March 18, 2009

LANSING - The Michigan departments of Agriculture (MDA) and Natural Resources (DNR) today announced that routine bovine Tuberculosis (TB) surveillance resulted in the identification of a bovine TB positive Iosco County hunter-harvested deer in the 2008 hunting season taken on the border of the bovine TB zone as bovine TB-positive. 

As a result, MDA has designated the area within a 10-mile radius around the deer to be in a Potential High-Risk Area. The Iosco County deer was discovered inside the boundary of the northern Lower Michigan bovine TB zone, but a small portion of the 10-mile circle falls just outside of the zone.  Cattle, bison, and cervid farms within the Potential High Risk Area are required to test for bovine TB within six months of the official designation. 

“The designation will be dropped after disease surveillance testing finds no bovine TB in cattle or bison,” said MDA State Veterinarian Dr. Steven Halstead.  “Farms within the TB zone are tested every year, but there are approximately 13 farms within the section of the circle falling outside the TB zone that will need to be tested.”

As part of the bovine TB eradication effort, the DNR conducts annual surveillance testing in hunter-harvested deer, and has tested more than 178,500 deer statewide.  The DNR has examined approximately 4,841 deer from Iosco County since testing began in 1998.

In 2008, two potential high-risk areas were designated in Iosco County and subsequently dropped after whole-herd cattle testing found no bovine TB in cattle or bison.

For more information on Michigan’s bovine TB eradication project, visit:  www.michigan.gov/emergingdiseases.