## ![](media/image1.jpeg){width="6.510416666666667in" height="1.0868055555555556in"}

## Release No. 0039.04

**of\
Technical Briefing on BSE with USDA**

**Chief Veterinary Officer Ron DeHaven and\
David Hegwood, senior advisor on**

**International Trade to the Secretary of Agriculture**

**Washington D.C.**

**January 26, 2004**

**\
**

**MR. JIM ROGERS:** Hello, everyone. This is Jim Rogers with the Animal
Plant Health Inspection Service. Today we have with us Dr. Ron DeHaven,
the chief veterinary officer for the Animal Plant Health Inspection
Service, part of USDA. We\'re going to do a little talking today about
our epidemiological investigation, after which there will be a question
and answer session. As those of you that have been on this call before
know, to ask a question you press \"star 1.\" At the time of your
question we do ask that you identify yourself and the media that you
represent.

At this point I\'m going to turn it over to Dr. DeHaven.

**DR. DEHAVEN:** Thank you, Jim. And I want to thank everyone for
joining us today. It\'s been quite some time since our last briefing and
so much of the purpose behind this briefing is simply to update you on
activity since our last media briefing.

I have here with me today also to address trade issues, David Hegwood,
who is the senior advisor to the Secretary for International Trade.

Let me begin again by just a brief update on our activity since the last
briefing as it relates to our investigation. We have continued our
effort to identify those animals of interest, primarily the 81 head that
entered the United States from the birth herd in Alberta, Canada. These
are the 81 included on a health certificate that entered the US in
September of 2001 and that 81 includes the cow that tested positive at
the slaughter plant in the state of Washington.

We\'ve been working to narrow the population of animals in various herds
that we have epidemiologically linked to those 81, and we have been able
to positively identify 28 of those 81 animals; but in the process of
going through those herds we have reduced the number of animals or
reduced the population of those of interest by eliminating from
consideration or concern any animals in those epidemiologically traced
herds that are of the wrong age \-- in other words, not of the age span
that we would anticipate these animals of being \-- by ruling out any
through records on those farms that we can definitively say were born on
that farm or that entered those herds of interest at a time inconsistent
when we know these 81 animals left.

So through that process of elimination and tracing to those herds,
we\'ve been able to positively identify 28 of those animals, and in
those larger groups of animals within these multiple herds very likely
have others within that group of 81 animals that we\'re looking for that
would have originated from the birth herd in Alberta, Canada.

As we are narrowing those populations of animals in these dairy herds
\-- and some of them are quite large \-- we are euthanizing and testing
animals that would be either those animals that we have positively
identified as part of the 81, or those that we can\'t rule out as not
being part of those 81. To that end in the index dairy herd in Mabton,
Washington, we have sacrificed and tested 131 animals, all of them
negative both to a screening test as well as the gold standard
immunohistochemistry test. From the dairy finishing farm in Mattawa,
Washington, we have sacrificed and tested negative 39 of those animals.
And then from two other herds one in Connell, Washington and another in
Boardman, Oregon, we have taken a respective 15 and 20 animals, and
those tests are still pending. So we do not have test results on those
yet.

Recognizing that this is not a contagious disease, and if we can
identify those animals that might be of concern or might possibly be
from that birth herd in Alberta, we can then safely release the hold
orders on all of those herds once those animals have left those farms.
And so to that end we have actually released five hold orders \-- one on
the Mabton, Washington, farm; the dairy finishing farm in Mattawa,
Washington; the calf raising operation in Sunnyside, Washington; as well
as the two herds that I just mentioned \-- one in Connell, Washington,
and the other one in Boardman, Oregon. So we have removed from those
herds any of the animals of interest and have either tested them
negative or have test results that are pending and because of that then
have released the hold orders on all of those.

Let me clarify one particularly one important point that goes to the
science of this disease as well as the interntational standard. Indeed
we have been focusing our efforts on those 81 animals that may have come
from the birth herd or that we know came from the birth herd and trying
to locate them in the United States. However, we also know that the
international standards would say the animals of particular concern or
those animals of significance are those that are born a year before or a
year after the positive animal. The reason for that two-year window is
because it\'s presumed that the feed that would have infected the
positive animal would have been consumed during that two-year window by
any other animals in the herd that might then be exposed. So we\'ve got
a two-year window where we would consider the highest risk of animals
consuming contaminated feed. And so by international standards we should
focus our efforts not on all animals from the herd but rather those
animals that would have been born within a two-year window of the birth
of the infected cow.

