TAHC Concerned About "Mexican"
Cattle Originating Elsewhere

AUSTIN — Officials with the Texas Animal Health Commission say they're worried a growing number of foreign cattle, disguised as Mexican cattle, may be passing across the border and bringing possible health risks to Texas herds.

The state's animal inspection arm has expressed concern that non-Mexican cattle are being held to inferior standards, The Texas Journal of The Wall Street Journal reported last week.

The problem surfaced last summer when about 5000 Australian cattle appeared in Mexico bound for feedlots in Texas and New Mexico.

The animals were denied entry, but inspectors said they believe as many as 225 may have been mistaken for Mexican cattle and were allowed across the border. Then in November, two bulls from Guatemala that had arrived from Mexico were discovered at a cattle-breeding operation in Elgin.

The two cases "could just be the tip of the iceberg," said Terry Beals, TAHC executive director.

Beals said foreign nations are becoming increasingly desperate to sell their cattle elsewhere because of the Asian economic crisis. Texas is a prime target with its massive cattle-feeding industry that thrives on cheap cattle, he said.

Foreign importers can also save hundreds of dollars per animal in quarantine costs by shipping them through Mexico, where inspection standards are more lax.

In response to the two incidents, Texas Animal Health Commission officials in a December letter asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture and its veterinarians, who police the border, to address the problem.

Federal officials say the state's concerns are overblown. They say there's no evidence the problem is on the rise.

Rules vary depending on the country of origin, but livestock typically spend at least 30 days in quarantine in their home nation as well as at least 30 days in quarantine in the United States. Australian cattle must spend 30 days in an enclosed facility in Australia and 60 days in a similar facility in this country.

That makes it practically impossible for Australians to ship cattle here, since there is effectively only one such facility in the United States, in Newburgh, N.Y., and it can't hold more than 500 animals at a time.

Mexican cattle, by contrast, have an easier time getting across the border. Texas and Mexico enforce similar health standards for their respective cattle raisers, and most of the diseases found in Mexican cattle are relatively common in Texas.

Texas cattlemen have long recognized the potential for "laundered" cattle to enter Texas through Mexico; jokes about nominally "Mexican" cattle having "swam the Panama Canal" are not uncommon, federal assurances to the contrary notwithstanding.

Ironically, the convergence of Texas and Mexican animal health standards in recent years may have both contributed to the problem and helped guard against it.

Contributed, by easing U.S./Mexico border crossing restrictions, primarily those related to bovine tuberculosis. Over the last several years, individual Mexican states, working in concert with Mexican federal and U.S. animal health officials, have completed a rigorous TB eradication program. Northern Mexican states, particularly, have brought their TB standards in line with those of U.S. border states.

The result — indeed, the Mexicans' incentive for participating in the costly program — has been relaxed entry inspection and quarantine rules on cattle from participating Mexican states. One of the disquieting concerns about that program all along, however, was that cattle from non-participating Mexican states or other countries might be funneled through that widened opening.

Supporters countered those concerns with the argument that individual Mexican states, through their powerful state cattlemen's organizations, have considerable leeway to block the entry of cattle from outside their own boundaries. Just as the promise of relaxed border crossing rules gave them an incentive to clean up their herds, went the reasoning, fear of losing certification would give them an incentive to keep outside cattle out.

That, along with the natural economic value to be gained by limiting competition for the Gringo's dollar, was expected to provide plenty of willing eyes and ears to help patrol state borders and turn back bovine intruders.

And, in fact, Mexican cattlemen joined their U.S. counterparts last year in raising the alarm over the would-be Australian transshipments.

The Elgin case and the suspected Aussies that did make it through are proof enough, of course, that the net has its holes; enough pesos in the right hands, and a Chihuahua can get papers certifying it as a Mexican cow.