Animal Health Australia - Exercise SheepCatcher II

EXERCISE SHEEPCATCHER II
2 JUNE 5 JULY 2016

Document name: Final Report - Exercise Sheepcatcher II (FINAL) 1
Version: 1.0
Last updated: 27 November 2016
CONTENTS
CONTENTS 2
GLOSSARY 4
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 6
RECOMMENDATIONS 8
INTRODUCTION 11
EXERCISE OBJECTIVE 13
EXERCISE CONDUCT 14
Scope 14
Constraints 15
Assumptions 15
Date/time/venue 15
Participants 16
Confidentiality 16
Exercise tracing request 17
Tag information 17
Verification 18
Evaluation 18
Related projects 18
METHODOLOGY 20
Animal selection 20
Distribution 21
Exercise control 21
Tracing 21
Exercise Review 22
Participant Debrief & Review 22
OVERVIEW OF RESULTS 24
AGSoC Benchmarks 24
Standard 1.1 24
Standard 1.2 25
Standard 3.1 26
Standard 3.2 26
Exercise Review 27
transaction tagging v non-transaction tagging 28
NVD completion rates 29
CONCLUSION 31
APPENDIX A: NATIONAL LIVESTOCK TRACEABILITY
PERFORMANCE STANDARDS 33
APPENDIX B: POST-EXERCISE QUESTIONNAIRE 34

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APPENDIX C FEEDBACK SHEET SUMMARY 35
APPENDIX D SHEEP NVD 37
APPENDIX E RESULTS BY POINT OF ORIGIN 39

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GLOSSARY
ABS Australian Bureau of Statistics

ACT Australian Capital Territory
AgSOC Agricultural Senior Officials Committee (formerly the Primary
Industries Standing Committee)
AHA Animal Health Australia
AHC Animal Health Committee
BioBiz A bespoke computer package that brings the PIC register and
property case histories together. Used by NSW.
BTEC Brucellosis and Tuberculosis Eradication Campaign
DRIS Decision Regulation Impact Study
EAD Emergency Animal Disease
EST Eastern Standard Time
FMD foot and mouth disease
GICA Goat Industry Council of Australia
KPI key performance indicator
LPA Livestock Production Assurance
MLA Meat and Livestock Australia
Movement document A document that contains critical details that need to be
recorded when stock are moved, including the PIC from
which the stock were dispatched, the date of dispatch, the
numbers and description of stock being dispatched, the serial
number of the movement document that accompanies the
stock, the name and signature of the person completing the
movement document and date it was made, and the
intended destination of the stock
NLIS National Livestock Identification System
NLIS-Cattle National Livestock Identification System for cattle
NLIS-S&G National Livestock Identification System for sheep and goats
NLTPS National Livestock Traceability Performance Standards
NVD National Vendor Declaration
PIC Property Identification Code
PIHC Primary Industries Health Committee
PIMC Primary Industries Ministerial Committee
PIRSA Primary Industries & Regions South Australia
RFID Radio-frequency identification
SCA Sheepmeat Council of Australia
SCoPI Standing Council on Primary Industries

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SC1 Exercise Sheepcatcher 1
SC2 Exercise Sheepcatcher 2
SOPs Standard operating procedures
WPA WoolProducers Australia
YES/MAX A bespoke computer package that brings the PIC register and
property case histories together. Used by all jurisdictions
except ACT and NSW.

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Between 2 June and 5 July 2016, a national exercise was held to audit the National
Livestock Identification System for Sheep and Goats (NLIS-S&G) against the Primary
Industries Ministerial Committee (PIMC) endorsed National Livestock Traceability
Performance Standards (NLTPS). This exercise was named Sheepcatcher II. It must
be noted that the Exercise is not a statistically valid study and was never designed to
be so. It has been designed to identify trends within the system being audited. PISC
(2004) agreed that a national sampling framework would be determined. The
outcome would be to ensure that a nationally consistent result is achieved. It would
also address the commercial reality that livestock move across jurisdictional
boundaries.
Sheepcatcher II (SC2) aimed to evaluate the tracing system of sheep and goats to
identify areas where the system could be improved. SC2 involved agriculture
agencies in all jurisdictions (except the Northern Territory) tracing individual
(specified) animals independently chosen from saleyards, abattoirs, pre-export
quarantine facilities and private properties back to property of birth and the
identification of their cohorts and their location. A total of 60 animals were selected
and divided amongst the jurisdictions based on the population of sheep in each
state/territory as a proportion of the total.
Participants reported the results of the traces to Exercise Control, and provided
qualitative information on how they did the tracing, the impediments, how to
improve tracing, etc. through a post-exercise questionnaire and debrief conducted at
a face-to-face meeting on the 14 September 2016.
A review of the outcomes of SC2 confirms that the described objectives have been
met:
evaluating the NLIS-S&G tracing system against the NLTPS and the 2014
AgSOC key performance indicators (KPIs)
identifying areas where the NLIS-S&G program can be further improved
in order to better meet regulatory expectations
assessing the variations in ability of mandatory transaction tagging to
assist in rapid tracing as opposed to voluntary transaction tagging
where a resultant hybridised system operates
Importantly the exercise has identified areas where the NLIS-S&G program needs to
be improved. It must be remembered that the expectation of the exercise was to
demonstrate current compliance against the NLTPS, and to set a benchmark allowing
the impact of improvements to the system to be measured in the future. This is the
second time such an exercise has been executed for traceability in sheep and goats.
An improvement in performance from Exercise Sheepcatcher I (SC1) has been shown
in Standards 1.1, 3.1 and 3.2.

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SC2 clearly shows that as a tracing system, the NLIS-S&G provides a good working
framework for the back-tracing of animals to their last property of residence and
property of birth yet fails to meet the NLTPS & AgSOC KPIs. The system is weakened
due to the failure to complete National Vendor Declarations (NVDs) with accurate
information representing the stock being moved and adequate addresses of dispatch
and destination. The NLIS-S&G framework does not provide a reliable framework for
the timely forward tracing of cohorts due to ongoing compliance challenges that
impede overall performance. Full support and compliance by all stakeholders would
greatly improve the success of the framework. The high rate of incomplete NVDs
found (particularly with non-vendor bred sheep) hampers the effective forward
tracing of cohort animals.
SC2 results indicate that where movements have not been recorded on the NLIS
Database the resource demands associated with locating and interpreting the
paperwork on which the NLIS-S&G relies to facilitate the tracking of sheep can be
considerable. This has implications for governments and industry in a disease or
food safety response scenario where potentially thousands of sheep may need to be
located quickly and efficiently. Better compliance with uploading to the NLIS
database and mandatory reporting of all movements would provide greater
reliability of trace data and reduce the reliance on a paper-based system to verify
what is on the database. Additionally, uploading the NVD for each movement
currently voluntary - would reduce the time to access any documents that do need
to be viewed.
Enhancements to the NLIS-S&G still need to be made in order to achieve a robust

system, which can be used effectively during a large-scale disease event such as foot
and mouth disease (FMD), and to a lesser extent, food safety emergency or non-
contagious disease.

