January 18, 2004 Oregonian by MICHELLE COLE

It's a revolving door of the hoofed that has long blended cattle from Canada and the nearby United States -- and routinely sold them back to processors in both countries.

Mad cow disease makes that painfully clear, with U.S. officials persistent in blaming the Washington state mad cow incident on a Canadian cow, and Paskal is sharp on the point.

"It isn't a Canadian problem. It isn't Washington state's problem," Paskal says, pulling his pickup to a stop alongside a feeding pen. "It's a North American problem because of the integration of our herds."

In the pen were about 200 head, standing at troughs munching grain or clustering on manure mounds for warmth against frigid prairie winds. And just as surely as mad cow disease has hit his business hard, Paskal said that among those 200 cattle were an uncertain number of U.S.-born heifers.

For years the U.S.-Canada border hadn't really existed. The U.S. herds and Canadian herds were one. Trade statistics prove that out. In Alberta, that fact is popularly assumed. Alberta newspapers, radio announcers and government officials all referred last week to the two cases of mad cow disease "in North America."

A few years ago, Paskal bought and sold 100,000 head of cattle annually, and as many as half the animals could have been born in the United States and then sent back to the United States for slaughter. But the United States closed its border in May to cattle, after an infected cow was found in Alberta; and Canada announced restrictions on U.S. cattle in December, following the Washington case. Last week, Paskal's inventory was down to about 40,000 head, and many of his pens were empty.

Canadian wholesale cattle prices dropped more than 75 percent last spring and forced Paskal, a practical man who keeps a roll of duct tape on his truck's gear shift, to lay off a quarter of his staff. The Dec. 23 discovery of the sick Washington Holstein brought calls from Paskal's banker, who advised him to stop buying cattle.

Before the current ban, between 50 percent and 70 percent of the cattle and beef that Canada exported went to the United States. Canada sent more than 1 million head of cattle to the United States for slaughter in 2002, according to the Canadian Cattlemen's Association. Another half-million head were sent directly to the United States for feeding prior to slaughter, and nearly 90,000 head went from Canada to U.S. dairies and cattle breeders.

The United States is a necessary and obliging partner in this equation. Canada produces far more beef than its population consumes and far more than its slaughterhouses can handle. Even while the ban on live animals remains, the United States in September again allowed shipments of processed beef derived from animals 30 months or younger because scientists think those animals pose no risk of having or spreading mad cow disease.

U.S. ranchers seek share In recent years, U.S. cattle ranchers have lobbied hard to make sure that the trade gate swings both ways. "It's a little bit of a sore spot with some ranchers who see load after load of fat cattle (from Canada) moving through Montana," said Steve Pilcher, executive vice president of the Montana Stockgrowers Association.

Still, Pilcher said: "We've been able to increase and develop a market for Montana feeder cattle. It has grown from less than 100 head of cattle going into Canada eight or 10 years ago, to a couple of years ago, when 80,000 feeder calves from Montana alone were sent to Alberta."

South of here, at the border checkpoint straddling Sweet Grass, Mont., and Coutts, Alberta, construction workers are finishing a $30 million customs complex operated by the U.S. and Canadian governments. For cattle and meat shipments, this is one of the busiest ports of entry.

"The border exists because of national concerns. But even if the building were closed, you wouldn't see any different mix in terms of trade products," said Tom Urie, a U.S. Customs Service officer who oversees agricultural goods coming through Sweet Grass.

Thursday morning, Urie was called to oversee a load of processed beef as well as a load containing bull semen moving from Canada into the United States.

U.S. Customs Service officials say 9,000 truckloads of live Canadian cattle, or about 400,000 head, passed through this checkpoint on the way south into the United States in 2002. Another 20,600 truckloads filled with carcasses and boxed meat also crossed into the United States here. The United States sent 50,000 head of live cattle to Canada in 2002 and more than 200,000 head in 2001.

Prime location. Part of Alberta's draw is proximity. A good number of the live cattle from the United States were destined for southern Alberta and its feedlots -- all situated closer to Montana, the Dakotas and parts of Idaho and Wyoming than U.S. feedlots in Illinois, Iowa and Nebraska.

Paskal said he and other Alberta feedlot owners also enjoy a cheap and plentiful supply of feed grown on southern Alberta's rolling grasslands. One year, Paskal said, he and his partner brought up 265,000 head from the United States.

Paskal's feedlots are designed to hold as many as 25,000 animals. As many as 250 cattle live in pens about an acre in size. They eat an average of 30 pounds a day of a rich mix of barley, corn silage and vitamin supplements. They also receive hormone implants and regular health checks.

Antibiotics are administered, as needed. But Paskal said there is a cutoff point, when medication gets too expensive and the animal is euthanized instead and not processed for beef. He said he's prepared to lose 1 percent of the herd -- two heifers a day on each lot -- to illness.

Paskal's task on the feedlot is narrow: to fatten the cattle as much as is practically and economically possible during an average five months' stay. And to do it in such a way that the animals go without bellowing, stomping or fighting.

"We don't want to put these cattle under any stress," Paskal said. "I want to make sure they are happy."

That would extend, it seems, to Paskal. He'd like robust cattle trade between Canada and the United States to resume to normal -- but not as business as usual.

He's written letters to government officials in both countries calling for a North American strategy on bovine spongiform encephalopathy. Although both governments have meat and cattle feed bans on brains, spinal cords and other parts known to spread the disease, Paskal would like to stop those materials from being rendered into chicken and other animal feeds. He wants the United States, too, to have tougher inspections to ensure that banned feed isn't mistakenly fed to cattle.

Paskal also favors testing of all cattle more than 30 months old and better identification and tracking of cattle born in the United States. Only then, he said, will the North American cattle and beef industry have the full confidence of the consumer.