Putting the new animal disease research lab in Manhattan Kansas is about as smart as putting a housing development in a flood plain. Might as well put it in the other Manhattan...there are fewer cows there. Trust the government...or wait a minute, don't trust the government. When do they get anything right?
Update, Here is another scary story. 19 cows, most of them belonging to FFA kids die after being exhibited at fair. I had no idea that this disease even occurred in the US. I thought that malignant catarrhal fever was an African disease but evidently it occurs in sheep world wide.
Here is a site with some information on the disease.
In a few days I may post on just what I think about the introduction of exotic wild animals and domestic deer to agricultural areas. I was quite dismayed to hear that bovine TB has cropped up on a Columbia County deer farm....this in the wake of the introduction of chronic wasting disease to NY by another deer herd. NY spent years erradicating TB in the cattle herd and I truly hate to see this threat showing up again.
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8 comments:
Foolish! Foolish is the word!
Linda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com/
I'd like to hear your rant about transporting wild animals out of their natural habitat. You could add plants, too, but I'll handle the buildings right now. :)
It seems to me that we would all be better off if, in our arrogance, we didn't build seaside cities below sea level (like New Orleans) or prop multi-million dollar houses on cliffsides in the desert (like California) or expect one reservoir (Georgia) to serve three states full of people. I have some questions about all those hollow spaces under our cities for subways and sewers, too. Maybe, just maybe, if we worked with God's arrangements, instead of against them, we wouldn't have all the problems we do.
Maybe I missed something but shouldn't the sheep that spread the virus not be in future events where they could continue to infect? How did the sheep get it? Let's say I now wanted to add sheep to my own little zoo, how do I know I wont get sheep that will kill my cows? Some how I do not think this should be the end of the discussion as the author indicated. Thanks for your sweet comments. I got my letters back from my representatives for the comments I made on the Farm Bureau Website. Thanks again for that heads up.
But our governor likes the idea of having dangerous strains of offensive diseases here in Kansas!
It's so much better for us than CO2 spewing coal fired generating plants (or a refinery)......
Linda, it is just nuts. I will be surprised if there isn't a prompt disaster not unlike the last foot and mouth outbreak in Britain, which was caused by a lab leak
Akagaga, they have brought so much exotic disease right along with them and we personally know of exotic owners who flagrantly break the laws intended to protect domestic animals and people.
WW, I am going to admit that I had no idea that this disease occurred in the USA, although a friend told me of something spread by sheep that killed some cows they knew of...however she didn't know what it was. Maybe it was this.
Thank you for taking action on the EPA thing. A lot of farmers have done so, or so I have heard, and I really think the strong reaction with potential for disaterous consequences will kill this quickly.
Jeffro, that's right! It will be right in your backyard so to speak. To my mind it is insane to move it from Plum Island unless they were going to build another offshore facility...and right now it is in the state where I live, but at least it isn't right in the center of cattle country. This is one where I hate the thought of being right about a potential outbreak, but....
Manhattan Kansas is in the flint hills and, when I was growing up there, it was major cattle country. Huge multisection areas had cattle from several ranches turned loose for the summer and then rounded up in the fall. At that time much of eastern Kansas was cattle country. Perhaps things have changed by now? K.State was the major agricultural college in Kansas as opposed the the more liberal arts Kansas University. I grew up about 25 miles from Manhattan on the edge of the flint hills. West of our place was almost all wheat. East of our place was almost all unbroken prairie land full of cattle.
Or was your point that the disease might escape. Sorry, perhaps I wrote before I thought.
OW, yes, that was the point exactly...that to put a disease lab where there is so much cattle industry is just nuts. They had a serious outbreak in GB caused by a foot and mouth lab allowing a leak...killed a lot of cows and put a lot of farmers out of business. FMD getting loose in the USA would be a disaster of horrific proportions. Right now the lab is offshore...no cows out in the ocean. It makes no sense at all to me to move it inland among cattle.
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