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RECOMMENDATIONS
All participants (industry and governments) had the opportunity to provide feedback
on the exercise. The jurisdictions had the opportunity to provide written feedback to
Exercise Control and verbal feedback was provided during a face-to-face meeting on
the 14 September 2016. In addition, Exercise Control met with the Project Steering
Committee (Industry funding parties, a non-affected industry (pig industry) and a
state government representative) to review the data and provide recommendations
from their viewpoint. The following recommendations are those provided by the
Project Steering Committee and jurisdictional participants and have been presented
and categorised to reflect the objectives of the tracing task:
Strategic direction
1. The NLIS-S&G needs to be regularly evaluated (no more than 5 years apart).
Exercises should be undertaken to identify deficiencies and measure
performance in NLIS-S&G.
2. There is an urgent need to address the recommendations from the 2014
Decision Regulatory Impact Study (DRIS).
3. There is a need for a set of standards to replace the existing business rules.
The responsibilities of the various components of the supply chain (e.g.
producer, saleyard operator, agent, etc.) need to be clarified and agreed to
by all relevant industry participants.
4. The need for incorporating the YES/MAX, BioBiz and visual tracing systems
into everyday use will provide a useful framework for training and
maintaining critical competency levels within the jurisdictions in preparation
for a biosecurity, food safety or product integrity response.
5. Strategies are required to reduce the personnel (government and industry)
needed to trace sheep and goats in a response. At present, many people are
required to trace and verify the data of sheep and goats due to the
incomplete records of movement on the NLIS database and the non-
compulsory requirement to upload information to the NLIS Database in some
jurisdictions.
6. Strategies to improve data capture accuracy associated with the visual
reading and recording of information on tags and NVDs within the supply
chain.
Strategies to enhance the effectiveness of the current system

7. Saleyard operators and livestock agents must review their systems to ensure
that there is a nationally consistent approach to the provision of information
relating to the sale and movement of sheep and goats. At present, there are
discrepancies and gaps (buyer PIC, other PIC details, use of emergency

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permits and tags) in the information supplied in post-sale buyer
documentation. This information must be provided in a consistent and
preferably electronic format to assist in data interpretation and in the speed
of dissemination and recovery in an emergency.
8. The NLIS-S&G should be reviewed to enhance the capability of the system to
track sheep and goats through all parts of the supply chain, both backwards
and forwards. Strategies that should be scoped include:
a. Increasing extension, emphasising the need for vendors to ensure that
all PICs on tags are recorded on the accompanying NVD, or
alternatively that a pink transaction tag is used.
b. Increasing extension, emphasising the need for buyers to obtain a
copy of the accompanying NVD, ensure the information it contains is
correct and complete, and retain it for at least seven years.
9. There is a need to engage with supply chain verification systems (i.e.
Livestock Production Assurance (LPA), National Saleyard QA) to ensure that
there are common and consistent standards and communications supporting
the NLIS-S&G, and NLIS aspects are appropriately included in routine audits.
10. The NLIS-S&G should be reviewed to enhance the capability of the system to
locate cohorts in a timely, efficient and effective manner. Enhancements that
should be scoped include:
a. The mandatory recording of all movements between any properties
with different PICs.
b. The mandatory uploading and/or retention of movement document
images/information by all sectors of the supply chain to the NLIS
Database, especially if not using the eNVD system.
c. The NLIS Database must also capture details of emergency tags
applied by saleyards and permits provided by state/territory
governments.
d. Adding transaction tag fields to the NLIS database uploads to identify
if transaction tags have been used or not.
e. Abattoirs must upload the NVD number with kill data for stock
sourced from a saleyard.
11. Communication and extension strategy developed that will:
a. Address the need to complete movement documents properly when
moving stock. A robust traceability system is reliant on a robust NVD
system.
b. Promote the roles of all supply chain participants and their
responsibilities.
c. Provision of training to supply chain participants what needs to be
done to meet the Standards and how to do it effectively and

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efficiently and consequences of not doing it (e.g. breakdown in
traceability and protracted removal from international markets).
d. Provide feedback to supply chain participants on meeting the
Standards. Supply chain participants can do this via existing audits as
well as targeted feedback mechanisms. An example would be
processors routinely provide formal feedback to saleyards and
producers on movement document and tagging compliance.
12. There is a need to develop better mirror database reports and share these
between all jurisdictions.
13. There is an ongoing need for the training of tracing staff (government and
industry). This will require the training of staff in the YES/MAX, BioBiz and
visual tracing systems.
Strategies to enhance the effectiveness of future exercises

14. The exercise methodology and reporting system should be reviewed to
improve efficiency and relevance of assessing results providing clearly
defined requirements for all situations.
15. Jurisdictions should continue their commitment to the provision of training of
staff in the use and interpretation of information from the relevant databases
and systems put in place to facilitate the tracing of livestock. This also applies
to training in the use of new databases and information management
systems as they become available.
16. Spread the 24hr reporting phase over two working days as was done for
Standards 3.1 and 3.2 where the 14 and 21 day reporting was spread over
working days only (weekends were not included).
17. Include supply chain participants in future tracing exercises.
18. The exercise reporting format should be improved so that this aspect of any
future exercise doesnt hamper the outcome of the exercise. This could
include the use of the YES/MAX and BioBiz systems as a basis of exercise
reporting so that experience in an exercise reflects what will be done in a real
incident; or vice versa, the reporting in an exercise is not hampered by using
unfamiliar or irrelevant reports to what would be used in an incident.

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INTRODUCTION
Traceability is defined as the proportion of animals that can be successfully traced

between defined points in the supply chain or over time. The current NLIS for sheep
and goats is mob-based. It relies on arrangements based on visual identification,
coupled with documentation recording movements of mobs of animals. Approaches
to meeting the standard vary across jurisdictions.1
The concept of a national identification system was first applied to cattle through the
Brucellosis and Tuberculosis Eradication Campaign (BTEC).
BTEC required a high level of cattle control with 100% musters and recording
of all cattle moving between farms and from farm to abattoir. A major
development of BTEC, starting in NSW in 1969, was the introduction of a self-
adhesive plastic or vinyl tag applied to the tail showing details of the animals
ownership and property or premise of origin. All cattle are identified by a tail
tag before sale or ante-mortem inspection at abattoirs and identification and
trace-back of slaughter cattle remains integral to successful surveillance for
tuberculosis. (Cousins et al (editors), Eradication of Bovine Tuberculosis from
Australia, CSL, 1998).
At this time, there was no identification system for sheep or goats.
In 1970, the Western Australian government introduced new legislation for the need
to identify all livestock with a brand.
On 10 April 2003, PIMC agreed that:
effective traceback and traceforward systems for livestock are essential to

meet ever-increasing consumer market expectations about the safety and
integrity of livestock and livestock products
and agreed that these traceability systems should be based upon existing
industry/government endorsed systems, for sheep, the National Flock Identification
System.
At the fifth PIMC meeting of 19 May 2004, Ministers:
Endorsed the National Livestock Traceability Performance Standards [see

Appendix A], which are designed to demonstrate a traceability capability for
1
ABARES 2014, Implementation of improvements to the National Livestock Identification System for
sheep and goats: Decision Regulation Impact Statement ABARES research report, Canberra, August.
CC BY 3.0.

