Livestock “The greatest homage we can pay to truth is to use it.” – JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
MARKET
Digest T Volume 53 • No. 9
Cruel, Cruel Skies by Lee Pitts
H
“The basics to roping and dancin' are the same: a sense of rhythm, good timing and an eye for distance.” in the country that hasn’t bankrupted itself by living beyond its means. Still, Texas farmers and ranchers are suffering through the most severe one-year drought in their recorded history. Making matters worse, the U.S. Climate Prediction Center predicts that the La Niña weather pattern causing the dry skies will extend into 2012. Just how bad is it? Some parts of the state haven’t had any rain
NEWSPAPER PRIORITY HANDLING
We know, it’s hard to feel sorry for Texans, after all, they get to live in Texas! They have Lone Star Beer, a thriving cowboy culture and it’s one of the few states
at all this year. Zero. Stock tanks and reservoirs have evaporated, crops have withered and cattle have died. You know it’s bad when all cattlemen and newspaper editors can talk about are “drouth survival strategies.” Here’s a clue as to how bad it is: in Miles, Texas, the town fathers decided to take the word “cotton” out of their annual Cotton Festival because they haven’t produced enough cotton this
year to pad a pillow. Ask anyone under the age of 60 in any West Texas coffee shop and they’ll tell you that it’s the worst drouth they’ve ever seen. Amarillo, has had a grand total of 2.7 inches of rain so far this year when they usually have 14. The Canadian River that used to stop cattle herds dead in their tracks, is bone dry in many places. Most West Texas towns experienced two months straight of 100 degree heat and in San Angelo it was three months. Towns that are reliant on surface water wonder where their next drink will come from. Texas A & M has calculated that there have been a record $5.2 billion in farm and ranch losses thus far, with ranchers absorbing $2.06 billion of that total. In 96 percent of the state, pasture and range conditions have been judged to be in “very poor” or “poor” condition, according to continued on page two
First all-vegan college cafeteria opens in Texas
The Worst That Ever Was
GREG HENDERSON, Editor, Associate Publisher, www.cattlenetwork.com, e-newsletters/drovers-daily/
tudents can no longer get a cheeseburger at Mean Greens, one of five on-campus cafeterias at The University of North Texas in Denton. That’s because UNT dining services has designated the cafeteria allvegan. Believed to be the first all-vegan cafeteria on an American campus, Mean Greens’ menu includes no animal products, like meat, milk or eggs. Instead, the fare features vegetarian soups, paninis and vegetarian sushi. The university’s dining services reports that so far, many of the students who eat there aren’t necessarily vegan, but just want to eat healthy. The all-vegan cafeteria is apparently in response to student demand for vegan foods. A 2004 survey of college students by food service provider Aramark showed that one in every four students surveyed wanted vegan meal options on college campuses. To many students, going vegan may seem far healthier than the typical college diet. But dietitians warn that meals missing animal fats
S
by LEE PITTS
I’m No Hottie!
SEPTEMBER 15, 2011 • www. aaalivestock . com
ow would you like to be a Texas rancher these days? Amidst the best cattle market we’ve ever seen, with some calves selling for as much as a thousand dollars, Mother Nature has taken away their opportunity to participate. Oh, they’re selling cattle all right, in fact they’re selling the whole shebang: their cows and their hungry 300-pound babies who never would reach 500 pounds if they had to do it on the groceries Mother Nature has provided this year. And every empty cloud that wafts by just teases those who haven’t sold out yet to try and hang on a little longer. Gulf coast ranchers would even take a devastating hurricane at this stage of the game, if it promised to bring a little moisture. The drouth is so bad there’s been talk that Texas could lose its number one ranking for having the most cattle of any state in the nation, and we suppose that’s theoretically possible, if not for the fact that the number two state, Kansas, is suffering right along with Texas.
Riding Herd
aren’t necessarily more nutritious. “Just because they take something off the plate, what replaces it needs to be tasty and nutrient-rich,” Leslie Bonci, director of sports nutrition at the University of Pittsburg Medical Center told ABC News. Keith Ayoob, director of the nutrition clinic at the Children’s Evaluation and Rehabilitation Center at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, also told ABC News, it makes sense that college students would want to explore new diets. “Lots of young people experiment,” he said. “They do it with booze, drugs . . . why not a new way of eating?” Inside Mean Greens students find an ambience that is modern, decorated with bold, contemporary graphics in shades of tangerine, lime green and red. Quotes from Gandhi and Einstein line the top of two walls. The cafeteria offers 20 dishes at lunch such as vegetables that are oven-roasted and then quickly seared on the griddle in full view of the diners. Dietitians encourage the students to choose continued on page four
he coldest I’ve ever been in my life was In Aberdeen, South Dakota, when the wind chill was minus 35 degrees. I can’t tell you what it felt like because I’d lost all feeling once we got into negative numbers. But I still preferred that to hot weather because you can always put on more clothes, but when it gets unbearably hot there’s only so much you can take off before breaking indecent exposure statutes. I’m touched that there have been so many good articles written this summer about how to care for the cows when it gets hot. But what about the cowboys? One article I read said that the comfort zone for cattle was between 41 and 77 degrees. This, of course, compares favorably with my personal comfort zone which ranges between 68 and 69 degrees. I admit I have no heat resistance, and you can call me a wimp, but be advised I know what it is to be hot. I’ve lived and worked in hot spots like Australia, New Mexico and the oilfields of Torrey Canyon where the thermometer routinely registered 120 degrees inside the compressor plant where I spent the three worst months of my life! Usually you go indoors to cool off, but in this case when we couldn’t stand it any longer and we needed to cool off, we went outside where it was only 105 degrees! At night we roustabouts would go to the grocery store and stand in front of the frozen foods section and apply frozen bags of peas as cold compresses. I read that when temperatures get over 91 degrees it can stunt cattle’s growth, efficiency and reproductive performance. I can say with certainty that after a day in that compressor plant my reproductive performance was certainly the last thing on my mind! And we certainly weren’t very efficient. We’d venture into the plant to tighten a big bolt one revolution before escaping continued on page three
www.LeePittsbooks.com
Livestock Market Digest
Page 2
September 15, 2011
Cruel, Cruel Skies the USDA. Jim Robb, director of the Livestock Marketing Information Center says, “We’re estimating that the beef cow herd on January 1, 2012, will be 600,000 to 750,000 head smaller year-to-year in Texas.” That’s the largest yearly wipe out in history and the second largest percentage decrease. “If it got really ugly,” says Robb, “you could forecast on the outside about getting to a million year-toyear.”
Selling The Factory For the ranchers who are trying to hold their herds together it comes at great cost. The USDA projects 47 percent less hay than last year produced in Texas. As a result hay prices have tripled. Good alfalfa costing as much as $250 per ton in Colorado costs $300 by the time it’s delivered. Even the price of bad hay is $80 higher and that’s if you can even find the hay, or get a truck to haul it. A lot of independent truckers who hauled hay in season have gone out of business due to the spiraling cost of diesel. On the daily radio farm shows you’ll hear public service announcements begging farmers not to spray their wheat stubble and to bail their crab grass.
Veterinarians are warning ranchers not to trust bulls to get cows bred due to temporary sterility caused by the heat . . .
Since 1916, we’ve been here to help New Mexico’s farmers and ranchers with financial tools and services they can rely on. We know that every business is a family business, built on the hopes and hard work of those caring for a legacy. Let us show you how we can help protect what matters most.
C A L L 1 - 8 0 0 - 4 5 1 - 5 9 9 7 o r v i s i t W W W. F A R M C R E D I T N M . C O M ALBUQUERQUE
•
ROSWELL
•
LAS CRUCES
•
TUCUMCARI
Livestock Market
Digest
Livestock Market Digest (ISSN 0024-5208) (USPS NO. 712320) is published monthly except semi-monthly in September by Rainy Day, Inc. at 2231 Rio Grande Blvd. NW, Albuquerque, NM 87104. Periodicals Postage Paid at Albuquerque, N.M.
POSTMASTER – Send change of address to: Livestock Market Digest, P.O. Box 7458, Albuquerque, N.M. 87194 Subscription Rates: $19.95 per year
Subscribe Today
•
CLOVIS
For advertising, subscription and editorial inquiries write or call: Livestock Market Digest, P.O. Box 7458 Albuquerque, N.M. 87194 Telephone: 505/243-9515 Fax: 505/998-6236 www.aaalivestock.com EDITORIAL and ADVERTISING STAFF: CAREN COWAN, Publisher LEE PITTS, Executive Editor CHUCK STOCKS, Publisher Emeritus COMMERCIAL ADVERTISING: MICHAEL WRIGHT, 505/243-9515, ext. 30 michael@aaalivestock.com
NAME
FIELD EDITOR: DELVIN HELDERMON 580/622-5754, 1094 Koller Rd. Sulphur, OK 73086
ADDRESS
CITY
STATE
❏
ZIP
My check is enclosed for: One Year: $19.95 ❏ Two Years $29.95
Clip & mail to: Livestock Market Digest, P.O. Box 7458, Albuquerque, N.M. 87194
ADMINISTRATIVE and PRODUCTION STAFF: MARGUERITE VENSEL, Office Mgr. CAROL PENDLETON, Special Assistance CAMILLE PANSEWICZ, Graphic Artist
Ranchers who’ve spent lifetimes building up quality herds don’t want to hear it but Texas A & M gave the best advice. “Cut your losses, just sell the cows and get out.” Rather than spending about $100 a month to feed each cow, or to try to find forage in the north that could cost $20-$22 per cow-calf pair per month, plus hauling costs, “It would be much less expensive, says Texas AgriLife Extension Service forage specialist Larry Redmon, “to just get out and come back later. Completely selling out makes more sense given there’s no guarantee this drought will end anytime soon.” In a drouth like this there are no good decisions. A lot of good, productive cows are going to slaughter and some younger cows have been moved out of state to hopefully return later. But how, in good conscious, do you send a thin-skinned Brahman crossbred, that works so well on the gulf coast, to North Dakota for the winter? That is why sale barns in Texas this summer sold double to triple the number of cattle they normally would. We’ve heard of several instances where auction markets had so many cattle to sell they had to turn late comers away.
continued from page one
When’s the last time you ever heard of an auction market turning cattle away? That’s how bad it’s gotten! Even if a rancher does manage to hold his herd together and rains do finally come, he still has problems. Veterinarians are warning ranchers not to trust bulls to get cows bred due to temporary sterility caused by the heat, and expect cows to have difficulty going full term. The cattle just never got a chance to cool down.
