Traceability key to preventing mental health impact from cow/calf herd depopulation.

“Livestock Epidemics & Depopulation: The Mental Health Impact on Agricultural Producers and Veterinarians” is an important new report from AgWell Alberta. Authored by Doctor Rebecca Purc-Stephenson and others, the report compellingly documents the devastating mental health impact to ranching families when a herd has to be depopulated to resolve livestock disease incidents.

From the report:

Mass euthanasia of livestock is part of a complex process in the agricultural industry called depopulation, a process of quickly and efficiently killing an entire herd or flock of animals in response to an emergency situation and doing so as quickly and as humanely as possible using established guidelines.

The report identifies “biosecurity measures” as the primary tool to prevent depopulation. Biosecurity is critical and effective for facility based livestock production (e.g. dairy, poultry, pork) and is applied in some aspects of beef production.

But cows and calves spend their entire lives outdoors, often removed from human supervision and management. The sole tool available to prevent cow/calf herd depopulation is livestock traceability.

Livestock animal identification and traceability ensures an independent and accurate register of current and historic animal location so that resources can be rapidly and efficiently dispatched when disease providing risk to human or animal health is detected. Rapid and effective response reduces the number of animals, and number of herds, impacted by a disease outbreak.

Canada’s traceability practices and technologies remain largely unchanged from when the system was commissioned in 2000. Deficiencies identified in 2013 as part of post-recovery investigation after the Canadian BSE crises, and the necessary resolutions identified in 2016, remain unimplemented in 2025.

New tools and approaches are necessary if Canada’s livestock traceability system is going to minimize the necessity for ranch depopulation and address other emerging challenges to human and animal health. We invite you to read our discussion paper Time to pull this calf ourselves: Canada’s beef industry must find our own path to livestock traceability.