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livestock, and approved their application to cattle and sheep and other FMD
susceptible livestock.
At the 10th Primary Industries Health Committee (PIHC) meeting of December 2005,
it was agreed that Animal Health Australia (AHA) would be requested to:
manage periodic independent audits against the National Livestock

Traceability Performance Standards. It was suggested that the cattle audit be
done during late 2006 and the sheep audit be part of the planned review of the
sheep and goat NLIS.
The NLIS-S&G was implemented in 2006 to enhance Australias capacity to identify

and trace sheep and goats from property of birth to slaughter or export. As a result
of a SAFEMEAT Partnership (December 2005) endorsed tracing exercise held in July
2007, modifications were made to improve the operability of the NLIS-S&G. Key
changes included the introduction of recording MBM to the NLIS database, including
voluntary upload of NVD images, and development of reports for tracing and
auditing purposes.
In 2011 the former PIMC noted that the NLIS for sheep and goats does not enable
tracing of animals to the standard required by the NLTPS. The former PIMC
established a working group to consider the feasibility of electronic identification
devices for sheep and goats. The PIMC Working Group on NLIS (Sheep & Goats)
reported that no insurmountable technical barriers existed to implementing an
electronic NLIS for sheep and goats but a substantial investment of resources and
funding would be needed from all jurisdictions.1
A Consultation Regulatory Impact Study (CRIS) (March 2013) was prepared to seek
stakeholder views on possible options for modifying the current National Livestock
Identification System (NLIS) for sheep and goats. The views assisted in the
preparation of a regulation impact statement (RIS) for the consideration of the
Standing Council on Primary Industries (SCoPI now known as AgSOC). The CRIS
formed the basis of the Decision RIS (DRIS) (September 2014) which outlines the
method and sources of data used to conduct the analysis; assesses the costs and
benefits of selected options for improving traceability; and recommends a preferred
option based on a set of standard assumptions. ABARES prepared the DRIS in
accordance with Office of Best Practice Regulation (OBPR) guidance.
In August 2015, the NLIS-S&G Advisory Committee agreed that a second tracing
exercise would be undertaken to provide guidance for enhancements of the mob-
based system.
As such, in 2016, AHA worked with all stakeholders in undertaking a tracing exercise
called SC2 where 60 sheep and goats were identified, allocated to participating
jurisdictions and traced to meet all relevant standards of the NLTPS. This report
provides a review of the planning, execution and results of the exercise and satisfies
one of the recommendations of the DRIS.

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EXERCISE OBJECTIVE
The aim of the exercise was to develop, conduct and evaluate an exercise to
objectively assess the tracing capabilities of Australias NLIS-S&G.
The objectives of the project were to:
evaluate the NLIS-S&G tracing system against the NLTPS and the 2014
AgSOC key performance indicators (KPIs)
identify areas where the NLIS-S&G program can be further improved in
order to better meet regulatory expectations
assess the variations in ability of mandatory transaction tagging to assist
in rapid tracing as opposed to voluntary transaction tagging where a
resultant hybridised system operates.

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EXERCISE CONDUCT
SCOPE
The scope of the project includes:
Government agricultural agencies in all jurisdictions (except the
Northern Territory)
the NLTPS approved by PIMC (see Appendix A) and KPIs defined by
AgSOC
a primary focus on the ability to locate individual animals and their in-
contact cohorts using the current identification/traceability systems for
sheep and goats with a secondary focus on timeliness
Two matters that sit outside of scope, but provides insight into aspects of the tracing
system are:
a review of NVDs and their completion rates
a review of the results broken down according to where the target
specified trace animals were identified.2
The exercise involved the identification and tracing of 60 specified sheep and goats
through the various production pathways from abattoirs, export depots, saleyards
and properties back to property of birth, as well as in-contact cohorts.
The NLIS-S&G Business Rules provide three separate options for non-vendor bred
stock:
The use of Post Breeder/transaction tags for second and subsequent
movements of stock from one property to another. Western Australia
has mandated the use of transaction tags3. In every other
state/territory, the use of transaction tags is voluntary.
The listing of all property identification codes (PICs) present in a given
mob on the NVD, followed by the mandatory inclusion of these details
in the suite of data uploaded to the NLIS Database and in post-sale
buyer documentation. This is required in every state/territory.
The voluntary use of RFID.
It was agreed at the December 2015 meeting of the NLIS-S&G Advisory Committee
that the report would include a comparison between the mandatory transaction tag
2
This has been included at the request of GICA and has been placed in Appendix E due to the inability to draw conclusions from
the comparisons.
3
Transaction tagging is the application of a pink post-breeder ear tag whenever an animal is consigned from a property that is not
their property of birth. Animals have one year-of-birth tag and a pink tag for each time they are sold. All tags must remain with
the animal through its life

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system and the more widely used system recording the PICs on all tags in the mob
being moved on a movement document.
It is important to note that the comparison only provides an indicative insight into
the tracing of sheep and goats in Australia. The small sample size of target animals
precludes a valid statistical verification.
CONSTRAINTS
The jurisdictions participating in the exercise used existing jurisdictional staff to
undertake the tracing of the nominated livestock. It must be noted, that in many
cases these staff still had to perform their normal duties while participating in the
exercise. Tracing staff had to operate within constraints imposed by:
Floods
Khapra beetle response
Japanese BJD response
anthrax response
data management issues
health emergencies
funerals, divorces and people not on farm(interstate & overseas)
removal of a PIC database
Part time employees both government & industry
Russian wheat aphid response
ASSUMPTIONS
The following assumptions were made:
all jurisdictions except the Northern Territory would be involved in the
exercise
that all costs incurred by the individual organisations involved with the
tracing exercises would be met by that organisation
that jurisdictions would work together to ensure the effective tracing of
animals that are transferred between jurisdictions
DATE/TIME/VENUE
The exercise commenced at 9:00am Eastern Standard Time (EST) on Thursday 2 June
2016 and finished at 12:00 noon EST on Tuesday 5 July 2016. Exercise participants were
at their normal places of work, with Exercise Control located in Canberra.

