MONETA, Va. (WFXR) – About 500,000 livestock travel on the road every minute nationwide. While it’s not common, accidents do happen, including three large-scale tractor-trailer rollovers in Virginia in the past 18 months.
Before last year, Virginia did not have access to Bovine Emergency Response Plan (BERP) training. The Virginia Farm Bureau reached out to a national BERP training program to bring that expertise to the Commonwealth, with the first sessions taking place last fall.
“This is really to bring together multiple agencies like police, and fire, as well as animal control and veterinarians, VDOT and even some cattle handlers,” Matt Nuckols, the director of membership and engagement at Virginia Farm Bureau, said, “on how to respond and react to an accident on roadways involving livestock.”…