So taking that into consideration, we are now really focusing our effort
on the 25 animals out of that 81 that fit into that two-year window. So
we are, again, focusing our remaining epidemiological investigation on
the 25 animals of those 81.

We\'ve also evaluated culling practices and not just within the dairy
industry but specifically within the dairy industry in that part of the
country, and by evaluating normal culling practices we would have
expected several of those 25 animals to have been culled from the herd
by now. And taking that into account, we would estimate that it\'s very
likely that only 11 of those 25 would still be alive.

In fact, we have found 14 of those 25 and so consider our
epidemiological tracing to be quite remarkable. And in fact the
international review team that was here was quite impressed with the
fact that we\'d been able to find that many of those 25 animals that
would be of the most significance.

I think it\'s clear that we will not be able to positively identify all
25 of those animals because while we have found 14 of them, no doubt
some of them have been culled, and I suspect we have some of the
remaining 11 animals out of the 25 that might be included in those
populations of interest in those herds that we have inventoried and gone
through. But because they\'ve lost identification we may not be able to
positively identify as part of those 25.

Having said that, we again would make every assurance that we don\'t
think those animals are of particular concern, either from a public
health or an animal health perspective. The reason I say that is because
even at the height of the infection and the prevalence of the disease
and the UK, it was very rare to find more than one or two animals in any
given herd that were positive. And so we wouldn\'t expect there to be
necessarily any more or certainly not more than just one or two other
animals in that Alberta herd that would be positive.

Second, if any of them had been exhibiting central nervous system
disorder at the time of slaughter they would have been condemned. We now
of course have procedures in place that keep nonambulatory animals from
entering into the human food chain. And of course for animals over 30
months of age we\'re removing the specified risk materials, that portion
of the carcass that is likely to be infective if an animal would happen
to be positive. All of those tissues are being excluded from the human
food chain.

We have had in place since August of 1997 a ruminant-to-ruminant feed
bad, and knowing that that is the primary if not the only means of
spread of this disease that would have kept the transmission of any of
those animals having been positive to other positives. Again, the feed
ban, the most important factor, in terms of preventing spread of the
disease from animal to animal.

I think it\'s also important to note that there is, based on the
scientific research, no reason to be concerned about the safety of the
milk or other dairy products that would come even from a herd with a
positive animal in it. And other than the one herd in Mabton,
Washington, we have no evidence that we have anything other than the
single positive animal. But even if there are, again the science is
quite clear that the milk and dairy products even from a positive herd
represent no risk in terms of public health.

I mentioned that we did have a visit by the International Review Team.
We had representatives from Switzerland, Dr. Ulrich Kihm, and Dr. Dagmar
Heim. We had a representative from the United States, Dr. Will Hueston,
who\'s the director of the Center for Animal Health and Food Safety at
the University of Minnesota. And we had Dr. Stuart Mac Diarmid who\'s
the principal advisor on zoonotic and animal health for the New Zealand
Food Safety Authority.

We also had a last minute addition to that team, Dr. Danny Matthews, a
TSE program coordinator in the UK, and certainly based on the prevalence
of the disease and all of the activity in the UK as it relates to BSE a
world-recognized expert in BSE. So we were glad to be able to add Danny
Matthews to that team.

The International Review Team asked a lot of questions. I felt quite
satisfied in my exit interview with them that they felt that we had
answered all of the questions or provided all of the information that
they needed. They are now in the process of compiling a report, and we
would hope to have that report presented to us in about two weeks time.

With that, let me pause and allow David Hegwood to address from the
international perspective. David, or do we want to just go to questions?

**DAVID HEGWOOD:** If I can just say a few words. I just returned from
Japan where we had meetings, a second series of meetings with the
Japanese government since the outbreak of this disease. And the purpose
of our discussions this time was to explain all of the measures we have
taken since the outbreak of the disease and to begin the discussion of
the conditions for resuming trade with Japan.

We did not certainly reach any agreement with the Japanese government on
resuming trade. We did both agree that we need to get trade moving again
as quickly as possible. The trade restrictions the Japanese have put in
place, as well as other countries have put in place are causing serious
economic damage, both to the US industry as well as to many economic
interests in Japan. So it\'s in both of our interest to get trade moving
again as quickly as possible.

