Fighting Animal Disease In Turkey
On August 17, 1999, a devastating earthquake, measuring 7.4 on the Richter scale, struck northwestern Turkey, killing more than 17,000 people. That was followed by a second, equally powerful earthquake in November, in the same general area, that took more than 500 lives.

The destruction took an immeasurable toll on the citizens of Turkey. But more than just people were affected by the deadly quakes.

Animals and livestock suffered as well.

As Turkey begins to rebuild, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has offered to help that country combat foot-and-mouth disease, a highly communicable viral disease affecting cattle and swine.

Although foot-and-mouth disease was already present in Turkey, efforts to eradicate the disease were put on hold while the nation worked to bury its dead, house its homeless, and rebuild in the wake of the quakes.

“Already existing animal diseases tend to be exacerbated by natural disasters because attention and resources are redirected to more immediate survival needs,” said Dan Sheesley, associate deputy administrator for APHIS’s International Services staff.

Nick Gutierrez (left), deputy director of APHIS’s Europe/Africa Region, based in Brussels, Belgium, shares observations with Chris Groocock, an APHIS veterinarian based in Vienna, Austria, as they stand in front of a building in Golcuk, Turkey that was destroyed by an earthquake which struck there last August. They were part of a fact-finding mission to see where APHIS could best offer its services. A second severe quake hit that region in November. As Turkey begins to rebuild, APHIS has offered to help it combat foot-and-mouth-disease--especially since Turkey’s disease-prevention infrastructure had suffered quake damage. --Photo by Dale Noelty

APHIS officials have been to Turkey twice since the August earthquake. The first visit was a fact-finding mission to see where APHIS could best offer its services. The agency’s three-member team spent several days touring the devastation less than two weeks after the first earthquake hit.

“We toured urban and rural areas and destruction was everywhere,” recounted Chris Groocock, a veterinarian with APHIS’s International Services staff stationed in Vienna, Austria and a member of that team. “The full impact of the quake was still unfolding at that time.”

By the time of a second visit in December by another team from APHIS, Turkish officials had completed a more comprehensive damage assessment--including what disease-prevention infrastructure had been damaged or destroyed because of the quakes--and asked for assistance to combat outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease.

Accordingly, APHIS team members visited Turkey’s Foot-And-Mouth Disease Institute, located in Ankara, and offered more long-range, post-earthquake suggestions, such as how Turkey could improve the quality of its vaccine and boost the Institute’s quality control program.

“The goal is to help Turkey make improvements in its eradication program that will provide long-term benefits in its fight against foot-and-mouth disease,” emphasized Juan Lubroth. He is head of reagents and vaccine services at APHIS’s Foreign Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory at Plum Island, N.Y., and was a member of the December team, along with Bob Miller, chief staff veterinarian for mammalian virology and antibody products with APHIS’s Center for Veterinary Biologics-Licensing and Policy Development in Ames, Iowa.

Lubroth advised that before the earthquake in August, Turkey had an increasing problem with foot-and-mouth disease near Gebeze in northwestern Turkey, in the general region of the earthquakes. “Efforts to suppress that outbreak are considered critical to Turkey’s Agricultural Ministry--and may threaten Europe,” he advised.

Lubroth said that Turkey needs about $100,000 to $150,000 to purchase the necessary equipment to make improvements in the Institute’s foot-and-mouth disease laboratory and receive training in the latest quality assurance and quality control techniques. “Turkish scientists working on foot-and-mouth disease eradication could come to the U.S. to be trained at APHIS facilities,” he added, “and we’d be happy to train them here.”

Sheesley noted that specialists from APHIS’s International Services staff continue to work with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations to provide funding for the equipment and the training. In addition, APHIS is looking into several other funding sources.

“Turkish officials are very appreciative of our efforts,” Sheesley affirmed. “We’re hoping it all comes together.”