What Drouth? About the saddest story we’ve heard is about 95 New Mexican ranchers who had the foresight to buy drouth insurance policies. Conditions in parts of New Mexico are every bit as bad as they are in Texas and nearly 100 ranchers there thought that even though they didn’t get to cash in fully on the good calf prices, at least they’d have the drouth insurance money to make up part of the difference.
Some parts of the state haven’t had any rain at all this year. The insurance policies they purchased were part of a pilot program for eight states that were administered by the USDA. The policies were with private insurance companies who, backed by the USDA, now say they don’t have to pay up because the “greenness index” that is established using satellite imagery doesn’t show any signs of a drouth! That’s just like the USDA isn’t it? Rather than ask a local farm advisor, or send a Congressional junket to Deming to see for themselves, they trust a satellite image that counts all “biomass” including trees and weeds in its greenness index. (Perhaps it’s because there are no five-star hotels in Deming for the Congressmen to stay.) So even though the ranchers are experiencing a historical drouth, they are being denied drouth coverage. According to the USDA, those 95 New Mexican ranchers paid $1.64 million in premiums and have received only two payouts totaling $2,007.
The Lost Years Lest you think the drouth is a regional story with only regional implications, we’d remind you that the area that is effected by this drouth contains a good chunk of America’s bovine baby factory. The long-term effects of this drouth will change the dynamics for the entire industry. With many ranchers selling out completely on the southern plains it’s akin to East Coast textile factories shutting down. continued on page three
“America’s Favorite Livestock Newspaper”
September 15, 2011 Many did not reopen for business and we suspect the same will happen in this case. The ranchers are two-time losers, not only are they not able to sell 500 pound calves at record prices, they’ll have to buy back in at the highest cow prices in history. Many will choose not to buy in at prices that could reach $2,000 per cow. Would you? And even if they do buy back in it will be years before they are back to where they were.
. . . we’d remind you that the area that is effected by this drouth contains a good chunk of America’s bovine baby factory. This reporter had the great displeasure to “enjoy” a devastating seven-year drouth and when it was all over many of the big leases and ranches had been taken over by ranchers tied into major feedlots and packers. You couldn’t find a good one-hundred-head cow ranch to lease and many of the good ranches that were formally cow/calf outfits were turned into stocker operations. We suspect the same thing will happen in this case. And they’ll stock those ranches they take over with calves from Mexico. At a time when ranchers need to rebuild, we are instead losing infrastructure every time the cattle trucks haul off the hopes and dreams of Southwest ranchers.
Anyway you measure it, the U.S. cattle herd is in a depleted state by historical standards and some pundits predict we are in an extended stage of decline.
According to the USDA our nation’s cattle inventory is at a record-low 99.96 million cattle and calves. According to the USDA our nation’s cattle inventory is at a record-low 99.96 million cattle and calves. That’s the lowest midyear inventory since 1973. The number of all cows and heifers that have calved at 40.6 million head is down one percent from 2010 and the 2011 calf crop is expected to be down another one percent. Our nation’s beef cow herd has been declining since reaching a top of 36.1 million cows on July 1, 1995. And despite record prices for calves, or maybe because of it, ranchers haven’t started rebuilding their herds, with replacement inventories down another 5 percent this year. Despite the great prices and good outlook for the future, amazingly, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of enthusiasm for growth. Calf crops have also shrunk steadily since 1995 and the terrible drouth will add to the decline. Sure, the last on feed report said that placements in feedlots were up 22 percent over
e l t t a C m o t Cus s t i t a g n i Feed Finest! Johnny Trotter, President / General Mgr. Res: 806/364-1172 • Mob.: 806/346-2508 Email: jtrotter@bar-g.com Kevin Bunch, Assistant Manager Mike Blair, Comptroller Mike Anthony, Shipping/Receiving
PO BOX 1797 HEREFORD, TX 79045
806/357-2241
last year, and that sounds like a business on the grow, but those numbers merely reflect all the lightweight calves being sold early and put on feed due to the drouth. The July placement total was the highest since they begin keeping such numbers in 1996 but, again, that just tells you how bad this drouth is. For those ranchers who are lucky enough to be enjoying the good times it looks like there will be downward pressure on the fed market when all these calves finish in the first quarter of next year, but after that it looks like we’ll be enjoying
Riding Herd
Page 3
a market that only a mad cow, a higher dollar (less exports), or an economic depression could kill. Yet there seems to be a nagging sentiment amongst ranchers that something just isn’t quite right. Perhaps it’s because they don’t feel comfortable feeling flush. But there is a basis for their discomfort. The real number to look at is the number of marketings: the number of fat cattle we sold in July. It was the second lowest total since such records have been kept. USDA showed beef disappearance this year to be down 3.1 percent
continued from page one
outside again. On some days, especially if we had a good card game going on in the air conditioned doghouse, it could take all day to sufficiently tighten one bolt. In one of my jobs I had to visit feedlots in California’s Imperial Valley where, in the words of the immortal Mark Twain, “It got hot enough to melt a brass doorknob.” (And that’s paraphrasing politely.) You couldn’t cool off by going swimming in a motel pool because the water was hot enough to slip the hair on a hog. A motel sauna would have been redundant! Everyone got up and did their work early when it was only 114 degrees in the shade. Except there wasn’t any shade! I remember I showed up one time to interview an El Centro feedlot manager and he had the good sense to send his Spanish speaking maintenance man in his place. The place looked like a ghost town. Death Valley holds the record in the U.S. for the hottest day when it reached 134 degrees. I think it was the day I was there! I know I left a layer of skin there on the black leather upholstery when I got out of the car, and I swear the
from 2010 levels, and projects another 3.1 percent drop for next year. Then there is this: America’s per capita beef consumption was 59.7 pounds last year. That’s the lowest since such records started in the 1950s! That’s not the description of healthy business. The fact is, those in the beef business are losing market share and the battle for the consumer’s appetite.
The Final Straw When the government issues continued on page four
few bushes I saw were begging the dogs to provide some relief. It has to be the worst place in the world to lose one’s keys but that’s what I did, and when I finally found them in the dust of Death Valley they left a lasting reminder in the form of a burn scar on my hand. The most miserable I’ve ever been was once in south Texas where I went to work a Brahman dispersion. The heat and humidity had exceeded even the long-ear’s ability to dissipate it. I’ve lived through months of days when the temperature was higher, after all, it was only 98. The problem was that was the percent humidity, too! I’d have asked to have someone hose me off with a garden hose but I was already dripping wet. As part of the sale crew my problems were only compounded when a supplement salesman handed out “Texas Air Conditioners” to all the buyers and bidders in attendance. Perhaps they did provide some form of relief, and sold some supplement as they were intended to do, but the worst thing you can possibly do at a cattle auction is hand out fans to a bunch of panting and gasping-for-breath bidders. Or, judging by the record cattle prices that day, perhaps it was the best thing you could ever do!
Bar-G FEEDYARD 125,000-Head Capacity 8 MILES SOUTHWEST OF HEREFORD, TEXAS FINANCING AVAILABLE
Livestock Market Digest
Page 4
Vegan Cafeteria
Cruel, Cruel Skies
continued from page three
continued from page one
their fruits and vegetables wisely or they may miss key vitamins and nutrients, like protein, iron and vitamin B12. They also warn students to watch their intake of sugars, refined starch and oils, which are still included in vegetarian foods. The new all-vegan cafeteria at UNT was not missed by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. They gave UNT its “Compassionate Campus” award for August for responding to student requests and supporting veganism.
a report that says inflation is negligible ranchers know better than to believe it. We can’t think of a single input cost that is lower this year than last, and we can compile a long list of costs that are dramatically higher. Of course the biggest fly in the ointment is the price of corn, after all, our preeminence in the world for quality beef is based upon a corn-fed product. In 2007 corn prices ranged from $2.99 to $3.25 per bushel but since then the price of corn has doubled. Some economists say we’ll see see nine dollar wheat soon and
some Chicago futures traders are betting on eleven dollar corn! Add to this the shrinking availability of calves to go into feedlots, and their subsequent higher price, and you have an already shrinking feedlot sector that finds itself in yet another fight for survival. Feedlots lost an average of $168 per head on cattle sent to slaughter in July, according to Jim Robb. That’s worse than the average loss of $156 during June and is the largest monthly loss since feedlots were in the red by $225 an animal in January 2009.
If you are planning on selling bulls this fall, or next spring . . .
September 15, 2011 no choice but to rely on imported beef to satisfy their beef appetites.” The letter continued, “We fear that many cattle farmers and ranchers in the drought-stricken regions are without the means to preserving their seedstock and many of those who would be forced to liquidate their herds likely will not return to the industry given the high average age of the U.S. cattle producer and the likelihood that cattle-herd replacement prices will increase after the drought, due to our nation’s unprecedented, tightsupply situation. If our industry were not already suffering from the protracted, policy-based failures that have drained equity and financial reserves from independent cattle farmers and ranchers, this drought alone may be surmountable. However, our industry has suffered years of depressed prices and this drought may well be the proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back.”
This sets the stage for another loss in our infrastructure. R-CALF USA President George Chambers put the drouth in perspective in a letter to Ag Secretary Vilsack. “With our diminished U.S. cattle herdsize, our reduced number of cattle farms and ranches, and our ongoing inability to produce enough beef from domestic cattle to satisfy domestic demand, this widespread drought bears the potential to severely worsen our industry’s long-term crisis and literally destroy the production potential of the U.S. cattle industry for years to come,” Chambers wrote. “Before the drought the nation’s cattle herd already was shrinking and already was too small to satisfy the American consumer’s appetite for beef. The large-scale liquidations of cattle by producers in droughtstricken regions likely will reduce our cattle herd size to dangerously low levels — levels so low that consumers likely will have
You better be placing your ad in the Livestock Market Digest! The most likely bull buyers for fall 2011 and spring 2012 will come from where it has rained. Where is that? The West Coast and Northwest. Where does the Livestock Market Digest cover the most? The West Coast and Northwest! The Livestock Market Digest has readers across the nation, and a great number of those readers are in California, Orgeon, Washington, Montana and Wyoming!
Call TODAY to reserve space for YOUR BULL SALE ad!
Contact MICHAEL WRIGHT at: michael@aaalivestock.com or at 505/243-9515, ext. 30. Or, email CAREN COWAN at: caren@aaalivestock.com
Selling 40 Bulls & 10 Females!
