Govt allows exotic sheep strain importation

Press, 1 June 1984, Page 2

Govt allows exotic sheep strain importation

By

OLIVER RIDDELL

in Wellington

The Government has approved the importation of genetic material from three exotic breeds of sheep, with the support of some New Zealand stud sheep breeders, but with opposition from others. Semen and fertilised ova will be imported from elected flocks of Finnish Landrace, Texel, and Oxford Down sheep from Denmark, Finland, and Sweden. The Minister of Agriculture, Mr Maclntyre said that the approval had followed up a recommendation by the Maximum Security Quarantine Advisory Committee. The Scandanavian countries had been chosen because they were free of scrapie and maedi-visna, two virus diseases not present in New Zealand, he said. Government approval comes after a debate on the merits of importing between the Ministry of Agriculture and a number of sheep breed societies. A vote taken at a meeting of the United Breeds’ Society, representing stud breeders involved with most breeds of sheep in New Zealand, resulted 12-1 in favour of importation. Since then, some members of the society have begun to share the doubts of the one breed which has consistently opposed introduction, the Romney Sheep

Breeders’ Association, representing the country’s most numerous purebred sheep flock. New Zealand has imported Finnish Landrace sheep genetic material before, in 1974. This came after strenuous opposition from the Romney association on the ground that the disease of scrapie was endemic to Finnish Landrace sheep. By 1978, when there were several hundred descendants of the original sheep, scrapie was found among them. All the research work and expense of the previous years went for nothing, every single sheep that might have been related to or in contact with the infected sheep had to be slaughtered by the Ministry. When the Ministry again sought authority to import exotic sheep breeds, the Romney association again opposed it. Ministry scientists want to work with the exotic sheep, in purebred form and also crossbred with New Zealand breeds, because of their greater fertility and the possibility of increasing the lambing percentage from the national flock. Mr Maclntyre, said the genetic material would be flown to New Zealand and implanted or inseminated into recipient ewes under maximum quarantine at Somes Island in Wellington Harbour. The purebred exotic

lambs born to these ewes would be transferred to secondary quarantine on the Ministry’s property at Hopuhopu in Waikato' in the control of the Ruakura Animal Research Station. Purebred and crossbred flocks would be built up for a further four years in quarantine before releasing animals to sheep breeders. The Government backed by the advisory committee, was convinced that these new breeds had important characteristics that could strengthen New Zealand’s sheep flocks, he said. The three Scandinavian countries had a sheep health status at least the equal of New Zealand’s and the transplant techniques now available overcame the possiblity of introducing unwanted diseases. Dr P. J. O’Hara, assistant director of the Ministry’s Animal Health Division, would visit the Scandinavian countries for technical discussions with veterinary authorities there, Mr MacIntyre said. Two specialists in genetics and reproductive physiology would choose the stock and collect the genetic material in August-Septem-ber. The president of the Romney Sheep Breeders’ Association, Mr J. H. Bartlett (Feilding), said his members would now have to review what further action they could take to oppose effectively the importation of sheep. j