Buffalo herd to be slaughtered

A buffalo herd -- in pens on the edge of Fort Resolution -- faces slaughter after bovine tuberculosis was discovered in one of the over 130 animals. Elimination of the herd will cost $200,000-$300,000. Another option was to return the herd to the Hook Lake area where the original animals came.

Buffalo herd to be slaughtered

Paul Bickford
Northern News Services

Fort Resolution (July 25/05) - A nine-year project to create a disease-free bison herd has hit a dead end.

The herd -- in pens on the edge of Fort Resolution -- faces slaughter after bovine tuberculosis was discovered in one of the over 130 animals.

"It's dormant, but still there," says Environment and Natural Resources Minister Michael Miltenberger.

The herd will be "depopulated," he says, although disease-free calves might be saved if federal funding is found.

All slaughtered animals will be tested to discover how the disease entered the herd.

Miltenberger says signs of tuberculosis were found in a three-year-old animal during a routine cull in March. The disease was confirmed by sample testing by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA).

Calls to community leaders were not returned by press time.

Calves could be certified disease-free by the CFIA to try to salvage the herd.

"But that takes money," Miltenberger says, noting no GNWT funding is available.

The GNWT has solely funded the herd with $3 million over nine years, he notes. "It was not sustainable by us alone."

The whole herd will be slaughtered, unless federal funding comes "very, very quickly," he says.

A small number of animals will be destroyed in Fort Resolution. The rest will be taken to a slaughterhouse in Alberta, Miltenberger says. "By next spring, it will all be done."

Elimination of the herd will cost $200,000-$300,000. Another option was to return the herd to the Hook Lake area where the original animals came.

Meeting in Fort Resolution

On July 14, Miltenberger and GNWT biologists held a public meeting in Fort Resolution on the situation.

Miltenberger, also minister of Health and Social Services, assured people there is no human health risk from the bovine tuberculosis.

The project began in 1996 as part of an idea to eliminate and then replace the Wood Buffalo National Park bison herd, which is infected with bovine tuberculosis and brucellosis. The controversial idea of eliminating the park herd never became a reality.