Don’t Forget Our 40th Annual Fall Sale, October 24, 2011 Introducing our NEWEST HERD SIRE -S Power Advance 103 W155 ET purchased at the THA Hats Off Sale in May
REGISTERED HEREFORD CATTLE ALAN RICHARDSON • 806/333-0624
Visitors Always Welcome
4438 F.M. 3212 • Dalhart, TX 79022 • 806/384-2110 • 806/333-5910 WATCH FOR OUR CATTLE IN THE FORT WORTH COMMERCIAL HEIFER SALE AND THE SAN ANTONIO BULL SALE
“America’s Favorite Livestock Newspaper”
September 15, 2011
Page 5
HSUS earns low rating among charities
Baxter O
ON THE EDGE OF COMMON SENSE
BLACK
www.baxterblack.com
The Misery Index 2011 conomists have a mythical figure called the misery index. It is the total of the unemployment rate added to the inflation rate. This summer in the U.S. it’s running about 13.0. The lower the better. In both the 90s and ‘0’s it’s been as low as 7. To calculate indexes like this, the conclusion can be broadly accurate. But, to make it more personal one can include more variables. For instance, take one inch of rain as a factor. The misery index of an alfalfa farmer with hay on the ground would be 15.6. It would have been 16.0 except his prize pumpkin patch was getting parched. Or say you were entered up in Cheyenne at the big rodeo and that one inch of rain fell the hour before you were to compete in the bull dogging. Your misery index could be as high as the weight of your hazer! Another broad category would be the temperature. At the winter Olympics, the misery index would rise as the temperature did. But say Billy Bob went to the 3-day tailgate party at the Oklahoma vs Kansas football game. The hotter it got in the parking lot, the more beer you could hold! So the misery index would decline! To personalize the misery index even more . . . and remember lower is better, you could include factors like: ■ years since you bought a new pair of boots + unemployment + inflation, or ■ semesters till your daughter graduates from vet school plus, plus, ■ months you have left on your truck payments, plus, etc. ■ age of the horse you are riding, plus ■ payments left on your alimony, well, you know ■ therapy sessions until your hip heals so you can get back on your horse . . . and ■ time you have left wearing the court-ordered ankle bracelet I was at a livestock convention a while back and after the big show a group of pretty salty cowmen were conversing. They got to comparing injuries and insults. I mentioned the misery index. They loved it! They could compete in who was the worst off! However, they began to get far afield in the categories to be counted as the evening went on: i.e., the number of missing teeth with no cav-
E
ities you still have left, the number of times you’ve been bucked off lately, number of horses that have been dumped on your place, number of times you’ve been turned down by a barmaid until you met your wife, the number of times you lost your wallet, car keys and/or glasses in the last week but . . . Bud was finally judged the winner of the misery index by counting the number of times his old, incontinent dog peed in the pickup seat . . . plus inflation and unemployment. It nearly reached President Carter’s old record of 21.9.
nce again, the American Institute of Philanthropy has awarded the Humane Society of the United States a “D” rating in its Charity Rating Guide. The report, which AIP publishes three times each year, is based on a rigorous analysis of charitable organizations, and serves as a guide to donors who look for independent information before selecting charities to support. According to AIP, the groups in the top-rated list generally spend 75 percent or more of their budgets on programs, spend $25 or less to raise $100 in public support, do not hold excessive assets in reserve, and receive “open-book” status for disclosure of basic financial information and documents to AIP. You can read more about the organization’s criteria for rating charities on the CharityWatch.org website The Center for Consumer Freedom notes that last year AIP gave HSUS a “D” grade twice, due to the animal rights group’s lackluster performance in using donors’ contributions. According to the report, HSUS spends up to 49 cents to raise every dollar, while spending as little as 49 percent of its budget on programs. Even PETA, best known for publicity stunts involving partially naked women, topped HSUS with a “C-plus” grade in the latest AIP report,
JOHN MADAY, Managing Editor, www.cattlenetwork.com e-newsletters/drovers-daily
The AIP report groups charities by type of mission, helping potential donors compare among similar charities such as those focused on cancer research, hunger or homelessness. Among the category for Animal and Animal Protection, several earned spots among the report’s top-rated charities. These include the Animal Welfare Institute, Farm Sanctuary and the Humane Farming Association. These organizations, while apparently more forthright in their financial disclosures and efficient in appropriating funds, are not especially friendly to commercial livestock production. The motto listed on the Animal Welfare Institute’s website states: “Working to abolish factory farms, support high-welfare family farms and achieve humane transport and slaughter for all animals.” Farm Sanctuary takes the message even further, stating the organization “works to protect farm animals from cruelty, inspire change in the way society views and treats farm animals, and promote compassionate vegan living.” Humane Farming Association lists its goals to “protect farm animals from cruelty and abuse, to protect the public from the misuse of antibiotics, hormones, and other chemicals used on factory farms, and to protect the environment from the impacts of industrialized animal factories.”
San Angelo Packing Co., Inc.
1809 NORTH BELL ST., SAN ANGELO, TX 76903 P.O. BOX 1469, SAN ANGELO, TX 76902
A DIRECT MARKET FOR THE PRODUCER A BUYER OF QUALITY SLAUGHTER COWS & BULLS 800/588-6328 • 800/LUV-MEAT
Livestock Market Digest
Page 6
Take precautions for health security of herd by STEPHEN B. BLEZINGER PhD, PAS
ne more result of the ongoing drought conditions in much of the country is that many producers are selling significant portions of their herds. Sales are seeing record numbers of breeding animals changing hands and thus far prices have continued to be good. One main reason being is the quality of the animals being sold. Back during earlier drought years many truly cull animals were sold. This year cattle that would otherwise remain in the herds are being sold as producers cut even deeper in their numbers. This means that more of these cattle are going back into breeding programs and not to the packer. Over recent years cattle producers have become increasingly aware of the need to take steps to insure the “health security of their herds.” Producers need to be increasingly aware of the effects of disease transmission as animals are introduced into their herds. Over the last few years, world events have created an interest and concern for keeping our livestock operations safe. The term biosecurity has been introduced over the last few years, primarily as related to the security of the health of the human population but we find there is a relationship here for cattle, swine, poultry, etc. Obviously taking steps to increase biosecurity is generally considered to be measures to reduce the chance of a terrorist attack of some type on a livestock operation. Generally we think of this as something that could take place in a large feedlot, swine or poultry operation. There are two things we have to understand. One, biosecurity is not simply restricted to large operations.
O
Second, biosecurity is not only a matter of reducing the possibility of terrorist attack. It is also related to measures take to reduce the possible transference of disease on and off the many livestock operations in this country. With a higher than normal number of breeding animals being bought and sold, the potential for this incidence is increased.
Definition and Goals of Biosecurity The goal of biosecurity is to stop transmission of diseasecausing agents by preventing, minimizing or controlling crosscontamination of body fluids (feces, urine, saliva, etc.) between animals, animals to feed and animals to equipment that may directly or indirectly contact the animals on your operation. Biosecurity management practices are designed to prevent the spread of disease by minimizing the movement of biologic organisms and their vectors (viruses, bacteria, rodents, flies, etc.) onto and within your operation. Biosecurity can be very difficult to maintain because the interrelationships between management, biologic organisms and biosecurity are in many cases, very complex. While developing and maintaining biosecurity can be difficult, in the long term, it is the cheapest, most effective means of disease control available, and no disease prevention program will work without it. Infectious diseases can be spread between operations by: ■ The introduction of diseased cattle or healthy cattle incubating or carrying a disease; ■ Introduction of healthy cattle who have recovered from disease but are now carriers;
■ Vehicles, equipment, clothing and shoes of visitors or employees who move between herds; ■ Contact with inanimate objects that are contaminated with disease organisms; ■ Carcasses of dead cattle that have not been disposed of properly; ■ Feedstuffs, especially high risk feedstuff which could be contaminated with feces, ■ Impure or contaminated water (surface drainage water, etc.); ■ Manure handling and manure and dust in the air ■ Other animals (horses, dogs, cats, wildlife, rodents, birds and insects).
Develop a Biosecurity Resource Group As we’ve discussed before, it’s very useful for a producer to develop a “management team” that he routinely accesses to manage the operation. In the same way, development of a good biosecurity program can be implemented by first developing a Biosecurity Resource Group or Team. This group would include many of the same people you utilize on your management team and could include operation managers and supervisors, veterinarian, nutritionist, extension specialist, suppliers and others who may have special knowledge in control of biologic organisms. In most cases beef operations have typically been open to vehicle traffic and visitors. Of all the possible breakdowns in biosecurity, the introduction of new cattle and traffic pose the greatest risks to cattle health. Properly managing these two factors should be a top priority in your operation.
Western Legacy Alliance Research Spurs Congressional Action on Exposing Taxpayer Funded Lawsuit Racket of Radical Environmentalists I am/our organization is committed to protecting the open spaces, private property, private businesses and ensuring the responsible use of public lands. Please list me/my organization as a member of the Western Legacy Alliance. I have included my membership dues and my $____________ additional contribution. Individual Membership $25
■
Association Membership $500
■
THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT!
