Mounted search and rescue

["IRVIN LICHTENSTEIN" <ilichten1@verizon.net>]

While chipping may provide proof of ownership without a brand or tattoo it does not survive slaughter.  The primary purpose for which NAIS was/is being pushed is to provide a means to track a contaminated animal back to its source.  No matter how the animal is identified it identification must be individual, unique, and available at the time the contamination is detected.  To do this effectively the slaughterhouse would have to record the ID on every animal that came in and either track which pieces went into which batches or keep the individual animal’s parts separate.  Then they could identify what is in the bad batch of meat and start the trace. 

 

The trace process requires that owners keep records of what animal went where and every sale or transfer of the meat or intact animal. It also requires tracing offspring by contact or AI breeding in case the problem is genetic.  The program was sold on the basis that current marking techniques for cows (ear tags), sheep (none, ear tags, tattoos, etc) would be sufficient so meat producers would not incur extra costs for identification, and minimize the paperwork involved to register animal movements.

 

Why equine were included is anybody’s guess but probably to make money for the chip and reader makers since they weren’t going to get any from the cow and sheep people.  Chickens and other fowl are exempt from individual identification by the way.

 

If this program would do anything I would support it. But from a meat eater’s perspective it does not identify anything or really facilitate traceback once the animal is slaughtered and enters the food stream.  Let’s spend the money on something useful, like replacing Coggins tests with real virus detection tests and creating a dead virus vaccine for EIA.

 

Irv Lichtenstein