Photo by George Lauby Louis Day

Another mad cow has been found in Canada, spreading alarm through U.S. ranch country.

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So far, 14 mad cows have been found since 2003 in cattle born in Canada. Despite the danger, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has allowed Canadian cows to come into the United States if the cows are born after March 1, 1999.

Canada ’s latest BSE case was in a five-year-old Holstein from British Columbia, born in 2003.

“While we sympathize with Canada ’s producers, we do not want them to export their problems to the United States,” said Louis Day of Valentine, a board member of the Independent Cattlemen of Nebraska.

Day and other cattlemen were somewhat pleased with a July 3 U.S. District court ruling, requiring the USDA to take more comments on Canadian cows entering the U.S.

Judge Lawrence L. Piersol ordered the USDA to promptly provide notice and comment on such provisions and revise any provisions it deems necessary.

It is the third time in five years that a federal court changed the USDA’s procedures of allowing more Canadian beef into the U.S. after an appeal by the Cattlemen-Ranchers Action Legal Fund, a group commonly known as R-CALF-USA, and other groups.

Lax Canadian precautions

Like U.S. officials, Canada officials banned cattle feeds such as bonemeal and bloodmeal in 1997, because those feeds can increase bovine spongiform encephalopathy, commonly called mad cow disease.

Only one case of BSE has been reported in a U.S. cow since 1997, indicating that such feeds were indeed common causes of mad cow disease.

U.S. cattlemen have looked critically at Canada’s enforcement of the feed ban, since eight of the 14 Canadian mad cow cases occurred in cows born after 1997. Because only a few cattle are tested for the disease, it's likely there are more mad cows in Canada, R-CALF has said.

Day said “truckload after truckload” of Canadian cattle are currently shipped to U.S. packing plants, and Canadian beef is mixed with disease-free American beef.

Day said imported cattle should be tested before entering the U.S. food supply, either at the border or at plants before the cattle are slaughtered.

Day said he can understand if other countries, such as Japan and Korea, lack confidence that U.S. beef is free of mad cow disease, and he said Mandatory-Country of Origin Labeling of beef, which Congress ordered the USDA to implement, will allow consumers to buy only U.S. beef.