't wait to give the public the information about this situation, but we certainly don't have all answers today. And that is why we will be continuing to update both our web site and the call in number that I indicated earlier and we will be conducting daily press briefings to update you on what is going on.

Thank you.

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Here is the USDA statement on the BSE case.

USDA MAKES PRELIMINARY DIAGNOSIS OF BSE

WASHINGTON, Dec. 23, 2003–Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman today announced that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has diagnosed a presumptive positive case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in an adult Holstein cow in the state of Washington.

“Despite this finding, we remain confident in the safety of our beef supply,” Veneman said. “The risk to human health from BSE is extremely low.”

Because the animal was non-ambulatory (downer) at slaughter, samples were taken Dec. 9 as part of USDA’s targeted BSE surveillance system. The samples were sent to USDA’s National Veterinary Services Laboratory in Ames, Iowa. Positive results were obtained by both histology (a visual examination of brain tissue via microscope) and immunohistochemistry (the gold standard for BSE testing that detects prions through a staining technique). Test results were returned on Dec. 22 and retested on Dec 23.

USDA has initiated a comprehensive epidemiological investigation working with state, public health, and industry counterparts to determine the source of the disease. USDA will also work with the Food and Drug Administration as they conduct animal feed investigations, the primary pathway for the spread of BSE.

This investigation has begun while the sample is being sent to the world reference laboratory in England for final confirmation. USDA will take the actions in accordance with its BSE response plan, which was developed with considerable input from federal, state and industry stakeholders.

BSE is a progressive neurological disease among cattle that is always fatal. It belongs to a family of diseases known as transmissible spongiform encephalopathies. Also included in that family of illnesses is the human disease, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD), which is believed to be caused by eating neural tissue, such as brain and spinal cord, from BSE-affected cattle. USDA has determined that the cow comes from a farm in Washington State and as part of the USDA response plan, the farm has been quarantined. After the animal was slaughtered, the meat was sent for processing and USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service is working to determine the final disposition of products from the animal.

For more information visit www.usda.gov.


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NCBA Statement Regarding USDA Announcement of Suspect BSE in a Dairy Cow in Washington State

Terry Stokes, Chief Executive Officer, National Cattlemen's Beef Association

December 23, 2003

The U.S. Secretary of Agriculture announced today the diagnosis of a possible case of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE, also known as mad cow disease) in a Dairy Cow in Washington State.

The U.S. has conducted a BSE surveillance program since 1990 and this is the first possible case that has been found.

The Harvard Center for Risk Analysis has conducted a comprehensive multi-year assessment of the risk of BSE in the U.S. While the Harvard study noted there was some level of risk, the analysis concluded that "In summary, measures taken by the U.S. government and industry make the U.S. robust against the spread of BSE to animals or humans should it be introduced into this country."

While this one case is unfortunate, systems have been built over the past 15 years to prevent this disease from spreading and affecting either animal health or public health.

NCBA has fully supported an aggressive surveillance program in the U.S. to assure that if BSE were introduced it would be detected and eliminated. We applaud the swift action taken by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to announce the finding of this possible case and its aggressive investigation of the circumstances. The U.S. cattle industry remains committed to eliminating this disease from North America. As such, we will work closely with the USDA to carry out a full investigation and determine what additional preventive measures, if any, need to be taken to continue to protect animal and public health.

This case was found in a federally inspected plant. The central nervous tissue from this animal, which scientists recognize as the infective material, did not go into the food supply.

Consumers should continue to eat beef with confidence. All scientific studies show that the BSE infectious agent has never been found in beef muscle meat or milk and U.S. beef remains safe to eat.

Americans can be confident in the safety of U.S. beef for a number of reasons:

* The BSE agent is not found in meat like steaks and roasts. It is found in central nervous system tissue such as brain and spinal cord.

* All U.S. cattle are inspected by a USDA inspector or veterinarian before going to slaughter. Animals with any signs of neurological disorder are tested for BSE.

* BSE affects older cattle, typically over 30 months of age. The vast majority of the cattle going to market in the U.S. are less than 24 months old.

* The U.S. began a surveillance program for BSE in 1990 and was the first country without the disease within its borders to test cattle for the disease. The surveillance system targets all cattle with any signs of neurological disorder as well as those over 30 months of age and animals that are non-ambulatory.

* The U.S. banned imports of cattle and bovine products from countries with BSE beginning in 1989.

* The only way BSE spreads is through contaminated feed. The U.S. Food & Drug Administration in 1997 instituted a ban on feeding ruminant-derived meat and bone meal supplements to cattle. This is a firewall that prevents the spread of BSE to other animals if it were present in the U.S.

Currently this is a suspected case in one animal and the USDA is aggressively investigating this case. We want to reiterate that we support a full investigation and the necessary steps to eliminate this disease from North America and protect the health of U.S. cattle.

For additional information go to www.BSEinfo.org

Core Messages:

The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration will take all actions necessary to protect animal health, consumers and the food supply.

BSE is not known to spread from animal to animal according to the latest science. The most critical animal health control measure - a ruminant feed ban - has been in place since 1997. We have systems in place to quickly contain this disease and eliminate it.

This is an animal health issue, current science indicates BSE is not found in muscle meat, rather it is only found in central nervous tissue such as the brain and spinal cord.

This case was found in a federally inspected plant. The central nervous tissue from this animal, which scientists recognize as the infective material, did not go into the food supply.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration will take all actions necessary to protect animal health, consumers and the food supply.

The USDA and the FDA are putting every resource available behind rapidly containing this disease. The USDA and FDA are rapidly initiating an epidemiological investigation to determine the source and extent of BSE. We are cooperating fully.

USDA will work in concert with local, state and national emergency response plans to investigate this case as quickly as possible. For example, state and federal agencies will work in coordination to initiate an immediate trace-back of feed and a trace-forward of food roducts.
Key components of this response plan include:

Immediate quarantine of herd and progeny
Humane culling of herds according to AVMA prescribed methods
Testing of cattle under investigation
Trace forward of all food items
Trace out herd mates and progeny
Trace forward of all rendered material
Herd disposal
Compensation program for livestock owners
Constant, ongoing communication updates

BSE is not known to spread from animal to animal according to the latest science. The most critical animal health control measure - a ruminant feed ban - has been in place since 1997. We have systems in place to quickly contain this disease and eliminate it.