We did agree that we would try to meet again next month after the report
from the International Review Team has been completed and have some more
detailed discussions about the conditions for resuming trade.

So that\'s all I have to report.

**DR. DEHAVEN:** Thanks, David. Let me clarify for those that don\'t
know David and because he has not been on previous conference calls \--
again, his title is Senior Advisor to the Secretary of Agriculture for
International Trade. And his last name is H-E-G-W-O-O-D.

With that, Operator, if we could, please, go to the first question?

**OPERATOR:** Our first question comes from Peter Shin. Please state
your company name.

**PETER SHINN:** Yes. Peter Shinn with the National Association of Farm
Broadcasters.

Do you have at this point, Dr. DeHaven, a better sense for how long this
investigation or when this investigation may head towards completion?

**DR. DEHAVEN:** I think we\'re talking in terms of days or weeks rather
than months. Clearly, we want to follow every lead that we get to the
extent that it\'s practical to do so. In one of the earlier press
briefings I mentioned that epidemiological investigations typically
become a tangled web, and this one is no exception to that. You can
imagine as we started to trace those 81 animals we go to the most, based
on the records that we have, the information in terms of where they
would have gone to or most likely went to when they first entered the
United States. And that was 15 or 16 premises. You go to those premises
and start looking at their records and then find additional records to
show where some of those animals may have gone to other premises. So
that leads you to 50 or 60 additional premises once you\'ve done that to
all 15 or 16 initial grouping. And then the same process. So you very
quickly are into an exponentially increasing number of premises.

We have to draw a reasonable line in the sand, if you will, in terms of
at some point we reach a line of diminishing returns. And so we will
follow what we consider to be any likely leads. We inventory those
herds. And through the process of elimination I mentioned where we can
rule out most of those herds based on birth-dates that are inconsistent
with the animals that we\'re looking for \-- to the extent that we can
find records on those farms to show that they were born on those farms
and weren\'t herd additions. For those that were herd additions but were
added at the wrong time to be part of these.

So to any of those premises where we are able to positively identify any
of those 81 based on animal identification, then any that we can\'t rule
out as also not being part of that we will sacrifice and test those
animals.

That was the long answer. The short answer is, I think that we can wrap
the investigation up in a matter of several days to just a couple of
weeks.

**MR. SHINN**: And if I may follow up quickly, Mr. Hegwood, how
important is it to complete this investigation if we\'re going to reopen
beef trade at all?

**MR. HEGWOOD:** Well, I think completing the investigation is certainly
one of the steps that we have to take, though our strongest arguments
are the measures that we\'ve already put in place, and that\'s what
we\'re trying to focus our discussion.

**MR. SHINN:** Thank you very much.

**DR. DEHAVEN:** Next question, Operator?

**OPERATOR:** Our next question comes from Steve Kay. Please state your
company name.

**STEVE KAY:** This is Steve Kay of Cattle Buyers Weekly Publication.

Dr. DeHaven, I think you comprehensively asked the question about
completion. But do I take it from your remarks that if necessary you
would announce that you had completed the investigation even if you
haven\'t found all those 81 animals?

Under those circumstances, how important would the International Review
Team\'s report be?

And just as a follow-up question, have you looked at, or considered the
possibility of looking for, any of the thousands of Canadian dairy and
breeding cattle that have entered the United States in previous years,
something like six years, 75,000 over each of the last several years?

**DR. DEHAVEN:** Thank you. Let me clarify, too, one point that I made
earlier about the 81, and indeed the initial focus of our investigation
was on those 81. But as has been pointed out to us by the International
Review Team and is clearly stated in the international standards, really
the animals that we should focus on would not be all animals from that
birth herd in Alberta, Canada, but rather those that were born in a
two-year window \-- one year on either side of the birth-date of this
positive cow.

And so really the focus would be on those 25 animals, and a suggestion
that the other remaining animals\-- while we would certainly follow
strong leads that we may have on those\-- they would be of much lesser
importance than the 25.

So we have found 14 of the 25 at this point definitively. We suspect
that several others could be included in these larger groups of animals
that we are sacrificing and testing from the herds that we are led to by
the epidemiological investigation.

But also, as I said, we would fully expect at this point not to be able
to definitively identify all 25 of those animals. Indeed, as was pointed
out by the International Review Team, they felt it quite remarkable that
we had already found 14 of the 25, especially given the culling
practices where we would only expect to find about 11.

