Board of Livestock meeting July 26

Brucellosis Designated Surveillance Area

DSA: The board approved changes in administrative rules to adjust the DSA’s boundaries and revise animal identification requirements for animals leaving DSA.

The first change - adjusting the DSA's boundary in a portion of Beaverhead and Madison counties (see attached map) - was necessitated by a recent Department of Fish, Wildlife & Parks study that found brucellosis-exposed elk in the Ruby Range, where such elk were previously not known to exist. The DSA boundary adjustments were the focus of public meetings in Alder and Ennis, and were well received by the ranching community in those areas.

The second change, regarding animal identification, requires all sexually intact cattle to be individually identified. The change follows import requirements recently implemented by several destination states for Montana cattle and a similar rule recently enacted in Wyoming. The previous rule required all sexually intact cattle 12 months and older to be individually identified.

Implemented in January 2009, the DSA is a disease management area for parts of Beaverhead, Gallatin, Madison and Park counties. It is designed to reduce the risk of brucellosis transmission from infected wildlife to domestic livestock, and to protect the state's ability to market cattle to other states.