Corporate Membership $1,000
Name: ________________________________________________________________________________________________
Organization: __________________________________________________________________________________________
Address: ____________________________________________ City: __________________________ State: ___________
■
Other $____________
RECEIPT OF CONTRIBUTION TO THE WLA: The Western Legacy Alliance thanks you for your contribution! Amount: $
Zip: _____________________ Phone: _________________________________ Fax: _______________________________
Cash:
Email: _________________________________________________________________________________________________
Check#:
LP —
YOU CAN HDEAY! JOIN TO
September 15, 2011 Biosecurity plans should be developed to meet the specific needs of each operation. Biosecurity has three major components which include isolation, traffic control, and sanitation. When effectively managed these components meet the primary biosecurity objective of preventing or minimizing crosscontamination of body fluids (feces, urine, saliva, respiratory secretions, etc.) between animals, animals to feed and animals to equipment. Isolation prevents contact between animals within a controlled environment. The most important step in disease control is to minimize commingling and movement of cattle. This includes all new purchases as well as co-mingling between established groups of cattle. Even in operations that have high cattle turnover, such as feedlots, keeping feeding groups from mixing is an important biosecurity measure. Isolate feedlot hospital cattle and return them to their home pen as soon as possible. Long-acting treatments have improved our ability to minimize movement of infectious organisms between groups. An important biosecurity action on ranches is to separate cattle by age and/or production groups. Facilities should be cleaned and disinfected appropriately between groups. Your veterinarian can provide guidance on specific isolation management procedures and how they can be applied to control specific diseases. Traffic control includes traffic onto your operation and traffic patterns within your operation. It is important to understand traffic includes more than vehicles. All animals and people must be considered. Animals other than cattle include dogs, cats, horses, wildlife, rodents and birds. The degree of control will be dictated by the biology and ecology of the infectious organism being addressed, and the control must be equally applied. Stopping a truck hauling cattle from driving onto your operation as a biosecurity measure for controlling BVD may not be particularly useful since the virus is spread from animal to animal. Buying cattle from herds that have a verifiable quality vaccination program would be more
important in maximizing biosecurity. However, it would be important for the truck to have been adequately cleaned before hauling the cattle. Traffic control can be built into the facilities design. An example would be placing cattle loading facilities on the perimeter of the operation. Traffic control within the operation should be designed to stop or minimize contamination of cattle, feed, feed handling equipment and equipment used on cattle. Pit silos should not be accessible from non-feed handling equipment such as loaders used outside the feeding area or vehicles that travel outside the feed mixing and handling facility. No one (manager, nutritionist, veterinarian, banker, etc.) should be allowed to drive onto the surface of a trench silo. The only equipment allowed should be the loader used for handling the feedstuff. In large pits, it may be acceptable to allow feed trucks to enter, provided they are loaded at least 100 feet away from the working face of the stored feed. If possible, separate equipment should be used for handling feedstuffs and manure. Sanitation addresses the disinfection of materials, people and equipment entering the operation and the cleanliness of the people and equipment on the operation. The main objective of sanitation is to prevent fecal contaminates from entering the oral cavity of cattle. Equipment used which may contact cattle's oral cavity or cattle feed should be a special target. The first step in sanitation is to remove organic matter, especially feces. Blood, saliva, and urine from sick or dead cattle should also be targeted. All equipment that handles feed or is introduced into the mouth of cattle should be cleaned, including disinfection as appropriate, before use. Loaders used for manure or dead cattle handling must be cleaned thoroughly before using for feedstuff. It would be best to use different equipment. Minimize the use of oral equipment and instruments such as balling guns, drench equipment and tubes. If used at processing and treatment, thoroughly clean and disinfect between animals. Store continued on page seven
General Good Management Practice (GMP) Checklist Rank importance of each GMPs in biosecurity and note if being addressed: Meet all of the Beef Quality Assurance Good ■ Management Practices and Guidelines. Understand it is more profitable to prevent problems ■ than to correct problems. Agree that doing things right the first time is a critical ■ part of biosecurity. Biosecurity requires some method of cattle ■ identification. An identification system in place. Can readily track and validate management practices ■ used on my cattle.
“America’s Favorite Livestock Newspaper”
September 15, 2011 cleaned equipment in clean, dry areas. Avoid storage in tanks or containers containing disinfectants because most disinfectants are neutralized by organic material. Disease transmission is commonly traced to the use of those storage tanks.
Good Management Practices for Controlling Infectious Diseases Committing to a biosecurity plan is a important step toward controlling of infectious disease. Keeping pathogens out of a herd improves production efficiency, lowers costs and reduces risks to employees, family members and visitors. To help you with this, the following includes several checklists that could help identify specific areas for attention. Review the checklists and discuss each item with your veterinarian. Ask your veterinarian to rank the biosecurity importance of each item (0= not important, 5= very important). Then check yes (Y) or no (N) if the item is being addressed.
Conclusions Development of biosecurity plans will become increasingly important as time goes by. Obviously much of this is common sense but at the same time each component must be considered and evaluated in order to insure safety and security of our cattle operations. In the next issue, we'll include additional checklists that can be used to continue this plan development process. Dr. Steve Blezinger is a nutritional and management consultant with an office in Sulphur Springs Texas. He can be reached by phone at 903/352-3475 or by e-mail at: sblez@ verizon.net.
Page 7
PETA plans porn site Commentary by DAN MURPHY, www.cattlenetwork.com
he charitable interpretation of the announcement that People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) will be launching a pornographic website is that the group “is known for using controversial methods” to help advance its various animal rights campaigns. The view is that hosting a porn site is merely another step along the morally bankrupt path the group’s leadership chose to follow a long time ago. Of course, PETA has always been proud of how its actions have “pushed the envelope” and garnered attention from media members more interested in sex and sleaze than substance. For years, PETA’s anti-fur ads have featured nude celebrities — tastefully photographed, so they say, and not at all exploitive of women. Which has been Hugh Hefner’s line for going on 50 years now. (Plus, PETA has a knack for attracting endorsements from women who are already posing nude and semi-nude every chance they get, like Pam Anderson, Khloe Kardashian and porn star Sasha Grey. Is it really all that ground-breaking for people who are basically “famous” because they strip off their clothes for the camera to agree to a nude photo shoot?) The group is also quite proud of all the naked protests they’ve sponsored, here and in Europe,
T
in which people march around topless to protest bullfighting or spend a couple hours in a cage wearing only a thong to demand the closure of all circuses. Again, though, most of those protestors appear quite happy to be the center of attention, and if it weren’t animal rights, I suspect they’d be equally thrilled to stage some naked street theater to condemn the overdose of trailers that precede the feature film at your local cineplex. Now, PETA plans to really push the envelope by creating an XXX website to “raise people’s awareness of veganism,” according to the Huffington Post. “We live in a 24-hour news cycle world, and we learn the racy things we do are sometimes the most effective way that we can reach particular individuals,” said PETA spokeswoman Lindsay Rajt, who will not be taking off her clothes for the campaign, by the way. Instead of focusing on the “horror” of wearing fur, however, Rajt said that this new porn site is being launched to raise awareness of veganism. “We really want to grab people’s attention, get them talking and to question the status quo and ultimately take action, because the best way we can help the greatest number of animals is simply by not eating them.” According to Rajt, the site will have enough adult content to qualify for the .xxx domain URL
but also some graphic images of animals that viewers may not expect to see. “PETA’s sexy side displayed in galleries and videos will quickly give way to the sinister world of animal mistreatment uncovered by the group’s hidden camera investigations in a very different kind of graphic content,” according to the Herald Sun newspaper in Melbourne, Australia.
All the wrong moves It’s tempting to simply dismiss this latest stunt as yet another tired effort to score some media coverage for all the wrong reasons. That’s basically what PETA does: From proclaiming that Jesus was a veggie (just skip the story of the loaves and fishes, okay?) to promoting beer drinking among college students as an alternative to milk to pretending that their obsession with sex is nothing more than a marketing tool, the group specializes in publicity, not progress. They don’t care who gets hurt, who gets embarrassed or who gets offended — just as long as somebody’s paying attention to their warped and whacky agenda. But funding a porno site, if reports about the planned content are accurate, goes beyond merely distasteful. The issue isn’t just the content — people certainly have different views about nudity and how appropriate it might be for adult viewing — it’s about the moral bankruptcy of “means justify the ends.”
That’s the attitude that fuels just about every activity that we object to in life, isn’t it? It doesn’t matter what your politics are, the biggest complaint from everyone of virtually any political persuasion is that the “other guys” are playing dirty. That they’re slinging mud and spreading rumors that just aren’t true. And why? Because that’s what it takes to get elected, or so the operatives behind every instance of negative campaigning will claim. Heck, that’s why wars get started: We have no choice but to attack our enemies, in order to protect our people. Yet PETA seems to have no problem with spending big bucks on high-profile campaigns exploiting women as sex objects because that’s what they have to do. In the end, what condemns PETA to be little more than a freak show is not only a misguided message about humanity’s relationship with the animal kingdom, it’s the basic immorality of using objectionable tactics to try to get other people to change their objectionable ways. A Facebook group was formed last year, “Real Women Against PETA,” after the organization posted a billboard of an obese woman that read, “Save the Whales. Lose the Blubber. Go Vegetarian.” That’s typical of their approach. Be clever, be eyecatching, be controversial. In the end, it’s not about who’s working to effect change, it’s about who’s watching the sideshow. Dan Murphy is a veteran food-industry journalist and commentator
End the War on Salt he Council of Better Business Bureaus recently rolled out new criteria for reducing the sodium, sugar and fat in children’s food and beverages. Seventeen companies are participating in the initiative, including the Campbell Soup Company, General Mills and Kraft Foods. Many food manufacturers are working to preempt regulation by reducing the sodium content in their products at considerable cost — costs that are being passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices, say Luke Pelican, a Google Policy Fellow, and Jacqueline Otto, a research assistant, at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Health writer Melinda Wenner Moyer has called for an end to the “war on salt,” saying there is no conclusive evidence to warrant sweeping and intrusive mandates to reduce or eliminate salt from foods. Moyer cites a 2011 study that found “no strong evidence that cutting salt intake reduces the risk for heart attacks, strokes or death in people with normal or high blood pressure.” And scientists with the European Project on Genes in Hypertension recently published the
T
results of another study in the Journal of the American Medical Association suggesting an inverse correlation between sodium consumption and heart-disease deaths. One of the main driving forces behind the anti-salt crusade is a 1970s study that showed a high salt diet caused high blood pressure in rats. This study, however, made the common fallacy of mistaking correlation for causation and failed to control or account for myriad additional variables. In reality, each person’s individual risk of heart disease is based on many factors, including lifestyle, genetics and access to health care. Diet, including sodium consumption, is only one of many factors. It is foolhardy for politicians to lump all individual cases together and make prescriptions for society at large that will limit individual choice and raise our cost of living. The European Project on Genes agrees, noting their conclusions “do not support the current recommendations of a generalized and indiscriminate reduction of salt intake at the population level.”
The Best of the Bunch
FROM THE PHOTO of his hand-tooled cover to the very last story, Lee’s newest book, A Handmade Life, is pure Pitts. In the tradition of Dirt Roads and God’s Country, Lee’s latest will entertain and inspire. Destined to be a classic. ORDER FORM
QUANTITY
Four Book Special
oose any four 4-BOOK SPECIAL! Ch only $49.95. pay and ks bo ’s of Lee ty Postage! ori Pri es lud And that inc tential po a to It all ads up saving of over $20! PRICE
TOTAL
$49.95
BOOKS ORDERED SEPARATELY A Handmade Life
$14.95
These Things I Wish
$14.95
A Collection of Characters
$12.95
Essays from God’s Country
$12.95
Back Door People
$11.95
People Who Live at the End of Dirt Roads
$12.95
Shipping & Handling
$3.00
(Per Item if ordered separately)
Tax (If California resident only)
TOTAL
x 8.25%
GRAND TOTAL Name__________________________________________________________________________________ Mailing Address ________________________________________________________________________ City _________________________________________________ State _________ Zip________________
Source: Luke Pelican and Jacqueline Otto, “Let’s Put a Stop to the War on Salt,” Fox News, August 15, 2011
h t t p : / / w w w. a a a l i ve s t o ck . c o m / c o n t e n t . p h p ? I = 3 8
FOR BOOKS ORDERED SEPARATELY PLEASE PAY $3.00 EACH FOR POSTAGE AND HANDLING.