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PARTICIPANTS
All state and territory primary industry agencies (except the Northern Territory)
participated in SC2. Control staff were sourced from AHA. The exercise took place in an
operational environment and involved real sheep in real locations. Participants were
expected to report on progress at 24 hours, 14 days and 21 days after the initial tracing
request.
Each jurisdiction participated with differing levels of resources applied to the task. Some
jurisdictions set up control centres with 10 to 15 officers for part of the exercise whilst
other jurisdictions utilised smaller numbers of officers commensurate with the number
of trace animals allocated. Table 1 shows the number of tracing staff utilised (to varying
extent) compared to the number of animals requiring tracing, and the ratio of staff to
animals. On average, there were two staff for each animal, with NSW and Qld providing
additional staff compared to other states. The remaining jurisdictions provided similar
ratios of staff to animals.
TABLE 1: NUMBER OF TRACING STAFF PER JURISDICTION
Jurisdiction Number of Tracing Number of Animals Ratio Staff:

Staff Animals
ACT 1 1 1:1
NSW 25 20 1.25:1
Qld 13 3 4.3:1
SA 12 9 1.3:1
Tas 6 2 3:1
Vic 22 14 1.6:1
WA 13 11 1.2:1
TOTAL 92 60 1.53:1
CONFIDENTIALITY
Agricultural media raised awareness of the exercise prior to the event. Media talking
points were prepared by AHA, shared with the jurisdiction primary industry agencies,
SAFEMEAT and relevant industry sectors and held in case of unanticipated media
coverage.
The talking points were also distributed to industry bodies who were to brief their
members via industry related newsletters/emails.
Post-exercise briefings were provided to industry and government parties at their

Executive meetings (Sheepmeat Council of Australia [SCA] and WoolProducers of
Australia [WPA], with the Goat Industry Council of Australia [GICA] declining the offer),

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the NLIS-S&G Advisory Committee (July 2016 meeting) and Animal Health Committee
(November 2016 meeting).
EXERCISE TRACING REQUEST

Company and third party staff identified a total of 60 sheep and goats across the supply
chain (e.g. saleyards, export abattoirs, and live export facilities) and Exercise Control
ensured that they were distributed throughout the country. Exercise Control requested
the nominated state/territory primary industry officers to trace a variable number of
nominated, individual sheep and goats, and to report back within the desired timeframe.
TAG INFORMATION
All participants agreed that the sheep and goats be traced against standards 1.1, 1.2, 3.1
and 3.2 of the NLTPS (Appendix A).
For this exercise, the 60 sheep and goats were allocated to states based on the average
population of sheep in the jurisdiction for the previous three years. Data was obtained
from Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA), 2015, Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS),
2011-12 Survey, Combination of ABS, 2011-12 Survey and MLA, 2015, as set out in
Table 2.
TABLE 2: HERD AND FLOCK SIZE FOR JURISDICTIONAL DISTRIBUTION

Jurisdiction Sheep Managed Rangeland Total Percentage Number of
Flock4 Goat Goat meat of Allocation IDs to
Herd5 Production6 Trace
ACT 107 2 2 111 0 1

NSW 26,700,000 237,425 100,000 27,037,425 34.6 20
NT 2 2 4 8 0 0
Qld 2,300,000 201,295 1,800,000 4,301,295 5.5 3
SA 11,000,000 10,323 550,000 11,560,323 14.8 9
Tas 2,800,000 107 2 2,800,109 3.6 2
Vic 15,400,000 51,614 2,400,000 17,851,614 22.9 14
WA 14,400,000 15,484 150,000 14,565,484 18.6 11
TOTAL 72,600,109 516,253 5,000,008 78,116,370 100 60
4
Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA), 2015
5
Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), 2011-12 Survey
6
Combination of ABS, 2011-12 Survey and MLA, 2015 (Based on carcase weight)

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VERIFICATION
Unlike SC1 in 2007, verification was required for all movements. Verification required
the substantiation of movement data using movement documents (NVDs, saleyard post
sale summaries, and other relevant documentation) and the provision of these records
to AHA. A breakdown in verification occurs when:
there was no documentation provided to AHA to support a tracing outcome
where there is no correlation between the movement document and the PIC on
the animals ear tag. For example, a breakdown in verification occurs when an
NVD for non-vendor bred animals has not been completed correctly and the PIC
on the ear tag is not listed on the NVD in the table describing the sheep or goats.
Verification of whether PICs were present on the movement document that did not
relate to tags on stock in the consignment could not be ascertained.
EVALUATION
To verify the success or otherwise of the livestock tracing:
The criterion for success were Standards 1.1, 1.2, 3.1 and 3.2 of the NLTPS. In
the assessment against a Standard it only took one breakdown in the traces
to render the trace incomplete and therefore not able to meet the Standard.
It must be noted that this form of evaluation does not and cannot give an
indication of the degree of trace achieved before that breakdown occurred as
it is impossible to know how many additional animals were to be traced.
Exercise Control required documentary evidence to be supplied for the
movements of each target animal and cohort(s).
Participants provided qualitative information through a post-exercise
questionnaire on how they did the tracing, the impediments, and how to
improve tracing.
A face to face debrief was conducted at a meeting of the government
agencies on the 14 September 2016.
RELATED PROJECTS
Projects related to the exercise:
NLIS-S&G compliance monitoring under the auspices of the NLIS Monitoring
Committee.
Review of the NLIS-S&G as planned by the NLIS-S&G Advisory Committee.
The development of a Business Plan by all stakeholders for the further
advancement of the system. This was an outcome of the 2014 DRIS. The

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Plan was created but has not yet been progressed due to the lack of both
commitment and funding.
The conversion of the NLIS S&G Business Rules into Standards.

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METHODOLOGY
ANIMAL SELECTION
The identification and collection of sheep and goats for tracing was undertaken during
the week beginning 30 May 2016. Staff from export abattoirs, saleyards, export depots
and private properties randomly selected the sheep from randomly selected sites within
the focus property and collected information as set out in Table 4. This entailed catching
the selected sheep or goat and recording the particulars using photography (n=56/60) or
writing of the pertinent information (n=4/60). The information was then provided to
Exercise Control electronically. Exercise Control had no input into the selection of the
animals.
TABLE 4: INFORMATION FIELDS PROVIDED BY EXERCISE CONTROL TO STATES
Livestock Tracing Audit (2 June - 5 July 2016)

Tracing Request
To: Position:
Reporting Officer (name):
State/Territory agency:
Fax: Ph: Email:
M:
From: Duncan Rowland, Exercise Control Centre, Animal Health Australia
Fax: 02 6232 5511 Ph: 02 6203 3910
Date: 02.06.2016 Time: 8:45am
1. Description: Animal identifier (alphanumeric):
-
Identifier type: Insert photo
Location: Date:
2. Description: Animal identifier (alphanumeric):

-
Identifier type: Insert photo
Location: Date:

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DISTRIBUTION
In all cases, the information provided to the jurisdictions was that provided to Exercise
Control by those collecting the information. In addition, the date the animal was
certified as being at the aggregation point was provided.
Exercise Control placed the electronic information received into an electronic format
(Table 4) for distribution to the states.
All tags for a designated jurisdiction were selected from facilities within the boundaries
of that jurisdiction (e.g. all tags allocated to Primary Industries and Regions, South
Australia {PIRSA} were collected within South Australian facilities).
All jurisdictions received a list of tags to trace between 8.50am and 9.05am on 2 June
2016. This information was provided via email to each jurisdictional NLIS project co-
ordinator.
EXERCISE CONTROL
Exercise Control was located at the AHA offices in Canberra. Exercise Control activities
included receiving reports from state and territory government personnel, solving
problems and answering operational questions as they arose during the conduct of the
exercise.
Exercise Control was operational between 8.00am and 7.00pm on each day of the
exercise. In order to cater for the western jurisdictions, contact details were provided for
after hours queries.
At the 24 hour, 14 day and 21 day points, reports were forwarded to Exercise Control,
providing the data collected against each of the trace animals.
TRACING
All participating jurisdictions engaged in the exercise as if it were a disease outbreak.
Each jurisdiction aimed to ensure an appropriate number of staff were utilised in the
exercise. Staffing was usually proportionate to the workload placed on the jurisdiction
(staffing varied between 1 and 60 officers).
A scenario was not utilised for this exercise so effectively there were 60 target animals
requiring tracing at any one time. This is equivalent to day 30 of an outbreak as reported
by Martin et al (2015)7.
7
Martin P.A.J., Langstaff I., Iglesias R.M., East I. J., Sergeant E.S.G., Garner M.G. Assessing the efficacy of general
surveillance for detection of incursions of livestock diseases in Australia. PREVET (2015),
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.prevetmed.2015.06.017

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The tracing protocols are usually included in the Animal Health Standard Operating
Procedures (SOPs) for each jurisdiction. There is not a standardised national approach to
the tracing of sheep and goats, however there is a high-level guidance document within
the AUSVETPLAN series called Tracing and surveillance guidance document.
Additionally, each jurisdiction was requested to provide their tracing results in a pre-
determined format, as supplied by Exercise Control.
EXERCISE REVIEW
The Steering Committee met on 20 October 2016 in Canberra to review the results
provided by the participants and assessed by AHA. Attendees represented AHA,
Australian Pork Limited (APL), NLIS Monitoring Committee representative (South
Australian Government), Goat Industry Council of Australia (GICA), Sheepmeat Council of
Australia (SCA) and WoolProducers Australia (WPA). After reviewing the data provided,
the attendees discussed:
the exercise planning phase
the operational aspects of the exercise
the presentation of the results
recommendations arising from the exercise
the implications of what was learnt during the exercise from the
representative organisations perspectives.
PARTICIPANT DEBRIEF & REVIEW

The exercise undertook three levels of review in order to capture the comments and
thoughts of those people involved in the tracing of the specified trace sheep. The first
being the debrief teleconference held on 6 July; secondly, the completion of a feedback
sheet and the third being a face to face debrief with state co-ordinators.
All participants involved in the exercise were requested to fill out a feedback sheet (as
seen at Appendix B). The sheet was split into areas relating to the following aspects of
the exercise:
Impediments that affected the tracing of the identified animals
Benefits of the tracing system used
Improvements in the tracing system used
Improvements in the conduct of the exercise
AHA facilitated the face to face debrief session of all state co-ordinators and technical
staff on 14 September 2016 at an NLIS technical workshop in Perth. The debrief provided
an insight into how their jurisdiction participated in the exercise, any difficulties
experienced and any lessons learnt from the exercise. In addition, each jurisdiction was
asked to provide commentary on the planning and operation of the exercise and

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suggested improvements to future exercises. The following questions were asked of the
participants:
In relation to the tracing task:
- What happened in your jurisdiction/organisation?
- What did you plan to do and what was the difference?
- What can be improved and how?
In relation to the management of the exercise:
- What was done in the lead-up to the exercise?
- What aspects of the conduct of the exercise worked well and what can be
done better?

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OVERVIEW OF RESULTS
Due to the complexity of the exercise, the raw data or aggregated state results will not
be presented in this report. The raw data contains information pertaining to individual
businesses and, for privacy reasons, cannot be publicly released. The jurisdictions (who
legally own the data under Privacy Legislation) have also agreed via the Animal Health
Committee (AHC) (November 2016) that the aggregated final results for each state are
not to be released. The results that have been released cover the evaluation of the
NLTPS and the comparison between the mandatory or voluntary use of transaction tags.
Western Australia authorised the release of these results at the July 2016 meeting of the
NLIS-S&G Advisory Committee.
AGSOC BENCHMARKS
AgSOC established two benchmarks for the performance of the NLIS-S&G; short-term
traceability and long-term traceability, which were drawn from the DRIS and based on
the NLTPS. The two benchmarks are defined below:
Short-term traceability (Standards 1.1 and 1.2) the ability to determine, within
24 hours, the locations where a specified animal was resident during the previous
30 days and to determine the locations of all susceptible animals that resided
concurrently and/or subsequently on any of the properties on which a specified
animal has resided in the past 30 days. AgSOC agreed to this being 98%.
Long-term traceability (Standards 3.1 and 3.2) the ability to determine, within
14 days, all locations where a specified animal has been resident during its life,
and to determine, within 21 days, the location of all susceptible animals that
have come into contact with the specified animal at any time during the specified
animals life. AgSOC agreed to this being 95%.
STANDARD 1.1
Within 24 hours of the relevant CVO being notified, it must be possible to determine the
location(s) where a specified animal was resident during the previous 30 days.
n = 60 animals

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TABLE 5: NATIONAL TARGET OUTCOMES MEASUREMENT - STANDARD 1.1
Sheepcatcher I Sheepcatcher II
Number of animals traced without verification 37 62% 54 90%
Number of animals traced with verification NA NA 46 77%
Number of properties traced to 143 99
Table 5 shows a marked improvement in the traceability of sheep and goats nationally
compared to that experienced for Sheepcatcher I. However, the results fall short of the
AgSOC benchmark of 98%. The main reasons for not meeting the standard are:
1. Incomplete NVDs.
2. The lack of on-farm storage of NVDs. The NVDs were not kept for the required
timeframes as stated in the NLIS-S&G Business Rules.
3. The lack of government resources for tracing against the 24 hour time
constraints.
4. The 24 hour reporting period was not adjusted for the exercise as it was for the
14 and 21 day points.
5. The difficulty of tracing cross-border stock movements.
STANDARD 1.2
Within 24 hours it must also be possible to determine the location(s) where all
susceptible animals that resided concurrently and/or subsequently on any of the
properties on which a specified animal has resided in the last 30 days.
n = 60 animals
Number of animals traced without verification 27 head 46% 30 head 50%
Number of animals traced with verification NA NA 24 head 40%
Number of properties traced to 1,608 12,085
Number of cohort animals 461,669 1,013,095
Table 6 shows little improvement in the traceability of sheep and goats nationally
compared to the benchmark set in SC1. The results fall a long way short of the AgSOC
benchmark of 98%. The main reasons for not meeting the standard are:
1. Difficulty verifying slaughter of saleyard lines often split and killed over several
days.
2. Failure of saleyard post-sale documentation to reconcile with abattoir kill.

