By CELESTE BAUMGARTNER

Ohio Correspondent

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — Having a veterinarian test his cattle for bovine tuberculosis (TB) was an inconvenience, but it had to be done, said Dave White, a cattle producer in Brookville who owns White’s Livestock Auction and is the market representative on the Indiana State Board of Animal Health (BOAH).

“It’s like plowing the roads when they’re snowy,” he said. “It is an inconvenience, but testing is the only way they can handle it. The producers that are equipped to handle cattle, it’s just a matter of taking time. The producers that don’t have facilities, it is kind of a nuisance for them because they don’t have head chutes and gates.”

Most cattle producers did not feel inconvenienced, White said. The state was cooperative and tried to allow producers to find the most convenient time to do the testing, he explained.

“They made it as painless as possible,” he said.

Bovine TB has plagued southeastern Indiana in recent years. In 2008 a single beef cow from Franklin County tested positive for it. In 2009, just down the road, a farmed cervid site with red deer, fallow deer and elk was depopulated because of TB. Again in 2010 and 2016, a few Franklin County beef cattle tested positive.

In December 2016, BOAH launched a three-mile testing area around the farm where it found the positive cattle. Then it uncovered another positive herd within the testing zone. When a culled 3-year-old whitetail deer in that zone tested positive – the first wild case in Indiana – the surveillance zone had to be expanded to 10 miles. Investigators also found an infected raccoon.

The West Fork of the Whitewater River runs near all these cases of TB, said Dr. Bret Marsh, state veterinarian. Because deer follow that river, BOAH added two miles on either side of the river corridor to the surveillance zone.

“Testing is nearly complete,” said Denise Derrer, public information director for BOAH. “We have one untested farm left in the core surveillance area (CSA). Retests have been completed on 65 of 66 test-eligible farms.

“Additionally, we continue to test the cattle on the one quarantined herd. If any animals test positive, they are removed from the herd. We did not have any new positives during the last round of tests.”

That farm remains under quarantine until the herd can complete several successive all-negative, whole-herd tests, Derrer said. This will likely continue through the end of the year.

“Tuberculosis continues to be a challenge for us over the years in southeastern Indiana, and yet we’ve done everything I know to do with regard to testing cattle herds, testing in the wildlife population,” Marsh said. “We’ve had excellent cooperation from producers, the veterinarian community, extension service and everyone has been helpful. We’re not aware of any additional infection.”

Whitetail deer surveillance was conducted throughout the hunting season for the last two years, Marsh said. Except for the one deer in 2016, no others have tested positive. USDA will review the situation next month, to be sure the state hasn’t missed anything.

Because of the genetic testing scientists did on the TB lesions on cattle, they found all of the southeastern tuberculosis cases were related, and they relate back to the farmed cervid site that was depopulated in 2009. It is still a mystery how the disease traveled to the other sites, Marsh said.

“I’m encouraged with where we are; we still have more to do,” he explained.