Paul Revere’s Ride The warning is being sent out, loud and clear, will we hear and react in time?

By Karin Bergener

It seems a lot of work has gone into the NAIS since its inception, but has anything really changed? Will horse owners get off the hook at the expense of other private livestock owners, or is there more afoot...?

The past few months have seen the release of a number of documents by USDA, and the Equine Species Working Group - the group of people appointed to establish the NAIS for horses. Below is a brief synopsis of those documents and how they affect our livestock ownership:

Guide for Small-Scale or Non-Commercial Producers
June 2006
This guide appeared to provide relief for people with small flocks or herds of animals, or people whose animals weren’t for commercial purposes. It seemed, at first blush, that recreational horse owners would fall in this last group. However, the exceptions this Guide gave under NAIS only applied if your animals never left your property, or you never brought new animals onto your property. For most horse owners, then, the Guide gave no relief.

Equine Species Working Group 2006 Recommendations
August 2006
Every year, the ESWG issues recommendations on how (not if) NAIS will be implemented for equines (horses, mules, donkeys). In all its recommendations, 2004 through 2006, the ESWG has stated that equines should be considered livestock. Of course, this has some value - otherwise why would they recommend it?

On the other hand, under NAIS, it destroys the argument that horses are somehow different, and shouldn’t be subject to all the NAIS requirements.

The 2006 recommendations include that premises should be registered, and that all horses should be identified with a standardized microchip and registered in a database. The type of microchip – ISO 11784/85 -- has not changed. The only apparent improvement for horse owners was that these recommendations said movements of horses would not be reported. Instead, the ESWG recommended relying on current paper-based records.

2006 ESWG Recommendations

• premises should be registered,
• all horses should be identified with an ISO microchip
• and registered in a database.
• no reporting movements (for now)

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The problem with this is that in 2004 and 2005, the ESWG clearly recommended reporting all horse movements. As quickly as this recommendation was taken away, it can be re-activated. And, remember, the species working groups have no binding authority.

The NAIS is being implemented state by state, and if your state wants to track horse movements, then the ESWG’s opinion (either way) will carry no weight.

Additionally, many in the horse industry fully support tracking horse movements. At the Animal ID Expo in August 2006 (the annual meeting of people driving NAIS for-ward), Amy Mann, of the American Horse Council, and a member of the ESWG, said that the new recommendations freeing horsemen from having to report their comings and goings weren’t consistent with the NAIS’s requirements. At the American Horse Council annual meeting, one of the speakers told of his “vision” that by 2025, there will be microchip readers on every trail, so that as horses go by they will be scanned, and reports instantly created of the horses’ movements. Never mind that the technology is far from being able to do this - the point is clear - tracking movements of horses will happen.

If we allow the NAIS to be put in place for other livestock, it will take only a minor tweaking of rules to add horses. If horse owners do not want the NAIS to apply to us, then we must make sure the NAIS doesn’t exist for any live-stock.

Implementation Plan
October 2006
In a continuing effort to hide what’s really happening, USDA announced in late October that it would no longer seek federal rule making, and removed references to rule making for a mandatory program from its Implementation Plan first published in April 2006. However, mandatory programs are being instituted every day throughout the states.

Wisconsin and Indiana have mandatory premises registration, by statute. Some Minnesota horse owners are reporting that they are required to have a premises ID number to go to a horse show. In Michigan, by using the tuberculosis program, cattle owners are required to have RFID chipped tags in their animals by March 1, 2007, and a premises registration number to go along with those tags.

Could it end at the state level? Not likely. Secretary of the United States Department of Agriculture, Mike Johanss, stated at the Animal ID Expo that although the USDA’s NAIS was officially voluntary, he had no problem with USDA funding state mandatory programs.

What Can You Do?
Given the growth of state mandatory programs, action needs to be taken at your state and local level:

Write and call your state senators and legislators.
• Download a copy of the model state legislation at the Liberty Ark website, take it to your legislators, and ask them to sponsor legislation to stop the NAIS in your state. You can find the model statute at www.LibertyArk.net
• While you’re at the Liberty Ark site, browse through the other Citizen Action Tools, and also sign up as a supporter. Then, when the Coalition is working with Congress people and state legislators, they can see how many people in their districts are against the NAIS.
• Share what you learn with your friends and neighbors, and ask them to pass it on.
• Stand up and take action.