February 15, 2004 Telegraph Herald (Dubuque, IA) by IRA DREYFUSS

The system would help authorities track down livestock exposed to infectious disease. The livestock could be quarantined or killed, which would prevent the spread of diseases and keep slaughterhouses from processing the animals into food for people or feed for other animals.

December's first U.S. case of mad cow disease highlighted the need for such an identification system. Spotty livestock records and the lack of a national tracking process have stymied investigators trying to determine the scope of America's possible exposure to mad cow.

So far, only the one Washington state Holstein with bovine spongiform encephalopathy has been found. An international committee of experts has concluded there probably are other cows with the disease.

Because the likely source of the brain-wasting infection was contaminated feed, authorities have scrambled to find other cattle that could have shared the feed.

Veneman told the Senate Agriculture Committee in January that the department "will be expediting the implementation of a verifiable system of national animal identification." But earlier this month, the secretary said at an agribusiness luncheon, "I don't have a timeline."

The animal ID program initially was created to respond to possible agricultural terrorism and to fast-spreading diseases such as foot and mouth. Mad cow disease, which can lay dormant for years, "has added in some variables to what we may need identification for," Veneman said.

Planners had set up a series of timelines, however, and not all of them require final decisions on how to identify individual animals.

Officials expect to have systems in place in July to let states, which will administer their parts of the national system, give identification numbers to every facility that raises livestock, said Ohio cattleman Gary Wilson, a member of department's Animal Identification Steering Committee. Also, planners are working toward a goal of July 2005 to have systems ready so producers can label their animals with national ID numbers.