The Animal Health Board (AHB) has successfully prosecuted a Waiuku farmer for the illegal sale of cattle from a bovine tuberculosis (TB) infected herd. Geoffrey William Muir pleaded guilty at the Pukekohe District Court today to moving and selling cattle in breach of a restricted place notice imposed by the AHB in June 2008.Muir was fined $30,000 and $140 court costs. The AHB was awarded $10,454 in costs and $2,500 in legal costs. Muir was convicted on four charges of failing to notify the movement of an infected herd, making a false and misleading declaration, moving cattle to a third party’s farm and knowingly selling 157 cattle from a herd that was suspected of harbouring TB reports Scoop.

AHB chief executive William McCook said the prosecution showed the AHB would take action against farmers who fail to abide by livestock movement regulations. “It is clearly unacceptable that one man put his fellow farmers at risk for his own pecuniary gain. Selling cattle from a herd that is suspected or known to harbour bovine TB could have serious consequences for the national TB control programme. “We know a vast majority of the 73,000 cattle and deer farmers in New Zealand willingly comply with movement control restrictions and expect us to come down hard on those farmers who do not.

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AHB Chief executive William McCook said some changes in tuberculosis control priorities are proposed in a discussion paper sent to cattle and deer farmers this week reports Scoop. The document seeks feedback on the five-year review process for the AHB’s national bovine tuberculosis strategy. Mr McCook said, “Fieldays provides a timely opportunity for people to obtain more information about the strategy review and to question staff about our wildlife control and disease management programmes.  “While much progress has been made, tuberculosis continues to pose a threat to livestock and, by definition, can be devastating for herd owners. Possums, in particular, are known to transmit the disease to farmed cattle and deer.

“To effectively control tuberculosis, the AHB needs to sustain possum numbers at low, even levels. In places where terrain or the sheer size of an area is an issue and ground control is impractical and/or too costly aerial application of 1080 remains highly effective.” Mr McCook stressed that 1080 has been approved by the Environmental Risk Management Authority (ERMA) and its use is subject to strict regulation and controls. He said as well as possums, the poison kills other pests, such as stoats and rats, which harm native wildlife and destroy forests.

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When the kowhai trees flower, Otaki deer farmers the Croads have to take cover from low-flying feathered wood pigoens says The Dom Post . The fat birds are joined by big flocks of tui and bellbirds in descending on the garden from the nearby Tararua forest park in search of food and shelter. The birdsong is disturbingly raucous. They have been farming on the slopes of the Tararua Range behind Otaki for 30 years but the birdlife has only appeared in such numbers in recent years.

 Errol traces the change to the rejuvenation of the park’s native bush after an intensive possum-killing campaign. The reason for the possum cull was a tuberculosis outbreak in his deer herd. It changed Mr Croad’s life, “It knocks you financially and emotionally and leaves you questioning your abilities as a farmer.”As a longtime deer hunter he supported the Deerstalkers Association’s belief that 1080 was unacceptable; that it killed not only possums but all bird and animal life. But he wanted the possums and ferrets – carriers of the Tb that had devastated his farm – gone.

“It was the best thing that could have happened,” he says. “It zeroed the possums and killed all the ferrets and wild cats. The bush regrowth has been amazing and the bird life has exploded.” He is now a firm supporter of 1080.