The feed ban has had one of the highest levels of compliance of all the Food and Drug Administration regulations not only because it's a requirement but because we've seen the impact this disease had in the U.K. and we're committed to preventing it's spread within the U.S. cattle herd.

The 2001 Harvard University Center for Risk Assessment report concluded that "measures taken by the U.S. government and industry make the U.S. robust against the spread of BSE to animals or humans should it be introduced in this country."


Cattle with BSE display gradual changes in several aspects of their behavior, including:
temperament changes such as increased nervousness or aggression
abnormal posture
coordination problems
difficulty in rising or walking
decreased milk production
severe muscular twitching
loss of body weight despite a continued appetite


The incubation period for BSE ranges from two to eight years. Following the onset of clinical signs, the animal's condition rapidly deteriorates until it dies (usually within six months) or is culled. The disease is fatal, and there is no treatment or vaccine to prevent BSE.

For more information about BSE, please visit www.aphis.gove/lpa/issues/bse.bse.html or www.bseinfo.org.

THIS IS AN ANIMAL HEALTH ISSUE: Current science indicates BSE is not found in muscle meat, rather it is only found in central nervous tissue such as the brain and spinal cord.

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Beef industry is the driver of US agriculture sector

CHICAGO : The first suspected case of Mad Cow disease in the United States could badly damage what is the backbone of the US agricultural industry, accounting for about a fifth of all agricultural receipts, according to official statistics.

Annual sales of cows and calves runs are worth about 40 billion dollars, and the industry supports about 1.4 million full-time jobs on farms and ranches and indirectly in beef feed lots and packing plants.

Most of the beef raised in the United States is consumed domestically: 90 percent goes to the US market, with 10 percent being exported overseas, according to the US Department of Agriculture.

The most important export markets are Japan, Mexico, Canada, Korea, and Hong Kong, in that order and exports of beef and variety meats such as tongues and tails was worth 3.4 billion dollars in 2002, according to the US Meat Export Federation.

The average American chows down on about 68 pounds (30.9 kilogrammes) of beef a year, which is second only to chicken in terms of popularity.

American exports benefited from the devastation to the European cattle industry caused by bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or Mad Cow Disease, in the 1990s.

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Canadian producers are worried the BSE case in Washington will delay opening of the US border to cattle. The US currently accepts boneless beef under 30 months, but doesn't allow live cattle from Canada to enter the US. First U.S. mad cow case may delay border opening for Canada, producers worry

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USDA: Mad Cow Suspected in Washington State

A single Holstein on a Washington state farm has tested positive for mad cow disease (search), marking the disease's first suspected appearance in the United States, the Bush administration announced Tuesday as it assured Americans their food is safe.

Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman said the slaughtered cow was screened earlier this month and any diseased parts were removed before they could enter the food supply and infect humans. Fear of the disease has brought economic ruin on beef industries in Europe and Canada.

"We remain confident in the safety of our food supply," Veneman told a hastily convened news conference. The farm near Yakima, Wash., where the cow originated, has been quarantined as officials trace how the animal contracted the disease and where its meat went.

"Even though the risk to human health is minimal, we will take all appropriate actions out of an abundance of caution," she said.

Mad cow disease, known also as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, eats holes in the brains of cattle. It sprang up in Britain in 1986 and spread through countries in Europe and Asia, prompting massive destruction of herds and decimating the European beef industry.

A form of mad cow disease can be contracted by humans if they eat infected beef or nerve tissue, and possibly through blood transfusions. The human form of mad cow disease so far has killed 143 people in Britain and 10 elsewhere, none in the United States. Blood donors possibly at risk for the disease are banned from giving.

Wary of the potential economic impact on their American market, beef producers quickly sought Tuesday to reassure consumers that infected meat wouldn't reach their tables. "There is no risk to consumers based upon the product that came from this animal," said Terry Stokes, chief executive of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association (search).

Veneman also assured Americans the screening system worked, and no foul play was suspected. "This incident is not terrorist-related," she said. "I cannot stress this point strongly enough."

President Bush was briefed a few times on the development Tuesday and was confident Veneman's department handling the matter properly, the White House said.

With an election year approaching, the news concerned some in Congress. Rep. Tim Holden, D-Pa., a member of the House Agriculture Committee (search), said he expected lawmakers to hold hearings when they return to Washington in late January.

"We're going to look into this and see the possibility of how this happened," Holden said. "I'm sure there will be extensive oversight hearings to see what we can do to assure the American people the safety of the food chain."

Lawmakers are keenly aware that a case of mad cow disease in Canada last May -- which officials described as a single, isolated incident -- still had devastating economic consequences.

"If it's anything like what happened in Canada, it will be bad. The problem won't be that people will stop eating meat in the United States; the problem is the exports will be shut down like we did with Canada," said Rep. Collin Peterson, D-Minn.

Veneman said the Holstein, which could not move on its own, was found at a farm in Mabton, Wash., about 40 miles southeast of Yakima, and tested preliminarily positive for the brain-wasting illness on Dec. 9. Parts of the cow that would be infected -- the brain, the spinal cord and the lower part of the small intestine -- were removed before the animal went to a meat processing plant.

Samples from the cow have been sent to Britain for confirmation of the preliminary mad cow finding, Veneman said. The results will be known in three to five days. Veneman said consumers can get daily updates by reading the department's Web site or by calling 1-866-4USDACOM.

She said tests are made of all downed cows -- old cows that are not mobile -- that are sent to slaughterhouses.

But Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-N.Y., said such cows shouldn't be in the food supply in the first place. The Senate passed such a ban earlier this year, but it failed to make it through the House.

"I blame it on greed, greed, greed," Ackerman said. "The greed of the industry, the greed of the lobbyists and the greed of the members of Congress."

Veneman said the Agriculture Department has had safeguards in place since 1990 to check for mad cow disease and 20,526 cows had been tested in 2003 in the United States.

"This is a clear indication that our surveillance and detection program is working," Veneman said.

U.S. beef remains "absolutely safe to eat," she said.

