Third Herd Is Quarantined

The Agriculture Department said Friday it has quarantined a third cattle herd in Washington state after locating another cow from the Canadian shipment believed to have contained the animal with the nation’s first known case of mad cow disease.

W. Ron DeHaven, the department’s deputy administrator and chief veterinary officer, said that a dairy farm near Yakima was quarantined this week when the cow was found.

With the discovery of that animal, he said, the government now has located 11 of the 82 cows from an Alberta herd that was shipped into Washington state in September 2001, and it has good leads on many of the others.

DeHaven said the agency was searching for the animals not because it feared they could spread the disease, but because tracing them might help authorities identify the source of potentially contaminated feed consumed by the cow when it was young.

That feed could have been the source of the infection.

Nonetheless, he said, the animals in all the quarantined herds may be slaughtered to ease public concerns about the safety of American beef.

DeHaven said the agency might begin paying farmers to turn in sick cows.

The Agriculture Department, which banned sick or injured cattle from being slaughtered for human food earlier this week, wants the animals, known as “downers,” so they can be tested for mad cow disease.

“Providing some financial incentive [to farmers] ... is one of many” measures under discussion, DeHaven said.

“Right now, all options are on the table.”

DeHaven said the U.S. and Canadian governments were moving forward with testing the DNA of the infected Holstein -- as well as semen from the bull believed to be its father -- to confirm whether it did originate, as now suspected, from a herd in Alberta.

He said the governments expect to have an answer next week, although even those findings may not be conclusive.

“While the DNA testing may enable us to make a definitive determination, it is just one piece of information, and there’s always opportunity for error,” DeHaven said.