Dr. Ken Well's commitment to safe, direct importation resulted in a complex and comprehensive four-stage testing and quarantine procedure.
At the first stage, importers would select unvaccinated calves from French farms, usually in July. These calves would then be subject to on-farm tests and an on-farm, 30-day quarantine under Canadian control. If they passed the on-farm tests, the calves would be moved on to the second stage—to the Maximum Quarantine Facility that Canada had negotiated the use of at Brest, France. There, the calves would be subject to more tests and another 30-day quarantine, again under Canadian control.
Upon passing this second testing, the imports would be shipped by boat from Brest, France across the Atlantic to a maximum quarantine facility that Canada had established on the small island of Grosse-Ile, Quebec, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. This Canadian quarantine station—the third stage of testing and control—was ideally suited in its total isolation from mainland Canada. Here the calves—arriving in the fall—would be subject to a 90-day quarantine and observation period; though, in effect, the quarantine would last well beyond the 90 days because the icebound St. Lawrence did not break up till March or April. When transport became possible, the calves would be shipped by boat, along the St. Lawrence River to Quebec City, where they would be greeted by their anxious importers and shipped by rail to their farm destinations. At their Canadian farms, they would undergo the fourth and final stage—a 90-day on-farm quarantine/observation with a group of indigenous control-cattle. The idea of control cattle (also to be used on Grosse-Ile) was that these controls would have no immunity or resistance to foot-and-mouth and would contract it, if there were any threat being carried by the import.
This four-stage process would prove a rigorous and lengthy procedure, consuming about a year between the time of selection in France to the time the imports received clearance after their Canadian farm quarantine. To most importers the time required must have seemed almost unbearable, but the thorough, clearly defined procedures established by Dr. Wells and his staff, laid an indispensable foundation for all that followed.
In the words of Ted Pritchett,
"the feat [Dr. Wells and his staff] accomplished from an animal health point of view was nothing short of remarkable, but to the public, the introduction of the Continental breeds and their impact on the North American beef industry is beyond description."1As part of the import program the Canadian government undertook to build the required Maximum Quarantine facility of its own at Grosse-Ile,2 Quebec. By 1965 the facility was ready to accommodate 120 head of cattle. Its capacity was expanded in subsequent years as demand escalated.
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1. "Maximum Quarantine" by Ted Pritchett, Simmental Country, August 1987, p. 59. For a more extensive history, see pp. 51, 54-55, 58-59.
2. For a brief history of Grosse-Ile as an animal quarantine and research facility see relevant sections of The Canadian Veterinary Journal, Vol. 42, August 2001, particularly pp. 464-467 at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1476563/?page=1