"We see no reason for people to alter their eating habits," she said. "I plan to serve beef for my Christmas dinner."

Other versions of the story: U.S. Discovers Its First Suspected Case of Mad Cow Disease from the New York Times, U.S. Reports First Case of Mad Cow Disease from Reuters, and US reports suspect 'mad cow' case from the BBC.

Japan halts US beef imports

From correspondents in Tokyo
December 24, 2003

JAPAN has temporarily banned the import of American beef after the US reported its first suspected case of mad cow disease, an official said today.

"We are now withholding the issuance of import permits" on US beef, said Japanese agriculture ministry spokesman Hiroaki Ogura.

"That means for now, (beef) imports have been banned."

He said the measure enacted early this morning was temporary until further information could be gathered.

US Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman announced that a cow from Washington state had tested positive for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease.

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NEWS ROUNDUP

Conservation groups seek protection for sage grouse Twenty conservation organizations submitted a petition to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Monday to list the greater sage grouse as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act. The species has suffered declines of 45 percent to 80 percent over the past 20 years due to habitat loss, the groups said. "The sage grouse is clearly in trouble," said Erik Molvar, wildlife biologist for Laramie-based Biodiversity Conservation Alliance. "And yet the deterioration in land stewardship on federal public lands is driving this bird even faster towards extinction...Forest funding declines A federal reduction of about $150,000 in one year's funding for updating the Shoshone Forest Plan could slow the project. Forest planner Bryan Armel said cuts in revising forest plans are being experienced throughout the Forest Service's Rocky Mountain Region, and likely across the nation. That's because the agency at the national level has shifted emphasis - and funding - away from planning toward action, namely thinning stands of timber adjacent to developed property...Roads, vehicles points to ponder Although many environmental groups support the goals of the Klamath Tribes' forest management plan, some are leery of how the Tribes would go about reaching them. Many who live next to the national forestland in northern Klamath County say they haven't yet been able to read to plan. But before the plan's public release the Tribes met with a number of environmental group leaders in Eugene on Dec. 4, where the co-authors of the plan outlined what the Tribes would do if 690,000 acres of national forest land became a re-established reservation. The meeting hosts were the Wilderness Society and Ecotrust. It was the first time many of the environmental groups got to see the nuts and bolts of the plan that has gotten divided response from conservation groups on the question of who should control the land...State loses mountain-biking status Colorado has fallen from first to fifth in an annual report card for mountain biking, with the authors complaining of restrictive policies around the state. The International Mountain Biking Association, a Boulder-based advocacy group, stripped Colorado of its most-favored status and gave it to Arizona because of restrictive Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management policies...Bike-clinic leader faults BLM for permit problem Gene Hamilton had hoped to lead mountain-biking clinics this past summer and fall in the Grand Valley, but he ran into the federal government. Now, he said, his business plans are a year behind, and the delay has cost him at least $400, not counting lost business. He said the federal Bureau of Land Management, which administers most of the public lands around Grand Junction where mountain biking is popular, failed to tell him that getting a permit would take so long he would miss all of his 2003 business opportunities. The BLM said it could have done a better job of communicating time requirements to Hamilton, but said it was ultimately Hamilton's responsibility to ask the agency pertinent questions and to make sure he had a permit before starting operations on public lands...Endangered Species Listings May Backfire New research confirms that Endangered Species Act listings do not necessarily help--and may even harm--rare species on private lands. "Private landowners' responses suggested that the current regulatory approach to rare species conservation is insufficient to protect the Preble's mouse," write Amara Brook, Michaela Zint, and Raymond De Young of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in the December issue of Conservation Biology. More than 90 percent of federally listed species live at least partly on lands not owned by the federal government, and as many as half live entirely on nonfederal land, much of which is private. Anecdotal evidence suggests listing endangered species may not help protect them on private property because landowners may destroy species habitat to avoid land-use restrictions. Brook and her colleagues set out to test how widespread that practice might be...Condors take wing finally What a bunch of chickens. Friday's release of endangered California condors at Pinnacles National Monument was delayed a day because the birds stayed put. Going in, biologists knew that was a possibility. "It's nerve-racking because of the unknown," said Joe Burnett, a condor specialist for the Ventana Wilderness Society, before the scheduled release. Finally, two of the condors flew out Saturday afternoon - but without a spectacle and hundreds of bird watchers who waited 2 1/2 hours Friday before handlers closed the double-door trap. The two soared through the canyon Saturday and Sunday but stayed near the pen, according to ranger Brant Porter...Column: Wyoming's wolf plan needs fixing Before the ink even dried on Wyoming's wolf management plan, it was greeted by a chorus of howls. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service voiced strong concerns that the plan would not provide adequate assurances to prevent wolves from becoming threatened again. Neighboring political leaders, such as Montana Gov. Judy Martz, admonished Wyoming to create a more balanced plan so as not to delay the transition of wolf management to all three Northern Rocky states. Conservationists also believed that the Wyoming plan was too aggressive by allowing the immediate shooting of wolves. And this past week, in a process called "peer review" (a step in the wolf delisting process), a group of federal, state, and academic wolf experts from all over the country added themselves to the chorus of concern about Wyoming's wolf management plan...Researchers say wolves could help curb wasting disease Researchers are looking to wolves to help control the spread of chronic wasting disease in deer and elk, a fatal brain malady some biologists fear will invade Yellowstone National Park in the next few years. Wolves' uncanny ability to spot vulnerable animals may make them the best natural control for the disease, since wolves could kill off sick animals, researchers say. Wasting disease makes its victims distracted and unwary as it eats tiny holes in their brains, the Denver Post reported...Wolf kill trust pays ranchers $68K Defenders of Wildlife, a Washington, D.C.-based environmental group, paid out more than $68,000 to 46 ranchers who lost sheep and cattle to wolves in 2003, with much of the money going to Montana and Idaho ranchers. ''There were 294 animals (lost),'' said Nina Fascione, vice president of species conservation for Defenders of Wildlife. Those figures represent wolf kills from October 2002 until October 2003. A total of $68,484 was paid to ranchers in that time. Since 1987, the group has paid out more than $335,000 to ranchers who lost sheep or cattle to wolves as part of an effort to ''put our money where our mouth is,'' Fascione said. The group supports wolf reintroduction and expansion of existing wolf range...Texas A&M Says It Has Cloned First Deer Scientists at Texas A&M University have produced what they believe is the first cloned deer, the school said on Monday. Tests have confirmed that a fawn named Dewey born to a surrogate mother in May was a genetic duplicate of a male white-tailed deer from southern Texas whose skin samples were used in the cloning process, the school said. Even though white-tailed deer are abundant in the wild, Westhusin said in a statement the creation of Dewey could prove helpful in preserving endangered species such as the Key West deer of Florida...Gays Banned From National Parks Civil Service Group Says All images of gay gatherings at national sites, including the Millennium March on the Washington Mall have been ordered removed from videotapes that have been shown at the Lincoln Memorial since 1995 according to a civil service group. Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) says that the directive came from National Parks Service Deputy Director Donald Murphy. Murphy is said to have been concerned about pictures in the video that showed same-sex couples kissing and holding hands after conservative groups complained. Also ordered cut from the tape were scenes of abortion rights demonstrations at the memorial, and anti-Vietnam War demonstrations "because it implies that Lincoln would have supported homosexual and abortion rights as well as feminism."...Editorial: Yellowstone fight goes another round The decision, handed down as vacationers to the park were arriving and the tourism industry that caters to them had swung into full operation for the season, requires the Park Service to reinstate a phased ban on snowmobiles. The judge ruled that the ban, instituted by the Clinton administration, had been improperly rescinded by the Bush administration. You can expect this back-and-forth business to continue for some time to come. The issue is entirely political in nature, and it isn't going to be settled until one side or the other -- people who favor snowmobiles in the park or those who oppose them -- gain overwhelming advantage over the other. That isn't likely to happen anytime soon. There is no clear right or wrong involved here. The issue hangs entirely on personal preference. Snowmobiles are endlessly amusing to those who ride (or sell and rent) them. They're annoying to people in proximity who don't ride them -- especially people seeking a quiet moment in the winter wonderland. The vast majority of Americans, however, live out their lives without once thinking about snowmobiles, one way or the other. Relatively few people can afford to own or rent the expensive toys, and even fewer consider speeding along, exposed, in subzero temperatures an attractive avocation. Meanwhile, many of the people who oppose snowmobiles in Yellowstone have never and will never see one there. It's the idea they don't like...Snowmobile appeal could take 11 months The state of Wyoming has appealed a federal judge's ruling that snowmobiles be gradually phased out of Yellowstone National Park, but state officials don't expect a decision for nearly a year. The ruling by Judge Emmet Sullivan last week has frustrated snowmobilers, guides and businesses surrounding Yellowstone that rely on winter tourism. "It's my understanding to have pursued an appeal and gotten a decision out of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in a 10-to-11-months period would be about average," Wyoming Attorney General Pat Crank said. "If it takes that long to proceed through the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, we're left in a quandary next winter as well."...Column: Pray to Play, Bush's Faith-Based National Parks The view from the south rim of the Grand Canyon, smogged up as it is these days, still retains the power to prompt even the most secular of visitors into transcendentalist reveries as they cast theirs eyes toward Shiva's Temple and Wotan's Throne. Now tourists at the federal park in northern Arizona will be greeted with scriptural passages affixed to park signs to help interpret the religious experience of gazing into God's mighty chasm. This autumn Donald Murphy, deputy director of the National Park Service, ordered three bronze plaques featuring quotes from Psalms 68:4, 66:4 and 104:24 placed on viewing platforms on the south rim of the Canyon. The plaques were made and donated by the Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary in Phoenix, who live in a convent called Cannan in the Desert. The convent was founded in 1963 by Mother Basilea, who visited the Sinai where said said she conversed with the Supreme Diety about the moral decline of the western world... Dispute freezes ban on fishing in Tortugas A year and a half ago, the state and federal governments set aside the largest underwater refuge in America, an emerald expanse 70 miles west of Key West. The historic designation banned fishing in two vast zones totaling 151 square miles just outside Dry Tortugas National Park. But inside the park, sport anglers and spearfishers can still pull grouper, snapper and lobster from reefs and seagrass beds that managers had pledged would be protected. That's because a quarter of the planned Dry Tortugas Ecological Reserve -- another 46 square miles covering almost half the national park -- has quietly remained open to all but commercial fishing boats. What's holding up the closure is an arcane legal question: Who owns the bottom under all that ocean -- Florida or the federal government? The U.S. Interior Department, which manages the National Park Service, contends it does. The state argues federal rights end at the shoreline of seven small islands that make up the dry part of the Tortugas...Nevada judge reviewing grazing dispute between ranchers, feds A judge will offer an opinion early next year on whether state officials should have tried to block the federal seizure of cattle from a Nevada rancher accused of trespassing on U.S. land. At the request of Nevada Attorney General Brian Sandoval, Washoe District Judge Janet Berry agreed Monday to help clarify state procedures related to nearly a decade of "tension between ranchers and the Bureau of Land Management." The rare judicial confirmation hearing will not result in the cattle being returned, and Berry emphasized she will not address complicated legal questions regarding water rights, some dating to the 19th century. The judge also said she won't rule on ranchers' constitutional claims that land controlled by the Bureau of Land Management in Nevada and across the West is not truly "public land" and therefore not subject to BLM's environmental regulations. Rather, the judge said she will decide whether the state Agriculture Department had the authority - as the ranchers claim - to block the confiscation by refusing to formally certify the BLM's legal possession of the cattle after it seized 62 animals from Goldfield rancher Ben Colvin in 2001...Gas treasure or green haven for wildlife? With the Roan Plateau, it's all about perspective. To energy companies and the Bush administration, it is a key plank in the drive for U.S. energy independence because it sits atop a mother lode of clean-burning natural gas. to others, the plateau is a haven for wildlife and the cornerstone of the region's $3.8-million-a-year hunting industry. They fear the plateau is being sacrificed in a mad dash to develop rather than conserve energy...Rocky Mountain drilling Oil and gas companies eager to drill in the Rocky Mountain West appear to have an ally in the Bush administration, which is approving wells at a pace well ahead of the Clinton administration and looking to get even faster. An Associated Press review of thousands of applications to drill on Bureau of Land Management land since 1998 shows a 34 percent increase in the number of wells approved under Bush when compared with the last three years of the Clinton administration. The vast majority of the permits, 94 percent since 2001, are clustered in five states: Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming - a key region in the administration's push to open more public land for energy development...Gas-drilling plans forced to pause The alliance between ranchers and environmentalists seeking stricter regulation of coal-bed methane drilling in the Powder River Basin has won a pair of decisions that put a hiccup into Bush administration plans to speed energy development in the West. Montana Bureau of Land Management director Marty Ott earlier this month halted progress on an 85-well Fidelity