First cattle shipment from NMI arrives in Guam today

“This is history,” rancher Ernest “Ernie” Torres said Saturday night after leading an almost 1-ton bull to a special blue container at the Saipan seaport that will carry a total of nine bulls and a young female cow to Guam.

Torres said Guam Gov. Eddie Calvo and others are expected to welcome this morning the arrival of the first cattle shipment from the CNMI to Guam in about 12 years, following the May 2014 lifting of some agricultural policies that also marks the resumption of interisland agricultural trade between the two U.S. territories.

Rancher Ernest “Ernie” Torres, right, leads the loading of an almost 1-ton bull to a specially designed container that will carry a total of nine bulls and a young female cow to Guam, at the Port of Saipan on Saturday night. The cattle shipment left Saipan early Sunday morning and is expected to arrive in Guam this morning to an expected fanfare, some 12 years since the last shipment of its kind from the CNMI to Guam. (Haidee V. Eugenio)

This is only the beginning as there will be two other cattle shipments to follow, said Torres, who is more known as “Captain Torres.”

The three shipments will bring a total of 30 to 40 bulls and female cows from Saipan to Guam.

Each costs up to $2,500 depending mostly on the size, said WSTCO resident manager Arnaldo Guban.

At a later time, the CNMI could also ship live goats to Guam.

Torres, a retired U.S. Army officer, clarified that his cattle shipments will be for breeding purposes in Guam, where inbreeding for several years has limited the diversity in the cattle’s gene pool. The bulls and female cow destined for Guam are among the healthiest in Torres’ ranch.

The ship carrying the cattle container left Saipan around 3am Sunday and is expected to arrive in Guam at about 8am.

Torres, his family, and helpers brought the 10 heads of cattle from the family ranch to the Port of Saipan around 7pm on Saturday and hauled them one by one to a 20-foot container especially designed for cattle shipment.

Department of Lands and Natural Resources Secretary Arnold I. Palacios, who was also at the Port of Saipan to witness the Saturday night loading of the bulls and female cow, said it was “the moment we have been waiting for over the past three to four years.”

“This opens up a lot of possibilities,” he said, referring to Saipan, Tinian, and Rota ranchers that will now have a bigger market for their bulls, female cows, and other livestock.

Prior to today’s arrival of the cattle shipment, Torres said his last shipment of cattle from Saipan to Guam was “about 12 years ago.” However, under a different Guam territorial veterinarian after that, Torres said the shipment stopped altogether because of restrictive and unnecessary Guam regulations. Torres is originally from Guam, and moved to the CNMI years back.

“With the territorial vet [veterinarian] that we got there [Guam], I’ve been working on trying to ship my cattle since late 2006,” Torres said in an interview at the Port of Saipan after loading the first of 10 heads of cattle.

He said in 2008, he shipped 20 animals to Palau “because I had such a hard time shipping [them] to Guam, but the load was supposed to initially be for Guam.”

DLNR’s Palacios said Torres has been a driving force behind the resumption of cattle importation between the CNMI and Guam.

Palacios also credited CNMI state veterinarian Dr. Ignacio “Ike” Dela Cruz, CNMI Gov. Eloy S. Inos, Guam Gov. Eddie Calvo, the CNMI and Guam Legislatures, the quarantine agencies for both territories, as well as Northern Marianas College’s CREES for its artificial insemination program on Tinian. Torres also credited these individuals, along with Guam’s Tommy Tanaka Jr.

For years, DLNR worked with their Guam counterpart to lift some quarantine policies they believe to be unnecessarily restrictive and outdated. Those went almost nowhere until the DLNR brought up the matter to the CNMI Legislature and the Guam Legislature. Eventually, the governors of the CNMI and Guam also made it one of their priorities, during a Marianas governors’ summit in 2013.

Guam Speaker Judith T. Won Pat and the late Sen. Vicente C. Pangelinan introduced Bill 297-32, amending Guam’s animal quarantine regulations to, among other things, remove anasplasmosis testing as a condition for allowing cattle entry into Guam.

Anaplasmosis is a cattle disease that is endemic to Guam and the CNMI but the U.S. Department of Agriculture no longer considers it of major importance.

Bill 297-32 became law in May, paving the way for Guam to start accepting cattle from the CNMI.

The CNMI’s state veterinarian, Dr. Dela Cruz, is currently in the mainland attending a conference. Torres said Dela Cruz will also be meeting with some USDA veterinarians overseeing the region “to get some clarification so we can follow up on our shipment, with goats also.”

Dela Cruz earlier said that the productive qualities of CNMI cattle have tremendously improved due to the practice of artificial insemination using frozen semen imported from the U.S. mainland.

He said allowing such CNMI cattle with superior genetic characteristics to enter Guam would greatly improve the productive qualities of Guam cattle, thereby promoting their agricultural economy.