MAKE CHECKS PAYABLE TO: LEE PITTS, AND MAIL TO: P.O. BOX 616, MORRO BAY, CALIFORNIA 93443
Livestock Market Digest
Page 8
September 15, 2011
Antibiotics for Beef Cattle – Use them Wisely Part Two: ANTIBIOTICS FOR BEEF CATTLE -THE OLD RELIABLES by HEATHER SMITH THOMAS
ost ranchers are very familiar with the traditional drugs that have been in use a long time, like sulfa boluses, LA-200, penicillin, and injectable tylosin. “These drugs are a little bit like your old computer, regarding what they can do,” says Kelly Lechtenberg, DVM, PhD (consulting veterinarian at Midwest Veterinary Services in Oakland, Nebraska). “They haven’t gotten worse (or ineffective); they still do for you what they did in earlier years, but the new ones do more,” he says. On many farms the combination of LA-200 and sulfa still work to combat respiratory disease, for instance. Today the oxytetracycline
M
Cowley Farm & Feedlot Company • 5,000-Head Capacity • Backgrounding and Finishing • Feeding silage, alfalfa hay, corn and barley • Hedging on Request Three generations serving you IVAN, BRAD & JEREMY COWLEY 546 N. Venice Main St., Venice, Utah 84701 435/896-5260 cowleyfarm@hotmail.com
products like LA-200 are now labeled for subcutaneous use as well as intramuscular administration, to comply with BQA standards, which aim for less residue and tissue damage. Many cowcalf producers still use these products. Some oxytetracyclines, like Duramycin 100, are labeled for intravenous administration — which also gets away from the problem of painful injections (burning sensation in muscles tissues) and residue issues. “Many farms or ranches have not had the pressure experienced by large feeding operations that are always bringing new cattle in, with relatively higher exposure to antibiotic resistance development, with a lot more pathogens than you have on the home farm. The feedlot animal has more stressors, and these are cattle we’re putting a lot of antibiotics into, even though we all know that the body’s immune system is what ultimately determines whether the calf responds to our therapy or not. All we are trying to do is give the animals another crutch to help fight disease, even though they will succeed or fail on their own ability to fight off the infection,” says Lechtenberg. Some of the older, less expensive products still do have a place. If they still work on your ranch, there’s no reason to not use them. If they don’t work very well, then you can switch to the newer, more expensive drugs. “The rule of thumb in the
Scott 8' Portable Tubs with 18' Alley Ready for Transport in Minutes
SCOTT • 10' & 12' Stationary Tubs • 18' Adjustable Alleys • Continuous Fence • Heavy-Duty Feed Bunks • Complete Line of Heavy-Duty Livestock Equipment
LH
MANUFACTURERS GORDON, NEBRASKA 1-800/435-0532
SCOTT SIDEROLL IRRIGATION SYSTEMS. www.scottmanufacturers.com
FREEZE BRANDERS
Made of Solid Brass For more information on our electric dehorners and other livestock branding equipment, please write, call or visit our website listed below.
This super cold brander, when applied to an animal, turns the hair white or colorless in the design of the brand, making it easily read from any distance. Numbers available in 1" thru 6" size. Most custom designs available.
L-H BRANDING IRONS P.O. Box 639 • Mandan, ND 58554 • 800/437-8068 www.lhbrandingirons.com
feedlot world is that we shoot for about an 85 to 90 percent success rate (response to therapy, in the animals treated).In the cow calf world, however, this is not good enough, but to expect 100 percent response rate is unrealistic. In the cow-calf environment, regarding respiratory disease, if you are getting 95 percent success in response to therapy, this is great, and I wouldn’t go changing antibiotics. We expect some cattle to fail, and the first time you have a calf that needs re-treated doesn’t mean you had antibiotic failure,” he explains. “Your veterinarian should be involved in this process — for diagnosis and treatment recommendations. Generally speaking, if the cattle are responding well to an inexpensive program, with low relapse rate, there’s no need to change just because there’s a newer antibiotic available,” he says. One of the newer formulations of oxytetracycline is Tetradure 300. “This is injectable oxytetracycline that contains 300 milligrams per millileter, compared to Biomycin 200, LA-200, Duramycin 72-200, generic equivalents, etc. It’s not longerlasting but is more potent, so you can give a smaller volume dose (and thus less risk for tissue irritation and reaction). The idea was to give the same amount of drug in less volume. The potency has to do with the characteristics of the antibiotic. The most potent products we have are like Draxxin, in which you can treat a very large animal with just a 10 cc syringe,” explains Lechtenberg. The drug companies have focused on several things in creating various products, not only looking at the spectrum of activity (the types of bacteria the drug will kill) but also putting the drug into carriers that don’t make excessive volume. “What we really want is low volume products because they are less likely to cause injection site reactions (and are more efficient to store and ship and administer) and less likely to be painful to the cattle we give them to. We like low-volume products that are also safe, in case people accidentally inject themselves. We also want a high margin of safety for the cattle, in case we happen to overdose them,” he says. Tylan-200 (tylosin) is still available (Elanco), as is Tylosin Injectable (Duravet). “When given intramuscularly, as labeled, it is very irritating to the tissues. There are some programs that still use a significant amount of tylosin intravenously. I think the IV usage is extra-label but there is good data on its effectiveness against pneumonia. The most common use of that drug, however, is in feed to prevent liver abscesses, and it is sometimes used in a salt/mineral product for pinkeye control. There’s also a powder form used for pinkeye
treatment in baby calves. But there’s probably a lot more sulfa used, in the form of boluses for baby calf diarrhea, and boluses for pneumonia and foot rot,” explains Lechtenberg. There are also some combination therapies such as long-acting sulfa boluses given in conjuction with LA-200 to give 3 days’ worth of coverage. There are many options, today, and more choices for selecting a product that fits a specific need. “When I graduated from veterinary school we only had the penicillins, sulfas and tetracyclines. This is why there were many products used extralabel. We’d get together and talk about how we could mix this or that, to address a particular problem. But compounding is not very acceptable anymore because there are so many good products today that are safe. It’s difficult now for me or any other veterinarian to justify batching something up in a clinic since it wouldn’t be any better than what’s already available,” explains Lechtenberg. There are very few toxicities in doubling up the drugs that are available, but the biggest reason to not do combination therapy today is that it would usually double your bill. “With the modern therapies available we do a lot less combinations than we did in the past,” he says. Penicillin is still used, and some formulations can now be given subcutaneously rather than intramuscularly. Most companies that produce antibiotics are now trying to steer away from IM administration, to be more in line with BQA guidelines. But one of the biggest concerns about penicillin is that it generally needs to be given in higher than label dosage to be effective. Even though you can purchase it over the counter, in order to use it extra-label you need to have a prescription from your veterinarian. Almost everyone who uses penicillin gives it several times the labeled dosage, since this is the only way it’s effective for certain conditions. “It was labeled using a septicemia model. The cephalosporins are in the same drug class as penicillin. They are all absorbed quickly from the tis-
sue into the bloodstream. A calf with pneumonia needs it in the lung tissue, not the blood. This class of antibiotics concentrate in the blood, so when drug companies were doing the efficacy tests, they were modeled on blood borne infections (septicemia). So they came up with very low doses; it doesn’t take very much penicillin to treat septicemia. But in reality we don’t treat much septicemia in cattle. We treat foot rot, pneumonia, pinkeye, etc. In order to get effectiveness for these conditions, we have to drive the blood concentration very high so we can get spill-over effects into the body tissue. Then it works well,” he says. “Penicillin is safe. It’s not toxic, so there’s no problem with giving high doses. But since this is extra-label, someone must be responsible for residues.” Thus you need to work with your veterinarian for proper withdrawal time for the higher dosage. “One of the things that can happen with penicillin is that it’s one of the most common allergenic antibiotics. Some people are allergic to penicillin and its derivatives, since it is often used in human medicine,” he says. Since it is usually administered in the muscle, if you give a calf 5 times the label dosage and only observe the normal label withdrawal time, there will be residue in the muscle if that calf is butchered too soon. “If the neck muscle is ground into hamburger and contains residue, somebody somewhere who eats that meat may react, and may go into anaphylactic shock. A calf might go into shock if given a second dose; it’s very allergenic. So this is a caution when using penicillin, even though it can do a good job on foot rot and some cases of calf pneumonia. But in order to get tissue levels high enough, you have to use so much that it’s almost cheaper to use one of the newer drugs. For clostridial infections, however, penicillin would be the drug of choice. At label dose, penicillin would be very effective against clostridia (blackleg, redwater, enterotoxemia, etc.),” says Lechtenberg. Thus you need to be working with your veterinarian to diagnose and treat various conditions, to know which antibiotics and dosages would be most appropriate.
Costs: ome of the newer drugs are more expensive than the older ones. Categorically, the newer generation products will cost more, running 2 to 3 times higher than the older products, partly because less volume or less doses are needed. Actual costs will vary from region to region and from one supplier or veterinary practice to another. Also, there are often some promotional price breaks or programs. The new products try to compete cost-wise on a therapeutic regimen. Draxxin is probably the most expensive, regarding per head cost for therapy, based on a certain size/weight animal. In descending order of cost, this is usually how the various products stack up: Draxxin, Excede, Nuflor, Baytril, and Micotil. Then costs drop to a lower price range with tetracyclines, then the sulfas and at lowest cost the penicillins.
