Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks buffalo auction canceled
Published October 14th, 2006
The Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks has canceled its 2006 buffalo auction scheduled for Nov. 15 at Maxwell Wildlife Refuge.
Park officials found Mycoplasma bovis-induced pneumonia and arthritis among some buffalo in the Maxwell herd. Mycoplasma bovis is a major but often overlooked pathogen that causes respiratory disease, arthritis and mastitis in cattle.
When first isolated in the United States in the 1960s, the disease occurred infrequently, but now the infection has become more widespread in cattle herds.
Wildlife staff will immediately begin an intensive vaccination program in order to eliminate the disease in the herd, said Randy Clark, the agency’s regional public lands supervisor. The department plans to resume its annual buffalo auction at Maxwell in 2007.
The 2,250-acre Maxwell Refuge is 6 miles north of Canton in McPherson County. KDWP maintains a fenced-in display herd of about 200 buffalo at the refuge, selling surplus animals at auction annually.
The agency maintains a separate herd of buffalo at the Sand Sage Bison Range near Garden City, and no animals in that herd have been affected. Wildlife and parks also sells its surplus animals from that herd at the annual Maxwell auction. The animals this year will be sold Dec. 2 during the Kansas Buffalo Association’s auction in Salina