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3. Incomplete NVDs.
5. The lack of resources for tracing against the 24 hour time constraints.
6. The 24 hour reporting period was not adjusted for the exercise as it was for the
14 and 21 day points.
STANDARD 3.1
Within 14 days of the relevant CVO being notified, it must be possible to determine all
locations where a specified animal has been resident during its life.
n = 60 animals
Number of properties traced to 168 186
Table 7 shows an encouraging improvement in the traceability of sheep and goats

nationally compared to the SC1 benchmark. The results meet the AgSOC benchmark of
98%. The main reasons for any not being fully traced were:
1. Incomplete NVDs.
4. Staff disengagement due to length of the exercise and requirements to perform
normal duties and participate in real outbreaks.
STANDARD 3.2
Within 21 days of the relevant CVO being notified, it must also be possible to determine
the location of all susceptible animals that resided concurrently with a specified animal at
any time during the specified animals life.
n = 60 animals

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Number of properties traced to 874 77,102
Number of cohort animals 184,270 27,668,095
Table 8 shows limited improvement in the long term traceability of sheep and goats
nationally compared to SC1. The results fall a long way short of the AgSOC benchmark of
95%. The main reasons for not meeting the standard are:
1. Incomplete NVDs.
timeframes as stated in the NLIS-S&G Business Rules. Due to the age of some of
the sheep, some movements were outside the legal requirements to retain.
4. The lack of resources for tracing against the time constraints.
5. Reluctance of supply chain entities to provide archived NVDs in a timely manner
per requests.
6. The tracing of older stock that were born prior to the introduction of the NLIS
S&G in 2010.
7. Staff disengagement due to length of the exercise and the need to perform
normal duties.
EXERCISE REVIEW
The exercise undertook three levels of review in order to capture the comments and
thoughts of those people involved in the tracing of the target sheep and goats. The first
being the completion of a feedback sheet, the second involved a telephone debrief of
the state co-ordinators, whilst the third involved the steering committee reviewing the
exercise.
Exercise Control received 25 feedback sheets from personnel involved at all levels of the
exercise. The comments made were de-identified and distilled down to a list of points
(Appendix C) that could be easily reviewed. It must be noted that no cleansing of the
comments has taken place (only the removal of duplicates).
Each jurisdiction provided commentary on their evaluation of the tracing task any
impediments experienced, beneficial aspects and any improvements identified.
Additionally, they commented on the exercise and its planning/execution.

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TRANSACTION TAGGING V NON-TRANSACTION TAGGING
The NLIS-S&G Advisory Committee agreed at the July meeting that it would be beneficial
to compare the results of those states that utilise mandatory transaction tags with those
that do not use transaction tags and instead rely on listing all tag PICs in the description
of sheep table of the sheep and goat NVDs to be accurately completed.
The comparison only provides a qualitative insight and cannot be validated by a
statistical test because of the small sample size of sheep with transaction tags. The
comparison examines 11 animals traced with the use of transaction tags and 49 animals
traced where producers have the option of either recording recorded on the NVDs or
using transaction tags.
Table 10 shows a comparison of the two approaches. It should be noted that the
mandatory transaction tag system shows an improvement in traceability with the system
being very strong in the back tracing of sheep and goats and improves upon the
mainstream system for the forward tracing of sheep and goats.
Contrary to the improvements shown in Table 10, South Australia experienced issues
with transaction tagging and believe that it actually hampered their tracing ability due to
its voluntary use, effectively having two systems operating together. On closer
examination, one can understand how a hybrid version of transaction tagging and the
listing of PICs on an NVD can be detrimental to the tracing of stock as there would
effectively be gaps in the NVD approach or vice-versa with the transaction tag system.
The reason why it has worked well in Western Australia is that it is compulsory for
transaction tags to be used, so gaps do not occur. The PIC on the NVD will always reflect
the tags of all sheep in the consignment, providing certainty that all sheep came from
the one property.
In addition to the South Australian experiences, the DRIS (2014) states that transaction
tagging was not considered as an option in the DRIS because it has been noted that
transaction tagging can compromise trace forward, with adverse consequences for
overall traceability. Unfortunately, this statement is not referenced.
The CIE (2010) report identified that while transaction tagging enhances traceback
(establishing the sequence of the property identification codes [PICs] of residence in an
animals life), it compromises long term trace-forward (locating animals that have
resided on a PIC concurrently with an animal of interest during that animals life).
Note that the lack of verification for Standard 3.2 by WA was a conscious decision based
on the excessive amount of data collected for cohort forward tracing for older sheep
(e.g. 6 million cohorts for one, 8 million cohorts for another) and not from lack of ability.
Priority was placed on the trace first, verification second. There were not the resources
available at that end of the exercise to complete the verification process.
It is important to remember that irrespective of what system is used into the future
there must be a high completion rate for NVDs as this is always going to be the weakest
part of any system.

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TABLE 10: COMPARISON OF TRANSACTION TAGGING V NON-TRANSACTION TAGGING
Standard 1.1 Standard 1.2 Standard 3.1 Standard 3.2
Verified Not Verified Not Verified Not Verified Not

Verified Verified Verified Verified
Transaction
100% 100% 64% 73% 100% 100% 0% 91%
Tag
Other 55% 95% 36% 57% 55% 82% 21% 25%
NVD COMPLETION RATES

A random selection of 754 sheep NVDs that were supplied to AHA as part of the
verification of sheep and goat movements were selected and their completion rates for
each question were recorded. Table 11 provides the results for all the pertinent
traceability questions.
TABLE 11: NVD COMPLETION RATES

Questions A. B. E.
D.
from NLIS tags Post Destination
Details Tag list Consignment
Sheep breeder if different
details
NVD tag
%
incorrectly
29 12 23 49 40 36
or not
completed
A copy of a Sheep NVD is provided at Appendix D for reference and further explanation
and context of the questions being reviewed.
When reviewing the percentage of questions incorrectly or not completed it becomes
apparent that the traceability of sheep and goats will struggle to meet the AgSOC
acceptable benchmarks of 95% for long term traces (Standards 3.1 and 3.2) and 98% for
short term traces (Standards 1.1 and1.2). This will be more pertinent for non-vendor
bred mobs not because the system tools are not available, but due to lack of care and
participation by industry participants.
A major national communication effort that focuses on the need to complete the NVD
for each movement is required, with clear messages as to why it is important. This
communication effort will need to be continued over an extended period, as this is a
systemic issue with the NLIS-S&G.
The move to eNVDs will greatly improve this problem due to the mandatory fields and
electronic completion, making them complete and legible.

