Green Options

The Fur Seal - victim of possibly the most emotive culling.

A recent post on the culling of rabbits on Robin Island, prompted a quick look at news items on culling over the last month. This revealed a variety of motivations for culling, very different numbers culled and a range in the opposition to the culls. The culling of a quarter of a million dairy cows in an attempt to raise milk prices with almost no protest is the outlier in the group.

40,000 Domestic Goats and Sheep in Netherlands

The Dutch government is culling 40,000 goats and sheep this month in an attempt to limit the spread of Q fever, an animal-borne disease that can cause flu-like symptoms in people. It is believed that Q fever has caused six human deaths in the Netherlands in 2009.

A recent study by Canadian researchers published in the Journal of Animal Science indicate that by fine-tuning the balance of starch, sugar, cellulose, ash, fat and other elements of cattle feed, methane production by the cows can be reduced by as much as 25 percent.

The argument that global warming is natural can be compared to other types of junk-science claims in recent U.S. history.

GOP leader calls the idea that carbon dioxide is harmful to the environment “almost comical.”

Irish scientists have discovered that adding just a small amount of fish oil to the diet of cattle can vastly reduce the amount of methane produced by, ahem…cow farts.

Climate scientists have long known that, pound for pound, methane is 20 times more powerful than carbon dioxide at trapping the suns rays, making it a highly potent greenhouse gas. An incredible 900 billion tonnes of the noxious fumes are produced each year by methanogen bacteria that live in the digestive systems of ruminants such as cattle, sheep and goats.

The Nature Conservancy announced this week that they have purchased ranchland in Shasta, California and hope to return Big Springs Creek to its former glory as a major salmon run.

The organization noticed the creek’s consistent, glacier-fed flowing water supply should make it the perfect spawning area for the embattled Pacific salmon, but it wasn’t being properly cared for. Years later, they’ve purchased 4,136 acres of surrounding land and plan to fence off the creek to protect it.

A German study found that cows are major contributors to global warming, and it doesn’t matter if they’re raised on a conventional or an organic farm.

[Creative Commons photo by Jelle]

I’m with Stephanie Ernst over at change.org on this one, though: let’s not blame the poor cows. The culprit here is humans’ taste for meat and dairy and the sheer number of cows we have to raise to put beef on all of those plates.

With milk prices plummeting and dairy farmers facing increased feeding costs, many are culling their herds in record numbers. It seems that the value of a dairy cow is not what it once was in the industry. Other dairy farmers are not buying. Selling cows that have become too expensive to feed to the beef industry has become the only viable option for the struggling dairy farmer trying to raise cash.

In a further effort to reduce costs, male calves are being subjected to even more callous treatment and cruelty as evidenced by the recent dumping of 30 dead calves at the side of the road in San Joaquin County, California.

India’s fundamentalist Hindu political group, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangha (RSS) has taken yet another drastic step in its efforts to cleanse India of foreign influence and promote its ideology of Hindutva, or Hindu-ness: it has created a new commercial drink made from cow urine.

Gooey melted cheese on pizza, a glass of cold milk with freshly baked cookies, ice cream on a hot summer day… who hasn’t at one time or another enjoyed something made from milk?

Dairy products are part of most American diets on a daily basis, but what is the health and environmental impact of this high demand for milk?

The production of much of the milk in this country is done in large scale-operations, some having thousands of cows.

That’s a lot of manure to be dealt with, this reduces the air quality (especially for people living near the dairy operation), and consistently finds its way into our rivers, streams, and groundwater.

Beer-making has just taken another giant leap forward into our sparkling green future, with a surprise consequence: reducing alcoholism among cows.

Yes, if you ever wondered why you often see cows passed out under trees when you drive down the highway, here’s your answer.  Some of them have been chowing down on waste yeast, which is sold to farmers as cow feed.  With an alcohol content of up to 8%, that’s quite a kick!

Let’s amble under the fold and see how green beer-making is going to put an end to this bovine drunkenness - and perhaps even save the planet as well.