I think the cattle industry was scared, right off the bat. When CWD struck one of our elk farms, they eradicated the farm, and the fellow went in and put cattle on his pasture. Right away, the cattle industry said, “Get them off there. We don't want any disease to transfer into the cattle industry that would hamper our industry.” So CFIA went in there and eradicated all those cattle that were put on that land. He wanted to put in buffalo, and they said no. So this farm sat for I don't know how many years—Roger might know more—without anything on it.
Now we have CWD in the wild, in the deer population. They're testing herds all over, which are on cattle ranches and all over the place, but it's an accepted thing now. The cattlemen aren't going to say, “Well, we have a deer in this area, so we're going to take all our cattle out of this pasture, because it has CWD.”
It has been proven by science—and it's one thing that's good—that it doesn't transfer to cattle and it doesn't transfer to humans. It's just that they don't have a live test for it, but if they come up with one—
I don't want to talk too long here.
My herd was due for testing, and they assured me.... They were taking blood tests. We had a person from the States come up to one of our meetings and say that they were doing DNA testing on the animals and that it was one bloodline or DNA marker in our elk that was very susceptible to CWD.
So I asked the CFIA, when they did the blood test here just a week ago at my place, to run the DNA on it and see if I had any of these bloodlines. I haven't had CWD. But they were eradicating another herd, so I said to go in and see if the ones they've tested or killed have that bloodline. Maybe all we have to do is come out to the elk farms and do a simple blood test, eradicate that one bloodline or DNA marker, and it will get cleaned up. But they haven't even done that process.
Now, until you say they're looking at doing some more live tests and trying to help our industry.... We are probably ruffling a lot of feathers in the federal government, asking what they are going to do to help our industry. That is, I think, the big reason that CFIA is out there, because we've been probably ruffling a lot of feathers on the higher guys, on their bosses, to get them to do something for us.
Hopefully, we can get a live test. That would be great for us.