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The high level of compliance issues, in particular those related to the accuracy of
information in incomplete NVDs is a problem and the system needs to be more robust
especially in the case of non-vendor bred consignments. A robust mob-based traceability
system must be underpinned by a robust system of movement documents and strategies
are required to markedly improve the level of NVD completion.
The exercise acknowledges the need for ongoing efforts towards compliance
enforcement of incorrectly completed NVDs, especially for consignors of non-vendor
bred stock in particular. Unless all PICs on the animals within such a consignment are
listed it is impossible to trace the sheep. This is a co-responsibility of each jurisdiction,
industry verification programs, saleyards, agents, processors, live exporters and event
managers, and needs to be done on an appropriately regular basis depending on the
sector/user being monitored. To more effectively support these critical issues with the
NLIS-S&G system there should be a greater emphasis on supply chain or market
mechanisms to drive greater levels of compliance with key supply chain nodes (e.g.
without structured verification and corrective action procedures at saleyards and
processors) having a greater role and responsibility to detect, rectify and penalise non-
compliant supply chain participants for any corrective actions. Additionally, the supply
chain needs to take a strong approach to non-compliance including the referral of
incidents to jurisdictions for follow-up and appropriate enforcement response.
It should be noted that greater beneficial outcomes will be obtained if more attention is
given to recording movement information on the NLS database. Strategically, efforts
should be directed towards awareness campaigns to support this objective.

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CONCLUSION
A review of the outcomes of SC2 shows that it met the objectives of evaluating the
tracing system for sheep and goats in all participating jurisdictions whilst identifying
areas where the NLIS-S&G program could be further improved. The objective of the
exercise was to assess the current traceability of sheep and goats against the NLTPS and
the results of SC1 (2007), whilst highlighting areas for targeted enhancement of the
mob-based traceability system operating in Australia, as per the directive stated in the
2014 DRIS. The results of SC2 will provide the comparison for measurement of the level
of enhancement achieved by 2019.
SC2 has also met the objective of comparing the various existing systems of mandatory
and voluntary transaction tagging.
The exercise provided a valuable insight into the suite of tools that are used in the
tracing of sheep and goats in Australia:
Movement documents e.g. National Vendor Declarations and post-sale
documentation
The NLIS database
A critical mass of competent staff with specialist technical skills and a
comprehensive knowledge of the industries and the regions they operate
within
These tools are essential for the efficient, ongoing and improved operation of the NLIS-
S&G. If any one of these tools declines in effectiveness, the ability to trace sheep and
goats will also be compromised. It will not matter what system is used if the skilled
resources are not available.
SC2 clearly shows that as a tracing system, NLIS-S&G provides a good working
framework for the back tracing of animals to their property of birth. The back tracing of
stock could be improved further with some minor amendments to the system. However,
as it stands, it requires greater commitment and participation from all stakeholders
industry and government - to support more prompt, efficient and accurate forward
tracing of cohorts. Significant system enhancements still need to be made in order to
achieve a robust system that will meet the AgSOC benchmarks stated in their
assessment of the 2014 DRIS and the NLTPS.
Given the resources needed to track the 60 animals involved in the exercise, and the
difficulties associated with promptly and efficiently locating cohorts, consideration must
be given to securing the skills and resources to interrogate the NLIS-S&G in its current
form is unlikely to provide optimum support for an effective response in a real whole of
life infectious disease outbreak.

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Significant improvements will be achieved with better provision of movement
documents, uploading all movement documents to the NLIS database, mandating all
movements for recording on the NLIS database and regular tracing activities in each
jurisdiction to establish and maintain an adequate resource skill base.

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APPENDIX A: NATIONAL LIVESTOCK TRACEABILITY
PERFORMANCE STANDARDS
Applicable to all FMD Susceptible Livestock Species8

1.1 Within 24 hours of the relevant CVO9 being notified10, it must be possible to determine the
location(s)11 where a specified animal was resident during the previous 30 days.
1.2 Within 24 hours it must also be possible to determine the location(s)11 where all
susceptible animals that resided concurrently and/or subsequently on any of the properties
on which a specified animal has resided in the last 30 days.
Applicable to Cattle Only12
2.1 Within 48 hours of the relevant CVO9 being notified10, it must be possible to establish the
location(s) 11 where a specified animal has been resident during its life.
2.2 Within 48 hours of the relevant CVO9 being notified10, it must be possible to establish a
listing of all cattle that have lived on the same property as the specified animal at any stage
during those animals lives.
2.3 Within 48 hours of the relevant CVO9 being notified10, it must also be possible to determine
the current location11 of all cattle that resided on the same property as the specified animal
at any time during those animals lives.
Applicable to All FMD Susceptible Livestock Species Except Cattle
(Lifetime traceability excluding the preceding 30 days addressed by 1.1 and 1.2, above)
3.1 Within 14 days of the relevant CVO9 being notified10, it must be possible to determine all
locations11 where a specified animal has been resident during its life.
3.2 Within 21 days of the relevant CVO9 being notified10, it must also be possible to determine
the location11 of all susceptible animals that resided concurrently with a specified animal at
any time during the specified animals life.
8 For the purposes of the Standards, FMD Susceptible Species means cattle, sheep, goats,
and domesticated buffalo, deer, pigs, camels and camelids.
9 The relevant CVO means the State or Territory Chief Veterinary Officer, or their delegate, in
the jurisdiction where the specified animal is located or has been traced to.
10 For the purposes of these Standards, the term notified means the relevant CVO is aware of
an incident that required tracing.
11 Location means any definable parcel of land including (but not limited to): any parcel of land
with a Property Identification Code, travelling stock routes, saleyards, abattoirs, feedlots, live
export collection depots, show grounds, Crown land and transport staging depots.
12 Given the risks posed by BSE, it was considered appropriate to establish separate Standards
for cattle.

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APPENDIX B: POST-EXERCISE QUESTIONNAIRE
Name
Position
State/Territory agency
What was your job during

the exercise?
How was this job

performed?
What impediments were

there in the performance
of your job?
What assisted in the

performance of your job?
How would you improve

the tracing system you
used?
How would you improve

the conduct of this
exercise if it were
performed again?

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APPENDIX C FEEDBACK SHEET SUMMARY
How would you improve the tracing system used by your state?
A number of common improvements were suggested as a result of the exercise. All of
the improvements, as expected, relate to operational issues/difficulties experienced
during the event. The suggestions provided are:
Automate the reporting so time can be spent on verifying and following up any
brick walls or errors.
The tracing system worked well so happy to leave as is. (x4)
One or two key staff doing all the interaction with particular points in the chain
e.g. saleyards, abattoirs.
Use centralised (electronic) system to keep a track of what traces have been
done, stage, completed, follow up needed etc. (e.g. MAX) (x5)
More staff to investigate and clarify disparities in information. (x3)
Increased training in tracing and more tools.
Clearer understanding on priority of traces from other jurisdictions.
All NVDs should be uploaded to NLIS database. It needs to be easier than it is (can
only upload I MB data, a photo of NVD is 2MB, not everyone knows how to resize
something so its got to be easier). This would overcome NVDs being
misplaced/lost etc. (x4)
Removal of pink tagging for transactions still need to list
Move to electronic tags (x4)
Education of producers to keep records and upload movements to the NLIS
database needs to be provided. (x6)
There is a need to improve the ability to contact those producers who do not
answer their phones or have an e-mail address.
Having a template of what to tell the producer, and what information we were
looking for exactly, e.g. a list of generic questions that we asked to get the
information most efficiently and not the extra un-related information.
Develop a suite of mirror database reports with a greater sophistication that may
assist more with WOL (whole of life) tracing. (x4)
Evaluation of the Exercise and its Planning/Execution

