By CELESTE BAUMGARTNER

Ohio Correspondent

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — The Indiana State Board of Animal Health (BOAH) is releasing the quarantine on a farm in Franklin County where veterinarians found bovine tuberculosis (TB) in the spring of 2016.

The Department of Natural Resources’ Division of Wildlife reported that all hunter-harvested deer sampled from 2016 to 2018 tested negative for bovine TB in Franklin and nearby Fayette counties, so surveillance will not be as intense in 2019.

What has Indiana learned from this episode? Denise Derrer, a spokesperson for BOAH, had some suggestions for cattle producers to avoid any taint of TB. The No. 1 thing is to be sure that any animal a producer is buying, selling, or leasing has permanent identification such as ear tags.

“Those really make a difference,” she said. “Also, when you sell your animals, make sure you keep a record of who it was sold to; when you’re purchasing, be certain to have the names and addresses of both parties, the names, and animal identification number that is on that tag.

“That is important when we get into these investigations. There seem to be random cases that pop up, and we hear about another case of bTB. If the owners have the ID of the animals, and the fact that the producer kept records, makes a big difference in the ability for us to trace the animals.”

If BOAH shows up at your farm investigating an animal, and you have a record saying you bought that animal then sold it three months later but didn’t keep a record, BOAH may have to test all of the cows on your farm.

“Recordkeeping and identification can help exclude you and include you,” Derrer said. “Ask your veterinarian what the risk is and if you should do testing for anything (when) you are acquiring animals.”

Also when buying cattle or getting a lease bull, especially high-value animals, she urged asking about herd history and health. Producers should ask their veterinarian’s advice about having the animals tested for bovine TB, especially if the disease is in that area. There aren’t a lot of places where TB is widespread; however, there are spots where it continues to pop up.

It didn’t, however, pop up in the hunter-harvested whitetail deer population in Fayette and Franklin counties. Due to the risk of transmission between cattle and wild deer, a total of 2,047 hunter-harvested deer were sampled for bovine TB during the 2016-17 hunting season and 541 deer were sampled during the 2017-18 season, according to the Indiana DNR.

All hunter-harvested deer sampled tested negative for bovine TB. These results suggest that through the 2017-18 hunting season, the prevalence of TB in wild deer within the BOAH surveillance zone remained at levels that were undetectable by the methods used.

As a result, the DNR will not conduct the intensive TB surveillance in Fayette and Franklin counties during this hunting season as were performed during the past two years.