S
“America’s Favorite Livestock Newspaper”
September 15, 2011
HSUS Sets Sights on Religions from the US SPORTSMEN ALLIANCE
t seems that the most dangerous and well-funded group within the animal rights lobby, the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), is again trying to reposition itself to seem mainstream. That transformation is a new “Faith Outreach” effort. Yes, HSUS is attempting to align itself with religions. This path closely follows the animal rights group’s programs that have thrust its tentacles into school systems and young student minds around the nation. Churches should definitely beware. The programs championed by HSUS outreach efforts include articles promoting a connection between animal rights and the congregations of the Unitarian Universalists and the United Church of Christ. And the HSUS furthers the connecting efforts by pushing pro-animalrights statements attributed to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, The Lutheran Church — Missouri Synod,
I
the Seventh Day Adventist Church, the Episcopal Church and other religious affiliations. Seems nearly any sermon can be twisted as promoting animal rights. These twists could have been far from the intent of the speaker or presenter when the materials were spoken or presented. This doesn’t matter to HSUS. Real eyebrows are raised, however, when you discover the HSUS’s St. Francis Day in a Box project. A $15 toolkit promoting the animal rights philosophy includes: the Chronicles of Narnia; Animal Protection Ministries: A Guide for Churches; Eating Mercifully; the CAFO Reader: The Tragedy of Industrial Animal Factories (a stab at farming); and many others. These animal rights agenda packets are sold to churches, or congregation members, to raise funds for HSUS. While this propaganda intertwines religion and animal rights as connected crusading causes, there is an obvious lack of religious tolerance in the missing mention of St. Hubertus, the patron Saint of Hunters. And of course the “toolkit” includes envelopes and
instructions on how to collect funds in the names of pets, animals and wildlife, and then send those funds directly to HSUS.
Engineering Food for All he United Nations predicts that there will be 1 billion to 3 billion more people to feed by midcentury. Yet even as the Obama Administration says it wants to stimulate innovation by eliminating unnecessary regulations, the Environmental Protection Agency wants to require even more data on genetically modified crops, says Nina V. Fedoroff, a professor of biology at Pennsylvania State University The process for approving these crops has become so costly and burdensome that it is choking off innovation. Civilization depends on our
T
Page 9
expanding ability to produce food efficiently, which has markedly accelerated thanks to science and technology. The use of chemicals for fertilization and for pest and disease control, the induction of beneficial mutations in plants with chemicals or radiation to improve yields, and the mechanization of agriculture have all increased the amount of food that can be grown on each acre of land by as much as 10 times in the last 100 years. These extraordinary increases must be doubled by 2050 if we are to continue to feed an expanding population. As people around the world become more affluent, they are demanding diets richer in animal protein, which will require ever more robust feed crop yields to sustain. New molecular methods that add or modify genes can protect
Digest
Classifieds
To place your Digest Classified ad here, contact MICHAEL WRIGHT at michael@aaalivestock.com or by phone at 505/243-9515, ext. 30
Auction Schools COME TRAIN WITH THE CHAMPIONS. Join the financially rewarding world of auctioneering. World Wide College of Auctioneering. Free catalog. 1-800/423-5242, www.worldwidecollegeofauctioneering.com. BE AN AUCTIONEER – Missouri Auction School, world’s largest since 1905. Free CD and catalog. Call toll-free 1-800/8351955, ext. 5. www.auctionschool.com. LEARN AUCTIONEERING for the 2000s! Nashville Auction School “Free Catalog” 800/543-7061, learntoauction.com, 112 W. Lauderdale St., Tullahoma, TN 37388.
Equipment KADDATZ Auctioneering and Farm Equipment Sales
New and used tractors, equipment, and parts. Salvage yard, tractors, combines, hay equipment and all types of equipment parts.
Equipment POWDER RIVER LIVESTOCK EQUIPMENT. Best prices with delivery available. CONLIN SUPPLY CO. INC., Oakdale, CA. 209/847-8977. NEW HOLLAND pull type bale wagons: 1033, 104 bales, $5,100; 1034, 104 bales, unloads both ways, $4,400; 1044, 120 bales, $3,700; 1063, 160 bales, $10,800; 1010, 56 bales, $1,200. Also have self propelled wagons. Delivery available. 785/ 336-6103, www.roederimp.com.
DANE STUHAAN (CA) 559/688-7695 • Cell (NE): 559/731-7695
LIVESTOCK HAULING California, Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, Idaho & Nebraska
Source: Nina V. Fedoroff, “Engineering Food for All,” New York Times, August 18, 2011
g•u•i•d•e All Breeds
PerformanceTested Bulls SPRING AND FALL Jeff Schmidt
•
BRANGUS
Sell More Bulls! R.L. Robbs 520/384-3654 4995 Arzberger Rd. Willcox, Arizona 85643
To list your herd here, call MICHAEL WRIGHT at call 505/243-9515, ext. 30, or email michael@ aaalivestock.com.
509/488-2158
www.kaddatzequipment.com • 254/582-3000
Livestock Haulers
plants from diseases and pests and improve crops in ways that are both more environmentally benign and beyond the capability of older methods. This is because the gene modifications are crafted based on knowledge of what genes do, in contrast to the shotgun approach of traditional breeding or using chemicals or radiation to induce mutations. Myths about the dire effects of genetically modified foods on health and the environment abound, but they have not held up to scientific scrutiny. These crop modification methods are not dangerous. It is time to relieve the regulatory burden slowing down the development of genetically modified crops, says Fedoroff.
angus
Bell Key Angus Dennis Boehlke 208/467-2747 Cell. 208/989-1612
A few Choice Bulls Available at Private Treaty. NAMPA, IDAHO
HEREFORD
SANTA GERTRUDIS
SCHUSTER
Santa Gertrudis Breeders International
HEREFORDS Washington’s Oldest Source of Herefords “SINCE 1938”
SELLING RANGE BULLS IN VOLUME (TOP REPLACEMENT HEIFERS) CLAY SCHUSTER • shuster@gorge.net 509/773-6051 Home • 541/980-7464 Cell GOLDENDALE, WA 99620
Executive Director, John Ford
RED ANGUS Red & Tender By Design
Motor Models Available
Bradley 3 Ranch Ltd.
www.santagertrudis.ws
www.bradley3ranch.com
WE OFFER A COMPLETE LINE OF LOW VOLUME MIST BLOWERS. Excellent for spraying, cattle, livestock, vegetables, vineyards, orchards, nurseries, mosquites, etc.
200+ Angus Bulls Sell February 11, 2012 FOR FREE BROCHURE CONTACT:
Swihart Sales Co. 800/864-4595 or 785/754-3513 7240 County Rd. AA Quinter, KS 67752 www.swihart-sales.com
at the Ranch NE of Estelline, TX Ranch-Raised ANGUS Bulls for Ranchers Since 1955
M.L. Bradley 806/888-1062 Fax: 806/888-1010 • Cell: 940/585-6471
P.O. Box 1257 Kingsville, Texas 78364 361/592-9357 361/592-8572 fax
Shorthorn A SOURCE FOR PROVEN SUPERIOR RED ANGUS GENETICS 14298 N. Atkins Rd., Lodi, CA 95240
209/727-3335
AMERICAN SHORTHORN ASSOCIATION 877/274-0686 8288 HASKELL ST., OMAHA, NE 68124 W W W. SHORTHORN. ORG I NFO@ SHORTHORN. ORG
Livestock Market Digest
Page 10
September 15, 2011
THE LIVESTOCK MARKET DIGEST
Real Estate Guide To place your listings here, please call MICHAEL WRIGHT at 505/243-9515, ext. 30, or email michael@aaalivestock.com TEXAS & OKLA. FARMS & RANCHES For advertising contact, MICHAEL WRIGHT Michael brings with him four generations of the range livestock industry and a keen awareness of the issues facing ranchers and rural economies today.
505/243-9515, ext. 30 michael@aaalivestock.com
RANCH SALES & APPRAISALS SERVING THE RANCHING INDUSTRY SINCE 1920
Chas. S. Middleton and Son 1507 13th ST. • LUBBOCK, TEXAS 79401
(806) 763-5331
Missouri Land Sales
INTEREST RATES AS LOW AS 3%. PAYMENTS SCHEDULED ON 25 YEARS
JOE STUBBLEFIELD & ASSOCIATES 13830 Western St., Amarillo, TX • 806/622-3482 Cell 806/674-2062 • joe3@suddenlink.net Michael Perez Assocs Nara Visa, NM • 575/403-7970
See all my listings at:
paulmcgilliard.murney.com ■ Horse Training / Boarding Facility: New, state-of-the-art, 220x60 horse facility with 20 stalls, back to back, offset with bull pen at end of the barn. Two large pipe outside paddocks. 3-4 BR, 3 BA, 2,000+ sq. ft. PAUL McGILLIARD Cell: 417/839-5096 home. All on 18+ acres. Just 5 miles north of I-44 Bois D’Arc exit. MLS #1017424. Call Paul for your private showing. 1-800/743-0336 ■ 838± Acre Ranch: Never been offered for sale before. Exceptional, MURNEY ASSOC., REALTORS highly improved, all continuous ranch, 1/2 mile off Hwy. 13 at Bollvar. SPRINGFIELD, MO 65804 Lovely ranch home and mobile home and guest entertainment house. Big shoe, hay barn and possible 8-stall horse barn. 250/cow/calf graze the 700 acre m/l lush pastures serviced by 3.5 miles of water lines and 23 frost-free waterers. 3+ acres m/l spring-fed stocked lake. This ranch has it all. MLS#1109960 ■ 483 Ac., Hunter Mania: Nature at her best. Don’t miss out on this one. Live water (two creeks). 70+ acres open in bottom hayfields and upland grazing. Lots of timber (marketable and young) for the best hunting and fishing (Table Rock, Taney Como and Bull Shoals Lake) Really cute 3-bd., 1-ba stone home. Secluded yes, but easy access to Forsyth-Branson, Ozark and Springfield. Property joins Nat’l. Forest. MLS#908571
■ JACKSON CREEK: Approximately 2,398 deeded acres – 490± irrigated meadows – plus
BLM & USFS leases – rated at 430 MOTHER COWS plus replacements and bulls – 15 HD. HORSE PERMIT – Harney County, OR – 3 year long creeks through ranch, large spring and potable artesian well – LANDOWNER HUNTING TAGS, 4 deer and 4 elk – comfortable improvements, private HQ’s, last year long ranch in upper Otis Valley – back dropping against rugged BLM and USFS lands – owner/agent – $2,450,000 ■ LANDRETH: Approximately 797 deeded acres – 35 irrigated crop – 135 irrigated pasture – balance, dry grazing – livestock/recreation property – rates at approximately 100 – 125 animal units year long or great stocker unit on seasonal basis – approximately 1/2-MILE MALHEUR RIVER thru ranch – upland game birds, waterfowl, mule deer and bass ponds – LANDOWNER HUNTING TAGS, 2 deer – quality, clean improvements – Malheur County, OR – $990,000 – priced below appraisal ■ P BAR: Approximately 11,750 deeded acres – 300 irrigated – plus BLM & State leases –
rated at 1,300 AU’s – WINTER PERMIT for 900 hd. – one contiguous unit for easy drift – 1,000 hd. feedlot to wean and/or back ground calves – 3 homes – numerous outbuildings and livestock facilities – Malheur County, OR – possibly the lowest $$ operating ranch on the NW real estate market – $6,000,000 ■ LINSON CREEK: 1,938 deeded acres plus 892 AUM’s BLM – WINTER PASTURE for
approximately 300 hd. – 11/1 – 5/10 – will generally feed about 1/2-ton hay – CHUKAR, QUAIL, PHEASANT, MULE DEER, ELK – FISHING FOR BLUE GILL, BASS AND TROUT – modest improvements – Washington County, ID – $1,475,000 – Terms ■ JUNIPER: 155 deeded acres – 74 irrigated – offering a premier close in wildlife/hunting
property – PHEASANT, QUAIL, TURKEY, MULE DEER, VARMINTS, BLUE GILL AND BASS – recently remodeled 3 BR, 2BA, 1,645 sq. ft. home – outbuildings – neat, clean and well cared for – Malheur County, OR – $545,000 ■ REATA RIDGE: 560 deeded acres accessing several thousand acres federal lands – 3,000'
executive home with lots of extras – horse barn, office, gym, shop, machine shed, covered horse runs, roping/riding arena – LANDOWNER HUNTING TAGS, 2 mule deer – Malheur County, OR – $995,000 – owner agent
• Magnificent 90 Hunting – Cattle/Horse Ranch 50 miles E. of Dallas, 35 miles W. of Tyler, White pipe fence along FM Hwy. 3,700 sq. ft. elaborate home, flowing waterway, lake. Has it all. • 532-acre CATTLE & HUNTING, NE TX ranch, elaborate home, one-mile highway frontage. OWNER FINANCE at $2,150/ac. • 274 acres in the shadow of Dallas. Secluded lakes, trees, excellent grass. Hunting & fishing, dream home sites. $3,850/ac. • 1,700-acre classic NE TX cattle & hunting ranch. $2,750/ac. Some mineral production. • Texas Jewel, 7,000 ac. – 1,000 per ac., run cow to 10 ac. • 256 Acre Texas Jewel – Deep sandy soil, highrolling hills, scattered good quality trees, & excellent improved grasses. Water line on 2 sides rd., frontage on 2 sides, fenced into 5 pastures, 5 spring fed tanks and lakes, deer, hogs & ducks. Near Tyler & Athens. Price $1,920,000. • 146 horse, hunting cattle ranch N. of Clarksville, TX. Red River Co. nice brick home, 2 barns, pipe fences, good deer, hogs, ducks, hunting priced at $395,000. • 535 ac. Limestone, Fallas, & Robertson counties, fronts on Hwy. 14 and has rail frontage water line, to ranch, fenced into 5 pastures, 2 sets, cattle pens, loamy soil, good quality trees, hogs, & deer hunting. Priced at $2,300 per ac.