I would just reiterate the points that I made about the relative safety
of public health and animal health even if we don\'t find all of those
animals, in that the measures have been in place and the Secretary has
recently announced strengthening several measures that add additional
safeguards to the public health.

So we think that those concerns are adequately addressed. Indeed, in the
exit interview with the International Review Team they stressed the need
to not focus on these animals that have entered but, rather, focus
resources and efforts on proactive strategies to ensure that we have a
good surveillance system in place, that we\'ve got the appropriate feed
ban, that we\'ve got other measures in place which will be part of their
report when they deliver it to us in a couple of weeks.

As to the numbers of cattle that have already entered the United States
from Canada and any effort to trace those \-- again, as you mentioned
those numbers are very, very high. And we feel at this point the most
appropriate way to deal with that population of animals is through the
measures that have been put in place: namely, a good feed ban to ensure
that we don\'t have animal-to-animal dissemination of the disease; the
removal of the specified risk materials that would represent any
possible public health risk; to ensure that we have a good surveillance
program in place to determine if we have any additional animals or, if
so, what prevalence of the disease we have in this country\-- to which I
would quickly add, we\'ve had a good surveillance program in place for
some 13 years. And so we feel quite comfortable that if we have
additional cases, the prevalence of the disease is quite low.

Operator, next question, please?

**OPERATOR:** Our next question comes from Randy Fabi. Please state your
company name.

**RANDY FABI:** Yes. I\'m Randy Fabi with Reuters.

My question is, do you know how many cattle have already, that are part
of these five formerly quarantined herds that have been already released
from the farm and maybe have been slaughtered into meat processing
plants? And as a follow-up, how can, since there are still some cattle
that are still being investigated, how are USDA officials completely
positive that these animals may not be part of the herd?

**DR. DEHAVEN:** Randy, if I understand your initial question correctly,
we have taken 205 animals of interest thus far from the herds that we
have led through our epidemiological investigation. And this would be in
addition to the 449 calves on the calf-raising operation as well.

So we have sacrificed and submitted for testing, samples from 205
animals of interest. We know that those animals included a number of
positive traces or animals that we know were part of that 81 as well as
the majority of them which were animals that could have been part of the
81 but we couldn\'t say definitively.

Of those 205 that have been sacrificed thus far, we have negative
results on 170 of them with results pending on the remaining 35 and
should have those results coming up shortly.

Our process is \-- recognizing that some of these ear-tags may have been
put in several months or several years ago, and the possibility that
animals can lose that identification or can be replaced by other
identification when they get into a new herd \-- we have gone through
this process that I described of identifying those animals that we
can\'t positively say didn\'t come out of the herd in Alberta and
sacrificing those whole groups. And that\'s how we\'ve come up with
those 205.

We have other herds that we are doing a herd inventory on, going through
the similar process. And so we will be sacrificing animals from other
herds as part of this entire effort.

Again, for those that we don\'t definitively identify, they could be
included in these groups. For the others that may have gone to slaughter
we have the firewalls and safeguards in place that I mentioned a couple
of times now.

With that, Operator, next question, please?

**OPERATOR:** Our next question comes from Daniel Goldstein. Please
state your company name.

**DANIEL GOLDSTEIN:** Yeah, hi. Dan Goldstein with Bloomberg News.

This question\'s for both gentlemen. It\'s two parts. Number one, Mr.
Hegwood, I understand that Japan didn\'t ban ruminant-to-ruminant
feeding until October 5, just after it found its first case of mad cow.
And I guess my question to you both is, does that give us some leverage
with the Japanese as to whether we should have universal testing or not?
And just what kind of discussion have you talked about with the Japanese
about things like expanding the feed ban or also doing some more testing
as has been requested, I think?

**MR. HEGWOOD:** Well, you\'re right. Japan did not put its feed ban in
place until October 2001 after their first find in September of 2001.
And we think that we\'ve had a much more effective feed ban in place for
longer, and consequently we believe for that and other reasons that we
are in the lower risk category for BSE than Japan is and that any notion
of equivalence in the measures we have in place to protect against BSE
should take that difference in risk categorization into account.

We haven\'t talked specifically about additional steps that we would
take to resume trade with Japan. We did not make any specific offers
when we were in Tokyo. We did outline for them all the steps we had
taken. We reviewed the results of the Japanese Technical Team visit to
the United States which concluded just over a week ago.