The jurisdictions identified a number of common issues experienced during the exercise.
Below is a summary of the agreed issues:
Exercise was a positive learning experience

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NLIS Database was the critical cornerstone in the process.
Many staff that had little exposure or training in tracing benefited from the
exercise and WA in particular found which employees had great strengths in
tracing.
It was a great way to promote traceability and awareness to industry.
Mapping program MAX was utilised and this was a useful tool, it would be helpful
if this was consistently used by all states as part of the exercise.
Spreadsheet was very difficult to use, most states manipulated the AHA
spreadsheet to suit their needs. Enhancements to the spreadsheet could include:
1. Reconfiguring columns to allow an easy transfer of data from NLIS reports.
2. Make the spreadsheet live on a cloud style server so all states can access.
3. Some column descriptions were irrelevant and additional columns were
included that were more relevant such as a date of movement column
instead of a description of movement column.
Some traces went so far back that some NVDs had been archived, or
participants/businesses had left the industry.
Verification requirements were not clear at all with some states thinking they had
verified results but had not.
Trace animal details/images submitted to states were unclear in some cases (x3)
Some states thought that the number of sheep required to trace was unrealistic
for an exercise. (x3)
When tracing cohorts a percentage of the total number of identified animals
initially required to trace should have their cohorts traced. I.e. 2 out of 10 should
have a full trace completed to adhere to the standards rather than for every
animal. (x2)
Resources were scarce as most states only treated it like an exercise and not a
real emergency response where more resources would be available.
Third party saleyard software in some locations corrupted NVD files, which made
verification impossible.

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APPENDIX D SHEEP NVD

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APPENDIX E RESULTS BY POINT OF ORIGIN
In addition to looking at the results on a state-by-state basis against the Standards, the
national results were also analysed by point of origin (where the animals were identified)
to see if there were any trends identified. Table 9 reflects this analysis and shows that
those animals identified on-farm have consistently lower tracing rates than those
identified at saleyards, abattoirs or export yards. Table 9 also shows that the forward
tracing of stock at all points of origin is lower than those requiring back tracing. This is
consistent with that seen in the analysis for each Standard.
The reasons for the breakdown in tracing also remain consistent with those provided for
each Standard.
TABLE 9: COMPARISON OF RESULTS BASED ON POINTS OF ORIGIN
Standard 1.1 Standard 1.2 Standard 3.1 Standard 3.2

Not Not Not Not
Verified Verified Verified
No. head % of total Verified Verified Verified Verified Verified
(%) (%) (%)
(%) (%) (%) (%)
Saleyard 27 45 85 85 48 52 93 100 33 59
Abattoir 21 35 81 95 10 29 86 95 33 38
Export yard 4 7 100 100 75 75 100 100 0 100
Producer 8 13 25 88 50 88 50 88 13 25
TOTAL 60 100

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EXERCISE SHEEPCATCHER II

2 JUNE 5 JULY 2016

Document name: Final Report - Exercise Sheepcatcher II (FINAL) 2

Document name: Final Report - Exercise Sheepcatcher II (FINAL) 3

ABS Australian Bureau of Statistics

Document name: Final Report - Exercise Sheepcatcher II (FINAL) 4

Document name: Final Report - Exercise Sheepcatcher II (FINAL) 5

Document name: Final Report - Exercise Sheepcatcher II (FINAL) 6

Enhancements to the NLIS-S&G still need to be made in order to achieve a robust

Document name: Final Report - Exercise Sheepcatcher II (FINAL) 7

Strategies to enhance the effectiveness of the current system

Document name: Final Report - Exercise Sheepcatcher II (FINAL) 8

Document name: Final Report - Exercise Sheepcatcher II (FINAL) 9

Strategies to enhance the effectiveness of future exercises

Document name: Final Report - Exercise Sheepcatcher II (FINAL) 10

Traceability is defined as the proportion of animals that can be successfully traced

At this time, there was no identification system for sheep or goats.

On 10 April 2003, PIMC agreed that:

effective traceback and traceforward systems for livestock are essential to

At the fifth PIMC meeting of 19 May 2004, Ministers:

Endorsed the National Livestock Traceability Performance Standards [see

Document name: Final Report - Exercise Sheepcatcher II (FINAL) 11

manage periodic independent audits against the National Livestock

The NLIS-S&G was implemented in 2006 to enhance Australias capacity to identify

Document name: Final Report - Exercise Sheepcatcher II (FINAL) 12

Document name: Final Report - Exercise Sheepcatcher II (FINAL) 13

Document name: Final Report - Exercise Sheepcatcher II (FINAL) 14

Document name: Final Report - Exercise Sheepcatcher II (FINAL) 15

TABLE 1: NUMBER OF TRACING STAFF PER JURISDICTION

Jurisdiction Number of Tracing Number of Animals Ratio Staff:

Post-exercise briefings were provided to industry and government parties at their

Document name: Final Report - Exercise Sheepcatcher II (FINAL) 16

EXERCISE TRACING REQUEST

TABLE 2: HERD AND FLOCK SIZE FOR JURISDICTIONAL DISTRIBUTION

ACT 107 2 2 111 0 1

Document name: Final Report - Exercise Sheepcatcher II (FINAL) 17

there was no documentation provided to AHA to support a tracing outcome

Document name: Final Report - Exercise Sheepcatcher II (FINAL) 18

Document name: Final Report - Exercise Sheepcatcher II (FINAL) 19

TABLE 4: INFORMATION FIELDS PROVIDED BY EXERCISE CONTROL TO STATES

Livestock Tracing Audit (2 June - 5 July 2016)

2. Description: Animal identifier (alphanumeric):

Document name: Final Report - Exercise Sheepcatcher II (FINAL) 20

Document name: Final Report - Exercise Sheepcatcher II (FINAL) 21

PARTICIPANT DEBRIEF & REVIEW

Document name: Final Report - Exercise Sheepcatcher II (FINAL) 22

Document name: Final Report - Exercise Sheepcatcher II (FINAL) 23

Document name: Final Report - Exercise Sheepcatcher II (FINAL) 24

Number of animals traced without verification 37 62% 54 90%

Number of animals traced with verification NA NA 46 77%

Number of properties traced to 143 99

Number of animals traced without verification 27 head 46% 30 head 50%

Number of animals traced with verification NA NA 24 head 40%

Number of properties traced to 1,608 12,085

Number of cohort animals 461,669 1,013,095

Document name: Final Report - Exercise Sheepcatcher II (FINAL) 25

Number of animals traced without verification 51 86% 58 97%

Number of animals traced with verification NA NA 51 85%

Number of properties traced to 168 186

Table 7 shows an encouraging improvement in the traceability of sheep and goats

Document name: Final Report - Exercise Sheepcatcher II (FINAL) 26

Number of animals traced without verification 20 34% 30 50%

Number of animals traced with verification NA NA 17 28%

Number of properties traced to 874 77,102