LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Officials say a small beef cattle herd in northern Michigan has been infected with bovine tuberculosis. It’s the latest since Bovine TB was confirmed in a large beef herd in Alcona County in October 2018.
The state Department of Agriculture and Rural Development says the herd was in Alpena County, which is part of an area in the northern Lower Peninsula where the fatal disease is commonly found in whitetail deer. Contact with deer is believed to be a common means of transmitting the illness to cattle.
The infection was detected through routine testing. It was the 74th cattle herd found to have the illness since 1998.
An investigation is planned to identify and test other herds that had an association with the infected one.