--Hallie Pickhardt

While Using A Pint-Sized Grip...
WHEW! It was definitely a busy January on the Winema National Forest in south-central Oregon, because--for the sixth year in a row--Forest Service employees on the Chemult Ranger District were heavily involved in pulling off the annual Chemult Sled Dog Races.

But the best race of all might have been the “PeeWee race.”

The larger races--involving the 'big people’--included over 700 spectators watching 71 teams of sled dogs and drivers racing through the snowy woods of the Chemult Ranger District during January 29-30. According to Judith Parker, FS’s recreation program manager on the Chemult Ranger District who has helped to coordinate all six Sled Dog Races, the location is a great place for a sled dog race.

FS’s Mary Erickson (left) gives an affectionate head-pat to one of the four-legged participants in the upcoming 'PeeWee dog sled race.’ Later,...

...a pint-sized participant in the 'PeeWee race’ gets to experience 300 feet worth of riding on a real dog sled--pulled by a real race dog. --Photos by Frank Erickson, Stephen Fisher

“It’s located high in the Cascade Mountains where the snow piles deep each winter,” she explained. “And it’s 62 miles from the nearest city, so the dogs can run without meeting a lot of skiers and snowmobilers.”

Making the race happen involved FS personnel--who administered the required special use permit and who served as volunteers during the races--as well as three sled dog clubs, four snowmobile clubs, Klamath County’s search and rescue team, a non-profit race association, and a local bank.

Jim Wolfe, an FS sale administrator on the Chemult Ranger District, served as 'Trails Boss’ and ensured the miles of trail used in all the events were safe, cleared, and compacted.

Mary Erickson, deputy forest supervisor on the Winema National Forest, based in Klamath Falls, Ore., said that most of the events were sprint races. “Teams of four, six, or eight dogs-- generally always huskies--raced four, six, or eight miles,” she noted. “There were also 20- and 30-mile races for bigger teams of dogs.”

At the command “go,” the dogs leaped forward to the shouts of Hike! Hike!” “Unlike the cartoons,” quipped Parker, “nobody here ever says 'Mush’!”

But the best race might have been the least serious one. Parker explained that youngsters at the races got a chance to take a short sled dog ride with a dog. This was called the “PeeWee race.”

“It was for kids 12 and under, and it involved a 300-foot dash on a real racing sled, pulled by a single dog,” she said.

Parker explained that each participating youngster rode on the runners of the sled. “Some of them could barely reach the top bar of the sled,” she laughed. “Yet they’d hang on to that bar with a pint-sized death grip, as the dog pulled the sled slowly down the track.”

Parker emphasized that they appreciated the effort by the mushers to donate the 30-plus dogs for the PeeWee race--which were generally older and mellower, not younger and friskier.

Erickson, who collected the names of the 'PeeWee participants’ and kept track that 50 youngsters--the cutoff number--had a chance to do a run, said that the PeeWee race was the one time in the whole two-day event where the spectators could get directly involved. “People came up to me and asked incredulously 'You mean that the mushers will loan us a dog for this event, and I don’t have to put a race harness on our family pet to let my kid participate’?!”

“And then,” she quipped, “I asked my husband, 'should we train our dog Molly to pull a dog sled, for next year’s PeeWee race’?”

“We may be developing future adult racers,” she speculated, “from one of these brief--but very special--experiences with the kids.”

--Ron Hall

“Full-Cycle Lending” In Vermont
When clients seek information about a Rural Development housing loan in Vermont, they get more than just an application to fill out.

Instead, RD home ownership specialists in that state offer their clients a special service known as “Full-Cycle Lending.” According to Bob McDonald, the Montpelier-based director of rural housing programs in Vermont, “RD has entered into a partnership with five private sector, non-profit HomeOwnership Centers in Vermont to offer this service--which highlights the importance of working with customers before, during, and after a home purchase in order to support the long-term stability of the borrower.”