Exploration and Production Co. project near the Wyoming border. He demanded more information from the local BLM about how water pumped up during drilling will affect irrigation and ranching. In Wyoming, BLM officials have said they will take a similar action on a 20-well project near Gillette, said Jill Morrison of the Sheridan-based environmental group Powder River Basin Resource Council. The group challenged the Marathon Oil Co. project along with Gillette rancher Eric Barlow. A formal announcement is expected as early as Tuesday...Losing Ground It would be easy to assume this land, where trails routinely cross 85-degree slopes, is fit only for hikers and rock climbers. In fact, the Cleveland National Forest is a major battleground in the U.S. war on drugs - a battleground increasingly ceded to foreign drug cartels. Paradoxically, government attempts to enhance national security following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks have fueled this trend. Tightened border security has made it harder for traffickers to move drugs from Mexico across the southwest border, spurring producers to move their operations north of the border and closer to their market. And the Defense Department, in an effort to focus more resources on overseas military operations, has decided to reduce its counternarcotics support to civilian law enforcement agencies. The reduction in Defense's assistance comes despite the fact that it has been critical in limiting domestic drug production in recent years and the suspected connections between the Mexican cartels and Middle Eastern terrorists...Bush administration eyes new fuel standards for large SUVs, pickups The Bush administration is looking at making larger SUVs, such as the Hummer H2, Ford Excursion, and GMC Suburban, and large pickup trucks comply with federal fuel economy standards for the first time. The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration also said yesterday it is seeking comments on whether to change the definitions of cars and light trucks. Most sport utility vehicles are now classified as light trucks, although they are used primarily as passenger vehicles...S.D. won't restrict Wyo. cattle yet South Dakota doesn't have any immediate plans to restrict importation of Wyoming cattle despite the discovery of brucellosis in a western Wyoming herd. Colorado and California have announced restrictions on Wyoming cattle. But South Dakota state veterinarian Dr. Sam Holland said officials here would wait to see if testing shows brucellosis in more than the one herd near Pinedale, Wyo., where it was found early this month. "When there's no more than one affected herd and no spread, and the initial herd is eliminated, we would not put any further restrictions on," Holland said in an interview Monday...US beef lobby threatens free trade agreement The powerful United States beef lobby will attempt to block the proposed free trade deal with Australia, unless US cattlemen get greater access to markets, including Japan and Korea. The National Cattlemen's Beef Association says it will use considerable political support in the US Senate to stop any trade agreement with Australia which gives exporters greater access. President Eric Davis, says not all cattlemen have been able to capitalise on record US beef prices this year, and he doesn't want to see the domestic market flooded with imported beef...Horses, other animals rescued by spray paint Spray painting the family pet might be enough to place junior in an extended time-out under normal circumstances. But horse and livestock owners used spray paint to help identify and protect their animals during the recent fires in Southern California. By spray-painting their phone numbers on the flanks of the horses and other large livestock before evacuating their properties the owners provided a measure of insurance that their pets would be reunited with them after the smoke cleared. And many of them were. Even when homes, barns, corrals, fences, tack rooms, feeder stalls and pasture shelters were swept away by the flames some of the animals escaped on their own and were eventually recovered and returned to their owners...Rancher belongs on his land and thieves belong in jail The organization, which was founded in 1877, began as a way to help deal with the problem of cattle thieves that had arisen in Texas. "So many ranchers were moving around Texas and they were losing their cattle, so that is why the TSCRA was formed," Foreman explained. In 1883, the first field inspected position was created, a position that Foreman holds today. Field inspectors are hired to chase down and arrest cattle thieves. "We work on any type of criminal act against livestock. While we still carry guns and chase down the cattle thieves, our job has become a more modernized." In 1883, field inspectors chased down the thieves with horses and paperwork was done with paper and pencil. Today, Foreman stated, horses have been replaced with trucks and paperwork is now done on a computer. "But it's the same job that it has been since the beginning."...Firm Wins Suit Over Bull Castration Device Montana business did not steal a Kansas man's ideas for a bull castration device, a jury decided. The jury unanimously agreed that St. Ignatius' Wadsworth Manufacturing Inc. did not violate patents obtained by Michael Callicrate of St. Francis, Kan. The jury said, in a Wednesday ruling, that it found that some of Callicrate's patents were not valid...Team England wins snow polo world title in Aspen England dominated the four-team tournament Saturday and Sunday at Wagner Park, beating Aspen 10-4 in the finals to take the crown. Snow polo is a modified version of traditional polo, which is played on turf. Aside from the obvious difference of surface substance, the snow polo field is also dramatically smaller -- roughly the size of Wagner Park. Polo is played on a 10-acre field, about the size of three football fields, with four members per team instead of three on snow. "Traditional polo] is faster paced and a prettier game to watch," said Melissa Potamkin-Ganzi, a member of Team Argentina and the only woman in the tournament. Her husband, Marc, grew up in Aspen and played for Glenwood Springs... A good start It could be not only a good start to the new year, but a great start. I know that I was really uplifted by the recent news that ole Sad'um Insane had been captured. Yep, he was pulled out of a rat hole blabbin' in English who he was in hopes no one would shoot him. He had with him a pistol and $750,000 in American money. All of that was in $100 bills. Ole Sad'um looked a little haggard to me when he was pulled out. Actually, he looked more like Merle Haggard than he did Sad'um Insane. See how things are starting to shape up for the new year? Ole Owl Gore has admitted that he is out of the loop, Madonna has told America that money cannot buy happiness (she can't understand why most of us don't think of her as being normal) and ole Sad'um turned out to be just what a good many of us expected him to be, a whining, sniveling coward that just happens to look like Merle Haggard when he's been hiding in a hole and not shaving for 10 months...As times get better, more of past forgotten Her statement triggered memories of sleeping at Grandma Trew's house in wintertime. My brother and I slept in long handles, socks, stocking caps and often had hot bricks or sad irons at our feet while we were crushed under a pile of homemade quilts and had to hit the floor running to reach the roaring wood stove in the living room to dress. Yes, I do appreciate a warm house and carpet. I can also relate to older men whose conscience bothers them when they sleep past sunup and sit at the breakfast table reading the paper. The lifetime habit of rising early and doing farm chores before daylight left roots extending deep into their subconscious...The Year in Country Music Books If this was a banner year in many ways for country music scholarship, it also underscored the fact that the market for serious country publications is centered in the distant past. Not even the recent past. Not that country music's history is not fascinating. But, that seems to be where audience -- and publisher -- interest is centered. With that in mind, here are several country music books from 2003 that are deserving of special attention...

