Provide for a comprehensive approach for animal health management in idaho utilizing surveillance, monitoring, reporting, prevention, control and education activities for animal diseases of interest

Activities the recipient will perform primarily include those related to avian, cattle, bison, sheep, goat and cervid health with a major focus on avian influenza, brucellosis, tuberculosis, scrapie and chronic wasting disease. Examples of avian activities are avian influenza surveillance sampling and testing, response plan for when H5 or H7 avian influenza positives are found, data entry and record keeping for the national poultry improvement plan, inspection and biosecurity audits of national poultry improvement plan premises, and education regarding biosecurity and disease prevention. Brucellosis activities include conducting surveillance in cattle, bison and high-risk wild ELK populations, implementing risk-based management plans, collaborating between agencies to address brucellosis spread from ELK to livestock, providing education and promoting abortion screening. Additional activities for brucellosis and other diseases include supplying disease surveillance and outreach data to animal plant health inspection service and conducting epidemiologic investigations and disease response activities. Sheep and goat scrapie activities include increasing surveillance, and continued education and compliance efforts regarding identification requirements. Cervid activities involve education and promoting surveillance for chronic wasting disease and use of the new idaho cervid database. Avian health goals are to quickly diagnose, control, and prevent the spread of H5 and H7 AI subtypes; and improve biosecurity, sanitation, and disease control on poultry facilities. Cattle or bison health goals include surveillance and outreach to maintain national, state and herd disease status certifications. Sheep and goat health goals are to increase effectiveness and efficiency of scrapie surveillance and meet or exceed the state-of-origin based surveillance annual sampling minimums for sheep and goats. These efforts will result in earlier disease detection and rapid action to decrease spread, thereby decreasing the cost of disease incursions. The recipient must submit quarterly accomplishment and financial reports and provide other animal health data to animal plant health inspection service. The beneficiaries of these efforts will be livestock and poultry owners, state and federal agencies and consumers. The sub awardee to this agreement is the idaho department of fish and game (idfg). Idfg will assist with brucellosis surveillance in wild ELK and mitigation of interactions between wild ELK and domestic cattle, bison and cervids during the at-risk period of brucellosis disease transmission from ELK to livestock.