Earlier this year - USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service announced the U.S. was brucellosis free in livestock for the first time since 1934. But now Montana has lost its federal disease-free status for the disease. As a result - all cattle being shipped out of state must be tested. That’s expected to cost Montana ranchers six to 12-million dollars.

The state will have to wait until May of 2009 - a year after the most recent case of brucellosis - to request reinstatement of the disease-free status. To regain that status - state officials will expand cattle vaccinations and find ways to keep cattle from interacting with wildlife that carry the disease. Federal DNA testing points to wildlife as the source of the most recent infection - with elk the most likely culprit. An earlier infection - detected in May of 2007 - was the state’s first since 1985.

Wyoming is also at risk of losing its disease-free status. An infection was discovered in that state in June. Officials in Wyoming and Montana have complained federal brucellosis regulations are too rigid and do not account for the unique situation of the disease in Yellowstone National Park’s wildlife. But according to USDA - the spread of the disease to other states could carry a heavy economic toll - an estimated 80-million dollars annually.