Livestock Board Moving to Digital Health Certificates

By Olivia Weitz

The Wyoming Livestock Board is encouraging veterinarians to use digital health certificates as part of efforts to help contain future disease outbreaks and ensure a safe food supply.

When ranchers move cattle across state lines, they must show documentation that their herd has been screened by a veterinarian for potential disease.

Wyoming State Veterinarian Hallie Hasel said at the end of the year, the Wyoming Livestock Board will no longer provide paper digital certificates of veterinary inspection, though ones that were previously printed will still be accepted. She said changing to electronic records will help the state issue testing requirements and quarantines faster.

“ Of course, right now, the disease that everybody hears a lot about is highly pathogenic avian influenza. So that's something that we're watching very closely, especially the movement of dairy cattle,” she said.

The first case of bird flu in a dairy herd in Wyoming was reported in June.