01/12/05 National Animal ID, part two

Ranchers in Idaho and six other Western states have volunteered to enroll with the Northwest Pilot Project. MORRISON "Eleven thousand animals enrolled in the project right now and about a hundred people that have either signed up or are in the process of signing up." Julie Morrison of the Idaho Cattle Association says they're testing all kinds of identification systems. As we've told you yesterday some deal with electronic or radio frequency devices. MORRISON "Trying out group management by brands only to looking at a visual tag only whether that's just a herd management tag or a program tag of some sort. We even have some folks that are looking at optical scanning to match with a visual tag. So I think so far we're pretty across the board in trying out a little bit of everything." Morrison says one producer summed it up best when he said 'if you don't get involved you lose your right to complain later.' MORRISON "Now is our chance to have that impact and the feedback specific to the Northwest and tell then the realities that we're dealing with out here and I think that will go a long ways in helping the system overall be workable in the end." And USDA sees 2007 as the date for a nationwide animal identification system. Today's Idaho Ag News Bill Scott