And our position is that the measures that we have put in place are what
is required of us under\-- according to the OIE guidelines. And that
should be acceptable for all countries including Japan.

**DR. DEHAVEN:** I would just add a couple of things, not so much from
the trade perspective but our program here in the United States. I would
remind everyone that this is a disease with a very long incubation
period \-- typically three to eight years. And while there have been a
handful of cases found in animals under 30 months of age by far and away
it\'s a disease of animals 32 months of age and older. Hence, the focus
on removal of specified risk materials from animals over 30 months of
age, et cetera.

To suggest that we would test all animals regardless of age at slaughter
is not consistent with that science and what we know about the disease
\-- again, being a disease with an incubation period of three to eight
years and almost exclusively a disease of animals 30 months of age and
over.

We have updated the risk assessment that Harvard did following the find
in May. We are evaluating our risk and will certainly rely very heavily
on the recommendations from the International Review Team that we should
receive in a couple of weeks with regard to additional enhancements to
our overall program and measures.

But again, we\'ve had a good system in place. The safeguards were put in
place by and large long before they were put in place by Japan and some
other countries. So to make the comparison between the U.S. and some
other countries that have experienced a high prevalence of the disease
would be inconsistent with what we know about the level of exposure,
about what we know about the disease, and therefore inconsistent with
the risk assessment that would apply to the U.S. as opposed to some
other countries.

Operator, next question, please?

**OPERATOR:** Our next question comes from Mike McGinnis. Please state
your company name.

**MIKE MCGINNIS:** Mike McGinnis with DTN.

This question could be answered by either one of the gentlemen probably,
but I\'m wondering, where do you go from here? Where does the
investigation go from here, and are you considering other options that
you might have other than what we\'re talking about here today?

DR. DEHAVEN: Let me address it from the investigation\'s standpoint, and
perhaps Mr. Hegwood would want to add comments from a trade perspective.

But from our standpoint where we go from here is to follow all serious
leads on our epidemiological investigation, get into those herds of
concern, conduct inventories, look for animals particularly that would
be part of those 25, test any animals from those herds that we can\'t
rule out as not being part of those, and wrap this investigation up
again in a matter of several days to a few weeks.

We would also, as I mentioned, take into serious consideration the
recommendations that will be forthcoming from the International Review
Team and then make any decisions with regard to recommendations from
that group once they\'re available.

David?

**MR. HEGWOOD:** Well, I think where we go from here, we\'ve been \-- on
the trade side we\'ve been engaging with a number of counties. Just in
the past week we\'ve had teams in the Philippines, Thailand, Hong Kong,
Japan, Korea and China talking with officials in those countries about
the measures that we put in place. And once we have completed the
investigation and gotten the report from the International Review Team,
we will be in a position to begin engaging with all of those countries
on resuming trade.

And again, our position is the measures that we\'ve put in place are
consistent with the OIE guidelines and therefore should be sufficient
for these countries to begin resuming trade with us.

**DR. DEHAVEN:** Operator, next question, please?

OPERATOR: Our next question comes from Ira Dreyfus. Please state your
company name.

**IRA DREYFUS:** Hi. The Associated Press.

And the question is, if there\'s some animals that might be left out
there with, that have not been tested, not been fully cleared, why
should Americans feel that you have exhausted all the possibilities in
trying to find all the cases of mad cow?

**DR. DEHAVEN**: Well, as I mentioned, from a practical standpoint
because of the likelihood that several of these animals would have lost
their identification, its simply not possible to trace them, and the
fact that we could indeed continue this investigation into months and
months of tracing all possible leads, and still at the end of the day
not be able to identify every one of these animals \-- at some point you
reach a point of diminishing returns.

When in fact we could have included many of those 25 animals in these
larger populations that we are sacrificing and testing from the herds
that lead us to. And probably more importantly is the fact that we\'ve
got the appropriate safeguards in place to protect animal health and
public health should any of them be slaughtered.

So it\'s not a matter of unwillingness to do that. It\'s a matter of
from a practical standpoint of what is reasonable to do.

Again, I would also emphasize that this International Review Team of
subcommittee suggested that we have already expended more resources than
what there are in terms of potential returns, recognizing some of the
practicalities of not being able to trace necessarily every one of these
animals, recognizing the safeguards that are in place and also
recognizing that there is far more potential return on investment of
resources towards ensuring that we have the appropriate procedures and
processes in place for the future.