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OPINION/COMMENTARY

Science behind the times?

Everyone who reads Science "the journal of the lobbying organization the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)" knows it only accepts one side of the global warming story in its "Compass" and "Perspectives" sections, and in its more opinionated, mainline articles. Anyone who writes otherwise for those sections gets a quick rejection. That's understandable because global warming is scheduled to pay U.S. scientists about $4.2 billion next year, and the AAAS is just doing its job keeping the customers happy.

But sometimes they go a little overboard in their one-sided zeal, particularly when they schedule so-called bombshell articles to coincide with the periodic meetings of the signatories to the United Nations' Climate Change treaty, discussing implementation of the (dead?) Kyoto Protocol. The most recent case of this funereal dance just ended in Milan, Italy...

Skeptical Environmentalist Vindicated!

The Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation today severely repudiated a board which, a year ago, had judged "The Skeptical Environmentalist," the best-selling book by Bjorn Lomborg, "objectively dishonest" and "clearly contrary to the standards of good scientific practice."

Lomborg's book -- with 2,930 footnotes, 1,800 bibliographical references, 173 figures and nine tables -- powerfully challenged the conventional wisdom that the world's environment was going to hell. When it was published in English in 2001, the book, published by the distinguished Cambridge University Press, was praised in The Washington Post, The Economist and elsewhere.

That reception provoked panic among radical greens. In early 2002, The Economist reported that "Mr. Lomborg is being called a liar, a fraud and worse. People are refusing to share a platform with him. He turns up in Oxford to talk about this book, and the author ... of a forthcoming study on climate change throws a pie in his face."...

EPA Seeks to Monitor GM Crops from Space

The Environmental Protection Agency has announced it is considering a project that would allow it to monitor gene-spliced crops from space. Experiments will begin in Spring 2004 to determine whether satellite surveillance can distinguish conventional from gene-spliced corn.

EPA’s proposal has led many to wonder whether there is something particularly sinister or worrisome about gene-spliced crops—in particular, corn that has been engineered for improved resistance to predatory insects. Is it potentially toxic, or more invasive than conventional corn? Does it have a history of stealing lunch money from children as they pass the fields en route to school?

In fact, the gene-spliced corn is wholesome, as well-behaved as any other variety, and has eliminated the need for millions of pounds of chemical pesticides. So why the attempt to monitor it, at tremendous effort and expense? Evidence suggests this is one of those examples of government intervention creating the need for more government intervention to correct a distortion government caused in the first place...

