Poring through bills of lading and records of livestock brands, and tapping into a new national cattle database, Canadian investigators are trying to profile the life of a single cow that has tested positive for mad cow disease, a discovery that has left the North American food industry stunned.
What is known is that the cow was about eight years old and was sick when it was slaughtered. It most recently lived in the northern Peace River region of the western province of Alberta. What is not known is where the cow was born, or how it contracted the illness.
Until those questions and others are answered, the extent of the problem facing the beef industry, from the small Canadian farmer to McDonald's, will remain a puzzle.
The hope is that the case is an isolated incident limited to just one cow, but the mystery, in a country that prides itself on its strict standards, is how the disease got to that cow.
Dozens of federal and provincial investigators based in Calgary and Edmonton are working to crack the case. In the meantime, trade in Canadian cattle has come to a standstill.
"It's like any detective work -- you go from one piece of evidence back to the other and then interview people, ask them what they know, look at their records," said Claude Lavigne, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency's main spokesman for the investigation.
Lavigne would not identify the most recent owner of the cow, but CBC Television said the farm is near the small town of Wanham, Alberta.
So far, investigators have discovered the cow spent time on two other farms, where herds have now been quarantined. Lavigne said he didn't know where the herds are or their sizes.
Investigators have also identified 211 calves that came from the Wanham farm this year.
Those calves will also be separated from their herdmates and quarantined, Lavigne said.
The calves were found using a new nationwide ear tag numbering database designed to quickly trace cattle from birth to death.
But the 2-year-old database does not go back far enough to determine where the infected cow came from.
"This cow was born and sold long before our program was initiated," said Brad Wildeman, chairman of the Canadian Cattle Identification Agency, which runs the ear-tag database.
So investigators have turned to one of the oldest methods for identifying cattle -- their brands.
Scarred into the hips, shoulders or ribs of cattle with a hot iron wielded by their owners, brands have been used by generations of ranchers to identify cattle that traditionally spend summers roaming the range.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese