Bill would alter disease testing protocol for livestock

Caven Wade UM Legislative News Service University of Montana School of Journalism

A bill passed by the House of Representatives would require ranchers  to corral livestock when the Department of Livestock requests to test animals for disease. The bill is now in the Senate.

Rep. Ross Fitzgerald, R-Fairfield, is sponsoring House Bill 100, which allows the Department of Livestock to levy fees against Montana ranchers if they do not adequately corral animals for inspection of dangerous contaminants and diseases.

“It turned into a requirement to cooperate with the Department of Livestock in testing of herds around the state of Montana to prevent spread of disease. It’s a safety and efficiency bill,” Fitzgerald said during a hearing on the bill in the Senate Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation Committee Feb. 7.

Under current law, the department can require livestock testing for diseases and animal health if there is a reasonable threat to animal and human safety. Fitzgerald said this often leads the department to test several herds within the affected area, but currently, owners have no legal obligation to get and present the livestock for testing.

“This means that limited state resources, in terms of personnel and equipment, may need to be used to round up animals from one or multiple pastures,” Fitzgerald said.

He also said that this bill will allow the inspections to be more timely if ranchers already have their cattle ready and available to be inspected.

The bill passed through the House 85-11 on Jan. 26 and awaits a vote from the Senate committee.

In 2021, a Minnesota packing plant flagged cattle from Blaine County as having a rare livestock disease called bovine tuberculosis, which led to mass testing and quarantining that fell on the department’s shoulders.

Dr. Tahnee Szymanski, assistant state veterinarian of the Department of Livestock, and three others spoke in support of the bill. She said the department tested close to 100 herds within the last year due to the outbreak and that it took a massive amount of staff to corral all the cattle before even beginning the testing process.

Szymanski said the department has worked on several ways to trace diseases like brucellosis and bovine tuberculosis over the past couple of years. Still, there has also been an increase in the department’s staff being required to round up animals and do all the heavy lifting during inspections.

“The department is a relatively small entity, and for us to pull crews that are large enough to pull that feat off we were pulling from hundreds of miles away,” Szymanski said. “We’re trying to model after what we’ve seen in other states for this similar requirement, have folks present their livestock so that we can complete the testing efficiently.”

Dr. Jeanne Rankin, a ranch veterinarian and owner was the only opponent to the bill. She said she supports the bill’s principle but was skeptical about the requirement in the bill that owners stay with their livestock during the inspection process and believes the addition of allowing an agent to be present should be enough.

“We have a lot of absentee owners, we may have, I might be out there after a terrible car crash and be in a wheelchair, and I’m not going to be much help,” Rankin said.

Rankin also said that she is against the bill adding fees into the Montana code for ranchers who don’t meet the requirements. She said she would rather see the fees be kept in department rules because the department already can administer fees on ranchers based on the cost of the operation.

The committee did not take immediate action on the bill.

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Caven Wade is a student reporter with the UM Legislative News Service, a partnership of the University of Montana School of Journalism, the Montana Broadcasters Association, the Montana Newspaper Association and the Greater Montana Foundation. He can be reached at [email protected].