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NEWS ROUNDUP

Wolves kill calves, are sought in the Big Hole A pack of wolves recently picked the wrong place to settle down for a few days. About two weeks ago, wolves in the newly named Fox Creek Pack moved in on the Dooling Ranch near Jackson and killed four calves outright over three nights. Another calf died later from injuries. Now federal officials have decided the wolf pack will be killed. All they have to do is find the pack...Recreation top income producer in Bighorn forest Tourism dollars generated by the Bighorn National Forest far outweigh earnings from livestock grazing and timber harvesting, according to a University of Wyoming study. However, timbering is the only industry among the three that could produce more income under proposed changes to the forest's management plan, said David "Tex" Taylor, a UW professor of agricultural and applied economics...Editorial: Smart swap Rancher Fred Ruskin doesn't want to open up his high-elevation lands to development. But he says he will unless Congress authorizes a complex and controversial trade in which 35,000 acres of his land would go to the U.S. Forest Service. In return, Ruskin would receive about 27,000 acres of federal holdings on the northern boundary of his ranch and in Williams, Flagstaff, Camp Verde and Clarkdale. We believe the land exchange fosters smart development through water restrictions and enhances the environment by consolidating Forest Service lands. Congress should support it...Wolf advocates voice displeasure with MOU Wolf advocates are claiming the Memorandum of Understanding for the Mexican Wolf Reintroduction Project includes language that helps the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service "pass the buck." Center for Biological Diversity Wildlife Biologist Michael Robinson said the MOU does not require a Mexican Wolf Recovery Specialist, which is the position that is accountable for all wolf control decisions (such as re-releasing, trapping or killing wolves). He noted that the position under the old agreement has been left unfilled since its last occupant, Brian Kelly, resigned six months ago...Environment of controversy: Endangered Species Act set to turn 30 They're slimy, with beady eyes and pinching claws. They're reclusive, hiding beneath submerged algae-covered rocks. They might scuttle no more than a dozen feet from home in their decadelong lives. So who cares about the obscure Shasta crayfish? Jeff Cook does. And so does the law...Scientists warn that extinction can work its way up food chain It's been called Earth's sixth great extinction. But this time, climate change or a titanic asteroid can't be blamed. It's all on the shoulders of mankind -- considered by some of its own scientists as an "exterminator species." The Endangered Species Act is said to be among the most comprehensive wildlife conservation laws in the world, and it has brought some success. But on a planet-wide perspective, the statistics remain chilling...Column: Protecting Wildlife It's time to abandon the misguided idea that we are helping wildlife by surrounding Durango with wildlife preserves and by restricting recreation activities in the front country that one- or two-mile interface between urban and more isolated backcountry. Deer enjoy a treat at the expense of a Durango homeowner's landscaping. By planting and maintaining lush lawns, fruit trees and gardens, we provide an attractive feast for the wildlife living in the surrounding forests and public lands. Too often, however, those animals' search for food ends in death on our streets and highways. While our intentions are noble, the results are devastating for wildlife. For the past two weeks the pages of this paper have chronicled unacceptable increases in automobile-wildlife accidents. We have seen a disgusting example of an unsuspecting buck being lured into a yard, only to become tragically entangled in Christmas lights...Sedonans seek scenic designation Members of a Sedona group are pushing for a federal scenic designation that they believe will help preserve the red-rock region. Keep Sedona Beautiful is asking the Coconino County Board of Supervisors to support its effort to get the national forest lands of the Red Rock-Sedona area named a National Scenic Area by Congress...Anglers fishing --with restrictions -- for threatened coho Encouraged by relatively bountiful returns of Oregon's coastal coho salmon -- protected under the Endangered Species Act -- wildlife authorities are letting anglers have a go at the threatened fish for the first time in a decade...Fort Irwin expansion delayed again An environmental document needed for the expansion of the National Training Center at Fort Irwin won't be ready until 2004 -- years after military officials originally hoped to expand the post. The latest delay in the release of the lengthy draft environmental impact statement follows a series of delays in 2003 that have been pushing back the 110,000-acre expansion of the post north of Barstow. Key challenges in the environmental document are how to deal with two sensitive species -- one, a small reptile; the other, a small flowering plant. The desert tortoise and the Lane Mountain milkvetch are listed as "threatened" and "endangered," respectively, under the Endangered Species Act...Bush's environmental policies touch off national debate Standing before a group of schoolchildren, President Bush repeated an oft-stated promise that his environmental policies would stand on hard scientific research. "We'll base decisions on sound science," he said in 2001. "We'll call upon the best minds of America to help us achieve an objective, which is: cleaner air, cleaner water and a better use of our land." But the role of science in forging environmental policy has grown into a central controversy of Bush's presidency. Critics say that although Bush vowed to "rely on the best of evidence before deciding," many of his policies dismiss the scientific recommendations of federal agencies...New Snowmobile Rules Roil Yellowstone J. C. Sumner, a retired sheriff's deputy from Jacksonville, Fla., was one of the visitors trying to salvage his trip. Mr. Sumner came here for a snowmobiling vacation with eight family members. They planned months ago to rent snowmobiles and drive on their own to watch Old Faithful erupt. But when they arrived in Bozeman, Mont., on Thursday they found out about the judge's order and had to scurry to hire a guide, who offered more expensive snowmobiles, at an additional cost of $60 per person per day, for two days. "I think it stinks," Mr. Sumner said. "It's bad for business, it's bad for tourists, and it borders on being unethical."...New Grand Canyon train urged Grand Canyon Railway has proposed creating a $186 million high-speed light rail line aimed at easing traffic congestion along the South Rim. The railway currently runs daily tours from Williams to Grand Canyon Village in Arizona. Railway leaders said that under the proposal, high-speed rail service could begin in 2005 from Williams to the canyon and reduce the South Rim's vehicle traffic by 50 percent...Editorial: A snowmobile compromise? We favor a compromise. Limit machines to the cleaner new models. Set some reasonable cap on the number allowed each day. Limit riding to groomed roads, and require guides so nobody goes chasing after the animals or tries to shoot across a boiling pool. But don't completely ban the experience. The legal story is not over. Lawyers will dream up as many arguments as they can, and throw them at judges by the handful in the hope that at least one of them will stick. Opponents will fight it out to the bitter end. That's the way it works. A sensible compromise, returning a measure of peace to Yellowstone in winter, would be too easy...BLM proposes new grazing rule Center for Biological Diversity Ecologist and former BLM employee Daniel Patterson said, "It's a rip off in every single way." He predicted that if the rule is set into law, it will be challenged by many groups. What concerns Patterson the most is the detail that allows a permittee to share a title with the BLM for contributing to rangeland improvements, such as a fencing, water troughs, wells and pipelines. "It's a complete ripoff to the taxpayer," he said. "Not only is the taxpayer being fleeced to pay for wells, then a public lands permittee ends up owning it." Patterson said ranchers are heavily subsidized already, which is why he thinks they do not need the ability to share titles. "It's essentially a welfare system," he said. "It's at great cost to the environment and the taxpayer."