New Mexico Ranches for Sale Lea County, New Mexico Cattle Ranch Liquidation Sale This little ranch has sand and oak shin range sites that continually wean 700-pound calves. Located near Jal, in the heart of the oil patch, where substantial surface damage use fees are paid annually to the ranch owner. A no-frills ranch that is a profitmaker with room for 150 cows or 300 head of weaned calves on a seasonal basis, September through March. 1,804 deeded, 8,976 state lease and 1,120 acres BLM. Seller wants sold by October! Sale is On! Price Reduced from $700,000 to $550,000!
Joe Priest Real Estate 1205 N. Hwy 175, Seagoville, TX 75159
972/287-4548 • 214/676-6973 1-800/671-4548 www.joepriest.com joepriestre@earthlink.com
KEITH L. SCHRIMSHER • O: 575/622-2343 • C: 575/520-1989 srre@dfn.com • www.nm-ranches.com
Southwest New Mexico Farms and Ranches WAHOO RANCH: Approximately 40,976 acres: ± 11,600 deeded, 6,984 BLM, 912 state, 40 uncontrolled and 21,440 forest. Beautiful cattle ranch located on the east slope of the Black Range Mountains north of Winston, N.M., on State Road 52. Three hours from either Albuquerque or El Paso.The ranch is bounded on the east by the Alamosa Creek Valley and on the west by the Wahoo Mountains ranging in elevation from 6,000' to 8,796'. There are 3 houses/2 cabins, 2 sets of working corrals (1 with scales) and numerous shops and outbuildings. It is very well watered with many wells, springs, dirt tanks and pipelines. The topography and vegetation is a combination of grass covered hills (primarily gramma grasses), with many cedar, piñon and live oak covered canyons as well as the forested Wahoo Mountains. There are plentiful elk and deer as well as antelope, turkey, bear, mountain lion and javelina (47 elk tags in 2010). Absolutely one of the nicest combination cattle/hunting ranches to be found in the Southwest. Price reduced to $5,500,000. MAHONEY PARK: Just 10 miles southeast of Deming, N.M. The property consists of approx. 800 acres Deeded, 560 acres State Lease, and 900 acres BLM. This historic property is located high up in the Florida Mountains and features a park like setting, covered in deep grasses with plentiful oak and juniper covered canyons. The cattle allotment would be approx. 30 head (AUYL). Wildlife includes deer, ibex, javalina, quail and dove. This rare jewel would make a great little ranch with views and a home site second to none. Price reduced to $550,000. SAN JUAN RANCH: Located 15 miles south of Deming, N.M. east of Highway 11 (Columbus Highway) on CR-11. Approximately 24,064 acres consisting of approximately 2684 acres Deeded, 3240 State Lease, 13,460 BLM, and 4,680 uncontrolled. The cattle allotment would be approx. 183 head (AUYL). There are 6 solar powered stock wells with metal storage tanks and approximately 6-1/2 miles pipeline. The ranch has a very diverse landscape consisting of high mountain peaks, deep juniper & oak covered canyons, mountain foothills and desert grasslands. There is plentiful wildlife including deer, ibex, javalina, quail and dove. A truly great buy! Price reduced to $550,000. 26.47-ACRE FARM for sale off Shalem Colony Road. Borders the Rio Grande river. 13.55 acres EBID water rights/26 acres water rights. $380,000. 176 ACRE FARM BETWEEN LAS CRUCES, N.M. AND EL PASO, TEXAS: Hwy. 28 frontage with 132 acres irrigated, 45 acres sandhills, full EBID (surface water) plus a supplemental irrigation well, cement ditches and large equipment warehouse. Priced at $1,629,000. 50.8-ACRE FARM: Located on Afton Road south of La Mesa, NM. Paved road frontage, full EBID (surface water) plus a supplemental irrigation well with cement ditches. Priced at $12,000/acre. OTHER FARMS FOR SALE: In Doña Ana County. All located near Las Cruces, N.M. 8, 11, 26, 27 and 63 acres. Starting at $12,000/acre. All have EBID (surface water rights from the Rio Grande River) and several have supplemental irrigation wells. If you are interested in farm land in Doña Ana County, or ranches in Southwest N.M., give me a call.
SOLD
■ FARM/FEEDLOT: 500 deeded acres with about 280 irrigated – CAFO at 850-1,000 head –
good improvements – great for stockers and/or dairy heifers – Malheur County, OR – $1,580,000
AGRILANDS Real Estate www.agrilandsrealestate.com Vale, Oregon • 541/473-3100 • jack@fmtcblue.com
DAN DELANEY R E A L E S TAT E , L L C www.zianet.com/nmlandman
318 W. Amador Ave., Las Cruces, N.M. 88005 (O) 575/647-5041 • (C) 575/644-0776 nmlandman@zianet.com
September 15, 2011
“America’s Favorite Livestock Newspaper”
The invasive species war Do we protect native plants because they’re better for the earth, or because we hate strangers? A cherished principle of environmentalism comes under attack. by LEON NEYFAKH, Boston Globe
n July a troop of volunteers in Newton, Mass. piled into canoes and went to war in the name of the Charles River. They wore gloves to protect themselves from their enemy: a thorny aquatic plant called the European water chestnut, believed to have invaded the Charles a century ago after escaping from the Harvard botanical garden. The plant spread swiftly, growing so thick in some areas that it overwhelmed the waterway entirely. For the past four years, the Charles River Watershed Association has led the effort to get rid of the pest, recruiting concerned citizens to pull the unwanted plants out by their roots and collect them in plastic laundry baskets. The European water chestnut is considered an invasive species, one of the 1,500 or so plants and animals across the United States that have ended up settling in places where they don’t belong because of human activity. It’s a dubious distinction — one that most of us associate with evil carp overpowering local fish populations in the Mississippi River Basin, stubborn zebra mussels clogging pipes and killing birds in the Great Lakes, and the Asian longhorned beetle wiping out trees here in Massachusetts. Controlling the spread of such creatures has been a priority among ecologists and conservationists since roughly the 1980s. In that time, projects like the one on the Charles have proliferated around the world, forming a movement to patrol the natural environment and protect its fragile native ecosystems from intruders. The reasons to fight invasive species may be economic, or conservationist, or just practical, but underneath all these efforts is a potent and galvanizing idea: that if we work hard enough to keep foreign species from infiltrating habitats where they might do harm, we can help nature heal from the damage we humans have done to it as a civilization. In the past several months, however, that idea has come under blistering attack. In a polemical essay that appeared in the leading science journal Nature in June, a biologist from Macalester College in Minnesota named Mark Davis led 18 other academics in charging that the movement to protect ecosystems from non-native species stems from a “biological bias” against arbitrarily defined outsiders that ultimately does more harm than good. According to Davis and his co-authors, the fight against invaders amounts to an impossible quest to restore the world to some imaginary, pristine state. The world changes, they argue,
I
and in some cases, the arrival of a new plant or animal can actually help, rather than hurt, an ecosystem. The whole idea of dividing the world into native and non-native species is flawed, the article says, because what seems non-native to one generation might be thought of as a local treasure by the next. Instead we should embrace “novel ecosystems” as they form, and assess species based on what they do rather than where they’re from. “Newcomers are viewed as a threat because the world that you remember is being displaced by this new world,” Davis said recently. “I think that’s a perfect-
much about the risks of species moving from one place to another. The 1870s even saw the formation of the American Acclimatization Society, a group of wealthy hobbyists and animallovers who wanted to populate North America with species of European animals and plants they thought “useful or interesting.” The chairman of the AAS, Eugene Schieffelin, hatched a scheme to bring every species of bird ever mentioned in a Shakespeare play into America. It wasn’t until the rise of environmentalism in the late 20th century that the American public caught onto to the idea that our natural ecosystems were being
. . . the movement to protect ecosystems from non-native species stems from a “biological bias” against arbitrarily defined outsiders that ultimately does more harm than good. ly normal and understandable human reaction, but as scientists we need to be careful that those ideas don’t shape and frame our scientific research.” The article in Nature joined similar arguments that had recently appeared in the journal Science as well as the op-ed page of The New York Times, where an anthropologist who had recently become a naturalized US citizen likened the control of invasive species to the anti-immigration movement. These critiques of socalled “ecological nativism” inspired equally spirited responses by scientists, including a letter in Nature signed by 141 scientists arguing that Davis and his cohort had downplayed the dangers of non-native species while distorting the work of ecologists and conservationists. This flare-up has reawakened a debate over non-native species that goes back more than a decade. And while it would appear that the two sides are badly mismatched — those who oppose the targeting of nonnative species are still very much a minority — their disagreement highlights questions about mankind’s relationship to nature that are far from settled. If we’re going to help restore a more natural environment, how do we decide what in the world is “natural” and what is the result of artificial forces? Why do some species get to stay, while others get pulled out by the roots? Their clash points up the fact that as humans take upon themselves the job of managing a changing natural world, there’s no obvious way to know which version of nature we should be aiming for. Though botanists first started talking about the idea of nativeness back in the 1830s, for most of history people didn’t worry
overrun by species that were never meant to be there. That was when people in America started hearing about things like snakehead fish, killer algae, and zebra mussels. And the problem was getting worse: as humans moved around more, so did plants and animals, by getting rides out of China to New York in a wooden crate, or in ships’ ballast tanks, or even on the bottom of someone’s shoe. “You can overwhelm a system by having so many new arrivals,” said UMass-Amherst entomologist Roy Van Driesche. For environmentalists and anyone worried about a local lake or forest, trying to keep the potential carnage at bay seems like a no-brainer: if non-native species might destroy an ecosystem we cherish, then of course we should do what we can to suppress them. The simplicity of that idea is a big part of why projects like Operation: No More Water Chestnuts can attract 70 volunteers to the banks of the Charles on a Saturday morning. That simplicity is also where Mark Davis and supporters come in and say, “not so fast.” As a biologist, Davis studies competition between plants, focusing on what makes some ecosystems more vulnerable than others to invasion, and how certain species of trees and grass interact. The author of the 2009 Oxford University Press book Invasion Biology, Davis has been a leader in the small but vocal group of thinkers who argue that nativeness is simply the wrong lens to use when we think about the environment. “We need to learn to accommodate change, and change our attitude rather than try to garden nature and keep things the way they are,” Davis said recently.
