Equestrian centre proposal losing favour - On-farm quarantine plan

NSW and Victorian authorities have confirmed they are considering an on-farm process in preference to a plan to utilise the Albury-Wodonga equestrian centre as a quarantine station.Deputy chief veterinary officer for NSW Department of Primary Industries, Ian Roth, said yesterday the alternative on-farm option would involve horses from the NSW green zone being held in isolation for a period of time before they were able to return home in Victoria.

Dr Roth said Albury had previously been considered as an option for this period of quarantine and the equestrian centre had been looked at as a possible location.
“We want to acknowledge the concerns expressed by the horse community of Albury on this issue, and applaud their ongoing efforts to maintain good biosecurity,” he said.
“Senior vets with both the NSW and Victorian Departments of Primary Industries are considering an on-farm quarantine process and it is extremely likely that this will be approved.
“This will mean that the Albury-Wodonga equestrian centre will not be needed.”
Meanwhile, a small group of Wagga-based students are devastated at the decision not to utilise the Albury-Wodonga centre as a quarantine facility.
A mother of one of the students, Anne McCallum, of Tower Hill, near Port Fairy, said the Victorian students were set to return home at the end of the week after completing their tertiary year in horse studies at Charles Sturt University.
Mrs McCallum said the students were supposed to take their horses with them and had been “hanging” on the decision to open the facility at Albury.
Now, she says, the students have the next-to-impossible task of finding, within the next two days, a private property owner willing to sign an agreement to provide isolation facilities for their horses for 14 days before they can take them back into Victoria.
“The kids are stuck there with their horses and they have had the stress in the middle of their exams,” she said.
“Fiona, my daughter, has to be out of her on-campus accommodation by Friday.
“University students don’t have any money. What are they supposed to do?”
Mrs McCallum said one less desirable option was for the horses to remain at the university facility for $9 a day, with minimal care and having to stay there until February when the new semester began.
Border horse industry representatives have welcomed the decision, including the Albury-Wodonga Equine Influenza Action Group.