...State attorney hopeful for water settlement The litigation is between the Gila Valley Irrigation District and the San Carlos Apache Irrigation and Drainage District, he said, but includes hundreds of parties who fall under both titles. The parties stretch from Kearny to Virden, N.M., he said. Both sides of the litigation have come to more agreeable numbers dictating how much water each party would be allocated, he said. The amounts of water are also compliant with the amounts dictated by Sen. John Kyl's (R-Ariz.) guidelines...Column: Public lands grazing, Poison or protection? We would welcome the opportunity to substantiate our contention that Bill Hedden, of the Grand Canyon Trust, and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument managers improperly collaborated in a scheme to permanently eliminate public lands grazing in violation of federal laws and regulations. Hedden did not seek to acquire grazing permits for the legal purpose of grazing livestock. According to records of the transaction, Hedden paid ranchers, under pressure and restrictions from the monument, to "unconditionally relinquish" their grazing permits to the BLM. Prearranged BLM commitments guaranteed that monument managers would "permanently eliminate" grazing from the allotments -- regardless of actual allotment conditions...Editorial: Bush should press for elevating status of EPA As a practical matter, every president since Gerald Ford has invited his administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency into his Cabinet. But the denial of permanent Cabinet rank puts the administrator at a symbolic and psychological disadvantage against the Cabinet secretaries and foreign governments with whom he or she must negotiate. It also signals the Cabinet secretaries and foreign governments that the United States isn't fully committed to solving the world's most serious and pressing environmental problems, such as climate change and mercury pollution... Drought Has West in Chokehold After five years of distressingly low rain and snowfall, a drought is hammering the West harder than ever, causing multibillion-dollar economic losses and prompting unprecedented measures in many states to cope with less water. With the start of winter, little optimism exists that the coming months will fix the problems. Weather forecasts are equivocal. Explosive population growth, environmental lawsuits to divert water for wildlife and below-average precipitation have put a strain on the big federal reservoirs that supply the West but were designed decades ago when the outlook was far different...Railroad to increase shipping rates Domestic rates for wheat and corn will increase $100 per train car and soybeans will increase between $200 and $260 per car next month, he said. Corn will rise by another $100 per car in February, according to Melonas. Bob Way, a Mitchell grain merchant, said he hasn't seen a shipping increase that big in a long time. "We see it fluctuate up and down a little bit, but this is a big one."...Voracious cactus moth crosses Florida on way to Southwest, Mexico Native to South America, the gray-brown moth is a minor pest in the Southeast, dining on ornamentals and a few native species. But it could cause economic and environmental havoc in the American Southwest and in Mexico, which is where it is headed. And infestations discovered across the Florida Panhandle show that it is gaining speed...Sugar Farmers Seeking Allies Against CAFTA Finding Little Help Red River Valley sugar beet growers who are seeking allies in their battle against the Central American Free Trade Agreement aren't getting much help from other farmers. Producers of other commodities have largely pledged their support for CAFTA. "We're in favor of greater market access and these agreements offer that," said Wade Moser, executive vice president of the North Dakota Stockmen's Association. "We have to do what is right for our producers."...Editorial: Trade agreement worth fight But protectionism is bad policy in the long run. The agreement will reduce trade barriers for U.S. companies seeking to increase exports and do business in the Central American nations. And lower American trade barriers are good for consumers. U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, noted that Texas farmers and ranchers expect to gain immediate benefits when the agreement is finally approved...Mad cow scare cuts into rodeo About 10% of the top bucking bulls on the rodeo circuit were absent from this year's national finals in Las Vegas due to the border closure after the mad cow case surfaced. "It's not just the producers and the packers and that run into this problem - it affects us in the rodeo business," said Calgary Exhibition and Stampede rodeo and ranch manager Robin Burwash. "It's not just the one event. We also take a number of bulls down to (Professional Bull Riders) events. Plus, we were also campaigning our top bull Outlaw - he's 63-1, right now - to try and get him to the finals and then maybe get some votes for Bucking Bull of the Year."...The Less - than - Hushed Life of a Horse Whisperer Sshhh. Keep it quiet, but a horse whisperer does not speak in hushed tones to his equine charges. Inform the New Age enthusiasts that there is no mystical connection between a horse whisperer and a horse. There are, however, a lot of common-sense interactions, perhaps the crash of a bull whip on the dirt, and the always reliable bond formed through a few gentle rubs...Mounted Police to Patrol Houston Airport George Bush Intercontinental Airport officials, looking to bolster patrols of their 11,000-acre facility, have decided to hoof it. A volunteer mounted police force called the Airport Rangers will patrol the perimeter of the city's largest airport, the Houston Airport System announced Friday. "Horses can go where vehicles can't go and we can also have the ability of people riding through the woods,'' said airport director Rick Vacar, who came up with the idea...Wyoming to fight Texas group over bucking bronc logo Wyoming's famed bucking horse and rider symbol is being rustled by a Texas group, state officials claim. Wyoming officials expect a court battle with Texas Stampede, an organization that stages concerts and professional rodeos to benefit children at two Dallas hospitals. The organization has been using a bucking horse and rider since its inception in 2001. Its logo is similar to Wyoming's, but the horse faces left instead of right. Both symbols show a cowboy holding his hat overhead aboard a bronc with its back arched and rear hooves lifted...Down syndrome ride reaches Alamo Davy Crockett returned to the Alamo on Sunday, this time to fight public misperceptions rather than Santa Anna's army. Crockett descendant Phil Thomas -- dressed in buckskins and a coonskin hat -- dismounted his horse in front of the Shrine of Texas Liberty so he could wrap his arms around grandson Van Warden, a 14-year-old Austin boy who was born with Down syndrome. Thomas re-enacted Crockett's 1,100-mile trek from Tennessee to Texas in order to raise money and public respect for people with Down syndrome, a genetic disorder that affects 350,000 Americans...Records reveal Miles City survived Depression on 'madam money' Allison has found only one register of prostitutes, covering 1915-1917, but it is full of revealing information. The register first served as a listing of impounded horses, cows and mules, and the fees their owners had to pay to get them back. Then, a little way into the volume, it switches to a monthly register of bordello owners and the women working for them. Many of the infamous madams are there - Jennie Bowman, Frankie Dwyer, Ruby Smith, Frankie Blair, Anna Wade and Belle Wade. If a new girl arrived in town, it was duly noted in the margin where she came from. If she left a particular bordello, it was noted where she had gone. One month, for instance, the register shows prostitutes arriving from Billings, Terry, Glendive, Helena, Livingston, St. Paul, Minn., Portland, Ore., and Spokane, Wash., and departing for Roundup, Wibaux, Billings, Jordan, Glasgow, Butte, St. Paul, Portland and Kansas City. Some of the girls left one bordello to work at another Miles City establishment, and some left to be married. The register also notes which of the people listed at each bordello were not prostitutes but were working as housekeepers or cooks. That was an important distinction, because only the madams and their working girls had to pay a monthly "nonprocess fee."... "Sleigh Bells" Ring for Applegate Mule Team For Jacksonville's "Old-Fashioned Victorian Christmas" weekends, Henderson dressed up her wagon and mules, Gypsy and Duster, giving free wagon rides to children of all ages. Her mule-drawn wagon has over the years become the highlight of Jacksonville's downtown holiday offerings. Real sleigh bells jingled as Henderson drove Gypsy and Duster across California Street and a woman in the back of the wagon led the others in the first round of a Christmas song. That would be "Jingle Bells" of course...Chasing Horses I can't have ridden far through the Christmas hills--maybe three or four miles--when I came over a rise and spotted one of the horses skittering in front of a worn farmhouse. Standing in the yard was a woman, a rope in one hand and her other hand held up empty toward the horse. She was hatless and tiny, hardly bigger than I was, with a man's heavy riding coat hanging down below her knees, and she seemed very old to me. Yellow light streamed out on the cold ground from the one lit window of the house...

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