The partnership between RD and the five HomeOwnership Centers started in Rutland, Vt., in 1995. Michael Dolce, at the time an RD county supervisor for Rutland County, Vt., and now an RD community and business outreach specialist in Rutland, recalled that “many customers who did not qualify for a housing finance program with one of the non-profit groups did qualify for an RD loan--and vice versa.”

Accordingly, he and David Dangler, executive director of the non- profit Rutland West Neighborhood Housing Services, initiated a cooperative cross-referral between RD and that non-profit group. In turn, that group consolidated its services into a HomeOwnership Center, and began to offer workshops to potential homebuyers, adopting the “Full-Cycle Lending” concept.

“I then took the next step,” Dolce recounted, “and made presentations on the RD housing programs at the HomeOwnership Center workshops.”

“I saw 'Full-Cycle Lending’ as a way to help our customer become a successful homebuyer and to help ensure the success of our RD loans,” said Roberta Harold, RD state director for Vermont, based in Montpelier. “I requested that Rutland West Neighborhood Housing Services give a training session on 'Full-Cycle Lending’ to all of the RD housing staff in Vermont.”

It’s important that our 'Full-Cycle Lending’ approach assures our customers that, if they received a Rural Development housing loan, then we’ll be with them before, during, and after their home purchase,” affirms Randy Shiflett (left), an RD home ownership specialist in Rutland, Vt. He and RD rural housing specialist Anita Rios Moore are discussing RD’s 'Full-Cycle Lending’ initiative on behalf of RD loan borrowers in the Green Mountain State. --Photo by Kris Pearson

The final impetus to the formation of RD’s present partnership with the HomeOwnership Centers was the reduction of RD staff and funds in the state. “It became very apparent that the best way to serve the customer with limited staff was to share staffing resources,” stated Harold.

“Our RD home ownership specialists now work one to three days a week at the HomeOwnership Centers,” McDonald said. “They counsel clients, discuss different funding options, and make referrals to private sector and non-profit lending agencies--and are also permanent presenters at the homebuyer workshops given monthly by the HomeOwnership Centers.”

“Our five HomeOwnership Centers in Vermont are as strong and productive as they are because of the Rural Development staff,” emphasized Dangler. “I believe that Vermont is the only state where RD employees are physically located in a HomeOwnership Center.”

That’s all well and good--but just what exactly happens in these counseling sessions which include RD specialists?

“A client learns about the process of buying a home, finding the right home, negotiating a deal on the home, and working with realtors and attorneys,” said Randy Shiflett, an RD home ownership specialist based in Rutland.

Following a homebuyer orientation session, the client attends a one-on-one counseling session at the HomeOwnership Center, where he/she meets with an RD home ownership specialist or a HomeOwnership Center counselor to discuss his/her loan application.

“If the client is eligible for a housing loan,” explained Shiflett, “all funding resources are discussed to decide which is the best for the borrower. Educating clients about funding sources other than those from RD assures that RD’s limited funding allocation is used only for clients who cannot get financing elsewhere.”

“We help the client find the best loan for his or her situation,” he added. “No longer do clients have to make a decision that will affect the rest of their lives without help and guidance.”

“The service RD now offers its clients is more encompassing than what it offered in the past,” McDonald observed. “We now strive for our customers to get homeownership education and counseling before they make a financial offer on a home.”

“Even when we have to deny an application, the client is counseled on what to do to become a successful applicant,” McDonald added. “Because of this, we’ve seen a significant drop in the number of appeals of adverse decisions.”

As part of the “Full-Cycle Lending” approach, contact with the borrower does not stop with the closing of the loan. “Our staff, working with the HomeOwnership Centers, is always available to help homeowners with budgeting concerns, homeownership responsibilities, and other matters that ensure they’ll be able to stay in their home,” said McDonald.

“This last step in 'full-cycle lending’ is as important to RD as it is to the client. A successful borrower means that our security is protected.”

--Carolyn Lawrence

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