Tens
of thousands of cattle killed in Friday's blizzard, ranchers say
Tens
of thousands of cattle lie dead across South Dakota on Monday
following a blizzard that could become one of the most costly in the
history of the state’s agriculture industry.
8
October 2013
As
state officials spent the day calculating the multi-million dollar
impact to the regional economy from Friday's storm, ranchers began
digging up hundreds of cattle that are still buried beneath feet of
snow.
"This
is absolutely, totally devastating," said Steve Schell, a
52-year-old rancher from Caputa. "This is horrendous. I mean the
death loss of these cows in this country is unbelievable."
Schell
said he estimated he had lost half of his herd, but it could be far
more. He was still struggling to find snow-buried cattle and those
that had been pushed miles by winds that gusted at 70 miles per hour
on Friday night.
Martha
Wierzbicki, emergency management director for Butte County, said the
trail of carcasses was a gruesome sight across the region.
“They’re
in the fence line, laying alongside the roads,” she said. “It’s
really sickening.”
Silvia
Christen, executive director of the South Dakota Stockgrowers
Association, said most ranchers she had spoken to were reporting that
20 to 50 percent of their herds had been killed.
"I
have never heard of anything like it," she said. "And none
of the ranchers I have talked to can remember anything like it."
While
South Dakota ranchers are no strangers to blizzards, what made
Friday's storm so damaging was how early it arrived in the season.
Christen
said cattle hadn't yet grown their winter coats to insulate them from
freezing wind and snow.
In
addition, Christen said, during the cold months, ranchers tend to
move their cattle to pastures that have more trees and gullies to
protect them from storms. Because Friday's storm arrived so early in
the year, most ranchers were still grazing their herds on summer
pasture, which tend to be more exposed and located farther away from
ranch homes.
Ultimately,
Christen said, she believed that more than 5 percent of the roughly
1.5 million cattle in Western South Dakota had been killed.
"It's
much higher than that," she said. "But I'm not sure where
that number is going to land."
Jodie
Anderson, executive director of the South Dakota Cattlemen's
Association, said the pain for ranchers is now compounded by
dysfunction within the federal government.
While
the government has programs to help ranchers who suffer losses from
catastrophic weather events, those programs are in limbo because
Congress has failed to pass a farm bill. The legislation is normally
passed every five years and controls subsidy and insurance programs
for the agriculture industry.
Making
things worse, because the government is currently in a partial
shutdown, ranchers are unable to ask federal officials questions
about how they might be reimbursed in the future.
"A
lot of the government agencies that we would normally be turning to
for those answers are furloughed,” she said. “So there's this
sort of timing issue that's enhancing the frustration out there in
cattle country."
The
shutdown was caused after House Republicans, including U.S. Rep
Kristi Noem, R-S.D., refused to pass a resolution to fund the
government unless Democrats weakened or delayed parts of President
Obama's 2010 health care overhaul.
On
Monday, Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., pointed to South Dakota's battered
ranchers as another example of why House Republicans needed to
continue funding the government without preconditions.
"Like
the snow storm, the government shutdown is causing major disruptions
in people’s lives and every day business," he said in a
statement.
Whether
they are eventually reimbursed for their losses or not, however,
ranchers are likely to feel the pain for years.
David
Uhrig, 31, a rancher in Folsom, said he estimated about 25 percent of
his herd had been killed, which meant far fewer calves this spring.
“We
are looking at years of rebuilding to get back to what we lost,” he
said.
In
the short term, however, Uhrig had far more pressing concerns.
Like
most ranchers, he spent most of Monday searching his land for stray
cattle or sorting out cattle that had drifted into neighboring herds.
“It’s
not uncommon at this point to find cattle that are five miles from
where they should be,” he said. “Which doesn't seem like a lot,
but to drift five miles in a storm — that’s a lot.”
Dustin
Oedekoven, South Dakota’s state veterinarian, said that the next
immediate challenge for ranchers would be disposal of carcasses.
“That
can be a significant source of disease spread, so we want to make
sure those carcasses are burned, buried or rendered as quickly as
possible,” he said.
Oedekoven
said disposal was primarily be the responsibility of ranchers
themselves. However, the state was also helping ranchers get in touch
with haulers that would take carcasses away for rendering.
He
added that, while the federal government was in poor shape to offer
assistance because of the shutdown and a lack of a farm bill,
ranchers should thoroughly document all cattle deaths.
He
said that could include taking photos, collecting cattle tags, or
bringing in a veterinarian or farm service provider as an eye witness
of deaths.
“If
you don’t keep good records about your losses you won’t be
available for indemnity funds should they become available,” he
said.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.