WILBUR, Wash. -- Workers at a vacant slaughterhouse in rural eastern Washington began euthanizing an entire herd of bull calves Tuesday because it was the only way to ensure they killed the offspring of a Holstein with mad cow disease.
The calves were transported to an unnamed private facility in Wilbur, where the animals were sedated and given lethal injections, said Nolan Lemon, spokesman for the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Wilbur is about 65 miles west of Spokane in rural Lincoln County.
Sheriff's cars blocked the snow-covered road leading up to the slaughterhouse. Calves could be seen in pens next to a one-story white block building. A sign outside the facility had been covered with a black plastic bag.
By mid-afternoon, some of the animals had already been killed, and the rest of the 449-calf herd would be killed by the end of the day, Lemon said. All of the bull calves were taken from an unidentified Sunnyside farm, a bull calf feeding operation where they had been on a state hold.
A state hold is similar to a quarantine and means animals cannot enter or leave the farm.
The animals ranged in age from 1 month to several months. Workers have been handling the process slowly because the calves are so young and they want to do it right, Lemon said.
"The veterinarians have been taking their time to ensure that those animals weren't alarmed and were comfortable," he said.
Lemon said the operation was handled at a vacant slaughterhouse to ensure the animals would not be processed for meat or other products. The carcasses will be buried at the Rabanco Regional Disposal Co. in Roosevelt, about 60 miles south of Yakima near the Oregon border.
When the remains will be transferred to the landfill has not yet been determined.
Agriculture officials said the herd would have to be killed after they discovered the calf born to the sick cow had not been tagged and could not be identified.
He said the owner of the Sunnyside farm was compensated fair market value for the calves. He declined to release the amount paid, citing the farmer's confidentiality.
Agriculture officials announced Dec. 23 a cow from a Mabton dairy farm had tested positive for mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy. The disease eats holes in the brains of cattle and is a concern because humans can develop a brain-wasting illness, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, from consuming contaminated beef products.
The infected Holstein, from the Sunny Dene Ranch in Mabton, was slaughtered Dec. 9.
The cow had come to the United States from Canada in a herd of 81 cattle in 2001. Authorities traced nine of those cattle to Sunny Dene Ranch as well.
The farm, which also has a calf from the infected cow, remained on a state hold, as does a Mattawa dairy farm that has one cow from the Canadian herd.
A decision on what will be done with the quarantined herds has not yet been made, Lemon said.
U.S. and Canadian investigators are trying to locate the remaining animals from the Canadian herd and trace the feed eaten by the sick cow to determine if it contained tissue that carried the disease.