So I think that we\'ll have confirmation of that in terms of a written
report coming from the International Review Team or subcommittee.

This might be a good point for me to explain too that within the
Department we have an Advisory Committee, a Secretary\'s Advisory
Committee for Foreign Animal and Poultry Diseases. And this is the group
that is officially recognized and tasked with advising the Secretary on
matters of foreign animal diseases and poultry. And indeed BSE is a
foreign animal disease in the United States. And that group is duly
constituted under the Federal Advisory Committee Act.

Because this group, this International Review Team is in essence
operating in an advisory capacity to the Secretary, it\'s functioning as
a subcommittee of the Foreign Animal and Poultry Disease Committee. And
so their report when it\'s delivered in a couple of weeks will be
actually a report delivered to the Secretary\'s Advisory Committee, and
of course then the recommendations go on to the Secretary.

Operator, if we could we\'ll take two more questions. So the first one,
please?

**OPERATOR**: Next question comes from Lynn Adrinne (sp.). Please state
your company name.

**LYNN ADRIN:** It\'s Lynn Adrinne at ABC News.

Just wondering after listening, after reading the transcript of the
press briefing you had with the Japanese press last Friday, is there any
combination of circumstances that would have us consider testing all
fodder cattle, at least all fodder cattle that was headed towards the
Japanese market?

**MR. HEGWOOD:** Well, the, one, it\'s scientifically not necessary, not
justified, and we don\'t want to go down that road because it diverts
resources from where we really need to be putting them and doing
surveillance and taking other risk mitigation measures for this disease.

Second, the cost is considerable. While Japan represents a fairly small
portion of total U.S. cattle slaughter, some part of 90 percent of every
animal slaughtered in the U.S. is likely to end up in the Japanese
market \-- which means we would have to test 90 percent of the cattle
slaughtered for Japan. And a rough calculation of the cost of that is
about \$900 million. And the total market value of Japan is about \$1
billion. So it\'s just not worth it economically to go down that road;
nor is it justified scientifically.

**DR. DEHAVEN:** Operator, we\'ll take one last question, please.

**OPERATOR:** Our last question comes from Robert Smith. Please state
your company name.

**ROBERT SMITH**: I\'m a member of Financial Chat.

Recognizing the difficulty you are having finding animals, earlier this
month the USDA announced an emerged interactive, had achieved
certification of their animal tracking system. Are there any other
companies whose systems are certified for tracking cattle? And does the
USDA see mandatory tracking in the near future? Could you give some kind
of timetable?

**DR. DEHAVEN**: I am not sure. Let me clarify with your comment about
certification. I am not familiar with what certification you might be
talking about.

**ROBERT SMITH:** PVP (sp) certification. Early this month USDA
announced that it had certified emerged interactive animal tracking
system.

**DR. DEHAVEN:** For the purpose of animal disease tracking?

**ROBERT SMITH:** Just tracking cattle so you\'d know where they came
from, and if cattle would get sick you could trace it, trace the path
backwards. The USDA announced it would emerge last \--

**DR. DEHAVEN:** Let me \-- we\'ll simply have to get back to you on
that because we\'re \-- I\'m not familiar with all of our ongoing effort
to develop an animal ID or tracking system with that particular
technology, or where it may be going. But instead let me just mention
again that as part of the Secretary\'s announcements on December 30 was
an intent to accelerate the implementation of an animal identification
system recognizing that we certainly need it for BSE tracking purposes
but also for other animal disease purposes as well, any number of
potential uses for that.

Certainly from my perspective as the chief veterinary officer needing to
be able, particularly for highly contagious diseases, to be able to
trace animals very quickly.

That system would certainly be very dependent upon technology because if
we are going to have a system that allows us to trace animals in a
number of hours it will have to be electronic-based and there will have
to be a national database of animal movement. There has been a
considerable evaluation of the possible technologies that might be used
for that purpose, and part of what we\'re evaluating now is the various
technologies that might be used for animal identification and tracking
purposes.

With that, let me turn it back to Jim Rogers.

**MR. ROGERS:** That\'s going to conclude the call today, ladies and
gentlemen. We appreciate you all calling in. And we appreciate your
questions.

For further questions you can always call us at 202-720-4623, or you can
check our website at [http://www.usda.gov](http://www.usda.gov/). We
hope to have an update posted later today as well as transcripts from
this call.

Thank you again.

(Whereupon, the briefing was concluded.)

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