Page 11
Species migrate, he said, and some end up thriving while others go extinct. This would happen whether people were involved or not, and Davis emphasizes there’s no reason to believe that the best version of an environment — whether that’s defined as the most diverse, or the most useful for humans — is the one that happened to exist just before we meddled with it. Lots of flowers that are now considered as local as can be, for instance —including the state flower of New Hampshire, purple lilac, and the red clover of Vermont — originated in Europe. One of the first people to publicly make this “anti-nativist” argument was, somewhat surprisingly, the journalist Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma and hero to locavores everywhere. He wrote an essay about it in the New York Times Magazine in 1994, focusing on the native gardening movement that was sweeping the United States at the time. Proponents of natural gardening had been calling on their fellow green thumbs to stop planting exotic species in their backyards; Pollan did not mince words in communicating his distaste for the practice, suggesting it came out of an impulse that was “antihumanist”
For advertising contact, MICHAEL WRIGHT 505/243-9515, ext. 30 michael@aaalivestock.com Michael brings with him four generations of the range livestock industry and a keen awareness of the issues facing ranchers and rural economies today.
and “xenophobic,” and even tracing its history back to a “mania for natural gardening” in Nazi-era Germany. While Pollan said in an interview that he now regrets resorting to the Hitler button to make his point, he maintains that there is something worrying about the zeal with which some environmentalists seek to keep foreigners out of places where they think they don’t belong. “We should always be alert that even those of us who think they’re practicing pure science or pure environmental policy are sometimes influenced by other ideas, other feelings,” Pollan said. “And we should interrogate ourselves to see if that’s what’s going on.” This point was echoed this past spring by Hugh Raffles, an anthropologist at the New School who wrote the essay comparing invasive species to immicontinued on page twelve
★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Lifetime Products ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ROOF COATINGS, ★ ★ ★ ★ TANK COATINGS ★ ★ AND URETHANE ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ WINDMILLS ★ ★ ★ ★ Available for ★ metal, shingle, or tar ★ ★ ★ roofs. Long lasting, ★ ★ easy to apply, brush ★ ★ ★ ★ or roll on this thick ★ ★ white coating. ★ ★ ★ ★ Call for our catalog. ★ ★ ★ We also manufacture ★ ★ ★ tank coatings and in ★ ★ hole windmill parts. ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ VIRDEN PERMA BILT CO. ★ ★ ★ 806/352-2761 ★ ★ ★ www.virdenproducts.com ★ ★ ★ ★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★
V IRDEN PERMA-BILT
Ordway
Cattle Feeders LLC COMMERCIAL FEEDLOT Capacity 55,000 Cattle & Feed Financing Available TYLER KARNEY, MANAGER 19424 HWY. 96, ORDWAY, CO. 81063 • 719/267-3551
Livestock Market Digest
Page 12
Invasive Species War grants. “We choose to designate some plants and animals as native because they fit with the way that we want the landscape to look,” said Raffles in an interview. If you call something native, he added, “you should
continued from page eleven
realize you’re just making certain claims about what you want to see and what you think is important to preserve.” The scientists who study nonnative species and try to control them are called invasion ecolo-
Coming Soon To a pasture near you!
2 Bar Angus BULLS • FEMALES • EMBRYOS
Bulls For Sale Private Treaty 1-877/2-BAR-ANG WWW.2BARANGUS.COM 1-806/344-7444 • Hereford, Texas John Thames • Steve Knoll
ANNUAL SALE: 1st Saturday in October
gists, and they’re used to feeling embattled. But their opponents usually come from the political right, and can be counted on to dismiss most any effort at conservation as an expensive nuisance or an impediment to industry. This other contingent, though — the one that includes Davis, Pollan, and Raffles — comes from a less obvious place. Suddenly, these environmentalists who have always identified with progressive ideals are themselves being accused of being conservative, backwards — even intolerant. Their reply is that, as scientists, their job is to save plants and animals from extinction, protect their habitats, and make sure that subsequent generations get to enjoy as much of the earth as possible. To suggest that the work has xenophobic connotations, they say, amounts to little more than academic noodling — a philosophical stance at best, and a harmful distraction at worst.
September 15, 2011 “They’re throwing up a straw man,” said conservation biologist Daniel Simberloff, from the University of Tennessee Knoxville. He added, “[They’re saying] there’s a huge amount of resources being wasted in trying to deal with introduced species that aren’t really having any impact, so we’re wasting our efforts. It’s not true.” As the editor of the research journal Biological Invasions, Simberloff is a leader in the field, and over the years he has stepped up repeatedly to defend himself and his colleagues from what he considers the slander of ideologically driven contrarians. His most recent contribution was writing the Nature letter and collecting 140 signatures. He says that if he wanted to, he could have gotten 1,000 — that that’s how much of a non-debate this is within the scientific community. The reason he bothers to respond at all, Simberloff said, is that he doesn’t want to give politicians who are inclined to oppose funding for conservation projects a real excuse to do so. “I felt that there had to be some response or else someone in a high policy-making position would be completely justified in saying, ‘Well, this is a different view, and we can stop supporting this kind of activity because the other guys aren’t even responding,’” he said. When it comes to what we should actually do for the environment, the two sides of this debate might not be quite as far
apart as their denunciations of one another might indicate. Just as most ecologists accept that only a fraction of non-native species are harmful, the antinativists, when pressed, will admit that unequivocally destructive species like the Asian longhorned beetle should be reined in. Their disagreement lies more in how we should talk about the issue, how we justify our interventions and how we label the species we want to eradicate. Is the debate simply over rhetoric, then? If it is, its fierceness has highlighted just how important rhetoric is to the environmentalist movement, and how valuable the distinction between native and non-native is in terms of rallying people to the cause of conservation. Psychologically, it’s not hard to see why the anti-nativist position holds an appeal, and why it would worry environmentalists. There is something undeniably comforting, even self-forgiving, about abandoning the idea that human beings are separate from nature — accepting that we are part of an ecosystem, too, and that we belong. If you went with the mainstream ecologists, you’d have no choice but to believe that human beings are the worst invasive species of all. Stand with Davis, Pollan, and the rest of the anti-nativists, on the other hand, and suddenly it’s not a given that we’ve even done anything wrong at all. Leon Neyfakh is the staff writer for Ideas
Uncertainty Causes Oil Rigs to Flee year ago, three oil rigs fled the Gulf of Mexico for better opportunities abroad. Now, it’s 10. Make no mistake, the toll is rising on a business environment marked by the Obama Administration’s uncertainty, says Investor’s Business Daily (IBD). The massive planning, capital, project management and luck required to produce energy are uncertain enough, but the climate of government caprice makes it even worse. The 2010 BP oil spill proved Obama’s anti-energy production talk was more than rhetoric — it was policy. It started to create uncertainty when the President arbitrarily demanded $20 billion from BP to set up a cleanup fund for its spill in April last year. Then the President issued an arbitrary moratorium on offshore drilling, idling rigs and throwing hundreds of thousands of Americans out of work. When a court ordered him to stop, he played three-card monte with the energy industry with an unannounced but real permit moratorium until another judge stopped him. Meanwhile, lease sales hit their lowest level since 1958. The President finally set an auction for December 14. But the Interior Department nearly tripled the minimum bid price for deepwater leases in the Gulf of Mexico from $37.50 an acre to $100 an acre. Why the big increase? More regulators. Meanwhile, even companies that got permits years ago can have them revoked for minor irregularities. This happened to Exxon Mobil, which spent $300 million to make a billion-barrel discovery of oil, only to have its permit pulled on a technicality. It’s now suing. With such uncertainty, it’s no wonder that oil producers — which create thousands of high-paying jobs — are heading for places like the Congo. The only certainty now is uncertainty. Until that stops, more rigs will flee, says IBD.
A
Source: “Rigged For Failure,” Investor’s Business Daily, August 24, 2011.