§ 72. Control and suppression of disease. 1. The commissioner may cause investigations to be made as to the best method for the control, suppression or eradication of infectious or communicable disease affecting domestic animals or carried by domestic animals and affecting humans. Whenever any infectious or communicable disease affecting domestic animals or carried by domestic animals and affecting humans shall exist or shall have recently existed outside this state, the commissioner shall take measures to prevent such disease from being brought into the state. Whenever any such disease shall exist or be brought into or break out in this state, the commissioner shall take measures promptly to suppress the same and to prevent such disease from spreading.
2. He may issue and publish a notice stating that a specified infectious or communicable disease exists, may exist or has recently existed in the state, or in any designated county or other geographical district thereof, and warning all persons to seclude, in the premises where they maybe at the time, all animals within this state, or within such county or district, or an adjoining county or district, that are of a kind susceptible to contract such disease; and ordering all persons to take such precautions against the spreading of the disease as the nature thereof may, in his judgment, render necessary or expedient and which he may specify in such notice. Such notice shall be published in such manner as the commissioner may designate. The commissioner may cause such notice to be posted on buildings where animals are harbored which are believed to be diseased or exposed to disease, or on poles, gates or fences within an area in which diseased or exposed animals are harbored or kept. No person shall tear down, mutilate, deface or destroy any such notice or order issued by the commissioner and posted, as provided herein, during the pendency of such notice or order. The commissioner may alter or modify, from time to time, as he may deem expedient, the terms of any notice or order issued or made pursuant to this article and may at any time cancel or withdraw the same.
3. The commissioner may adopt and enforce rules and regulations for the control, suppression or eradication of communicable diseases in domestic animals or for the purpose of preventing the spread of infection and contagion among such animals, or from such animals to humans, and may, in behalf of the state, accept, in whole or in part, rules and regulations adopted by the secretary of agriculture of the United States under any act of congress providing for the control, suppression or eradication of communicable diseases in domestic animals. The commissioner may cooperate with the authorities of the United States government within this state in the carrying out of such rules and regulations and the enforcement of the provisions of any such act so passed which are not in conflict with the statutes of this state. Whenever the commissioner finds that an emergency situation exists in relation to the prevention or control of communicable disease among domestic animals, or from such animals to humans, the commissioner may by regulation require that all domestic animals of any designated species be immunized against any designated disease. Such regulations may specify the immunizing agent to be used and the method of immunization. The regulations may prescribe that such immunization shall be performed by the agents of the department or require that all owners or harborers of the designated species shall cause such immunization to be performed by a licensed veterinarian.
4. Whenever a program for the control, suppression or eradication of a disease of domestic animals has been adopted and instituted by the commissioner pursuant to this article, the owner or harborer of each domestic animal of the species involved shall, on or at the premises where such animal is kept, present and restrain such animal for tests, examination, immunization, or identification at such times as the commissioner on not less than forty-eight hours notice shall direct.
