Wichita ? Spurred by tight beef supplies and continued demand from consumers, cattle prices have rebounded to levels higher than they were a year ago, a Kansas State University agriculture economist said Monday.

Kansas slaughter steer prices will average more than $81 per hundredweight during the first quarter as a result of the strengthening cattle prices, economist James Mintert said in his cattle outlook report. That is 3 percent higher than for the same quarter last year.

Nationwide, slaughter cattle prices rebounded to the upper $80s by mid-March after dropping into the mid-$70s per hundredweight in February.

Dighton cattle rancher Don Hineman said the industry had done a good job of reassuring consumers since a single case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, was discovered Dec. 23.

“Consumers have not overreacted and prices have recovered nicely since the BSE scare,” he said.

Mintert predicted tight cattle supplies and a partial resumption of boxed beef exports to Mexico would continue to support cattle prices in the $80s per hundredweight during late March and early April.

However, supplies are expected to increase and push prices lower this spring and summer.

Just how low those prices will go depends on whether more countries lift their ban on U.S. beef and how quickly the Agriculture Department decides to open the U.S. border to live cattle from Canada, he said.

Hineman said the decision on whether to reopen U.S. borders to Canadian cattle should be made on sound science and international trade implications.

“We want to make sure by allowing Canadian cattle to come into this country that we aren’t putting at risk our own exports to other countries,” Hineman said.

Even with its own beef exports near zero, the United States continued to import more beef as domestic consumers demand stayed high despite the mad cow scare, Mintert said.

U.S. beef imports during January — the first month after the discovery of mad cow disease in Washington state — even grew by 7.5 percent compared with a year ago, Mintert said.