200 Dead Cows Found In Wisconsin

200 cows were found dead Friday on a farm in Portage County, Wisconsin. The dead cows had to be removed with semi-trucks. The rest of the farm has not been quarantined, as officials say no threat is posed toward humans or other animals, according the The AP.

The owner of the dead cows was working with a local veterinarian, who initially believed a virus such as infectious bovine rhinotracheitis (IBR) or bovine virus diarrhea (BVD) could be the culprit, according to The Wausau Daily Herald. WSAW News reports that more recent updates have suggested pneumonia as the cause of the mass cow deaths, though such widespread cases of pneumonia are rare. Tests are still underway to determine what is responsible. See WSAW's full video report here.

Though likely unrelated, many other incidents of mass animal deaths have been reported in the U.S. and around the world in the past month. Thousands of dead birds fell from the sky in Arkansas on New Year's Eve, following a massive fish kill just 100 miles away days earlier. In the week following, other mass bird deaths were reported in nearby Louisiana and Kentucky. Birds were also reported to fall dead from the sky in Italy and Sweden, and more recently similar incidents have been reported in California and Alabama.

Mass fish kills have also been reported in Chicago, Maryland, Brazil and New Zealand, along with 40,000 dead crabs that washed ashore on England beaches.

Many explanations have been offered for the various mass animal deaths, with everything from fireworks, semi-truck collisions, overeating and cold weather blamed for the birds' deaths. Cold weather has also been pinned to likely be the cause of many of the fish and crab deaths, as well. According to The AP, mass animal deaths are not all that uncommon.

Comments

[shilow]

01:13 PM on 01/25/2011

Amphibians, mammels, reptiles, and birds have declined 30% worldwide since 1970 according to world wildlife fund. Bees right now are becoming extinct. Eienstein said that if bees disappear, 4 yrs later so would humans. Most of the world has been ignoring these catastrophic problems while continuing to pollute and strip the earth of its natural resources.

Things largely ignored will become OBVIOUS to DENY. The question is when? Many are awake to whats happening. Most are sleep.

[BannedNBoston]

04:29 PM on 01/24/2011

Wes Clark played the military sound system so loud at Waco
The cows drowned themselves in the brook
I THINK ITS PROBABLY HAARP IN WISCONSIN!

[canukian]

02:54 PM on 01/22/2011

These are obviously mass animal suicides, as an early escape from the devastation of the impending 2012 apocalypse.

[beedox]

01:28 PM on 01/22/2011

All this sensationalism lately in the press regarding dying animals all over the world...
Animals dying in mass quantities is nothing new. The reasons may change, but there are always legit causes. I guess they couldn't use Swine Flu again this year to scare people (and make us keep consuming)...so the media have to play on "End of the World" fears in people via dying animals. Lame.
The world isn't going to end. However, we all have a choice in how we treat one another and the planet.

[BaitandSwitchTV]

01:22 PM on 01/22/2011

Seth Shostak, Senior Astronomer at SETI, has a comment that may be relevant to this discussion:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9sU4fQGwL8

[Thomas Bleser]

06:42 AM on 01/22/2011

What disturbs me most about this story is the fact that while noone knows the cause of death, "officials say no threat is posed toward humans or other animals," regardless of what it may have been. I suppose they base this profound statement on the fact that nothing else has died from it, whatever it was. The systematic breeding of virulent virus and bacteria is the unavoidable outcome of the indiscriminate use of antibiotics in the scramble for greater profits, but that doesn't explain the massive die off of fish, birds, and other widelife. Chalk that up, most likely, to air and water pollution, which of course is the inevitable result of "deregulation."

[BORguarddog]

12:46 PM on 01/22/2011

Though it seems that you understand how corporate farmers will choose greed over customer safety, I think you may be a bit naive to think that regulation is a viable solution. Most of the regulation­s out there were written by the same folks that they claim to be regulating­. In the farmer's case, allowing for a certain degree of acceptable pollution is unacceptable­ in my eyes and people should be able to directly sue companies for criminal trespassing­ with any of their poisons in our air, land and water. Real progress could be made by rolling back some regulation and allow people due process of having their grievances heard in a court. More regulation­s written by these parasites and passed either by unelected bureaucrats or passed (unread) by elected officials in return for "favors" down the road cannot be the answer. That's what we've been doing and it is not working.

[Nina Platter]

11:47 PM on 01/22/2011

Thomas, yes disturbs me also! I wonder if they put those 200 dead cows in dog food, or did they just make fertalizer out of them? And in our technology I should think that they can tell us exactly what caused this, Right?

[Thomas Bleser]

06:30 AM on 02/05/2011

Nina, I just came across your reply after I accidentally googled my own internet address and ended up with three pages of stuff. (Amazing).

Yes it would have been an interesting follow-up to see what they did with all those dead cows.

Wishful thinking conjures up a scene in the movie classic "Hud" where a Department of Agriculture inspector wipes out an entire herd suspected of hoof and mouth disease and buries it on-site in a mass grave, but after reading your comment (in the context of "deregulation", the global population explosion, and salmonella) I think about it every time I consider the unlikely prospect of ordering a burger at Wendy's.

[pingudo]

02:04 AM on 01/22/2011

"Many explanations have been offered for the various mass animal deaths, with everything from fireworks, semi-truck collisions.... "

fireworks? , these explanations only in america.
LMAO

[jneedhamp]

01:41 AM on 01/22/2011

Speculation is in direct proportion to lack of illumination.

[logicdog]

01:55 PM on 01/22/2011

Wonderful! That phrase should be chiseled into the stone of every newspaper building and media outlet on planet Earth.

[brightthings]

08:27 PM on 01/26/2011

And every religious institution.

[jneedhamp]

12:54 AM on 01/22/2011

"Near-sighted Gay TEA Party Illegal Aliens of Faith Cause Environmental Mystery While Attempting to Make Crop Circles!"

[random100]

01:37 AM on 01/22/2011

That's just what I was thinking.

[Nina Platter]

11:44 PM on 01/22/2011

funny! a little humor here doesnt hurt. It is seeming pretty hopeless!

[Dael Escher]

11:11 PM on 01/21/2011

any fracking in the area?

[guest0987]

09:47 PM on 01/21/2011

I certainly don't know what has been causing all of these animal deaths, but I don't find anything humorous about them at all. One think I would almost bet on is that humans are responsible in some way. And having a good laugh at another being's misery and death is disgusting.

[ciarrai]

09:38 PM on 01/21/2011

These cows were the lucky ones. It appears that they lived on a more open type farm. They seem to have been spared the horrors of the factory farm and the inhumane, cruel trip to the slaughter house and the slaughter. It is all brutal, cruel and unethical and if there is a God in heaven He/She will pay back all the torturers. My bigger question is: where's Jesus, the Good Shepard to end this? Why was it (factory farming) allowed by God and Man in the first place?

[Fray Parks]

09:19 PM on 01/21/2011

cows dying ??

[Shaun Boyer]

05:28 PM on 01/21/2011

Actually, it is not uncommon for mass animal deaths to occur, however, it IS uncommon for so many instances of mass animal deaths to happen in such a short period of time. That said, these cows appeared frozen to death (pneumonia, hypothermia?). Bovine are not known for their resistance to extreme cold. Ignorance on the farmers part most likely.

[EvolveorPerish]

02:52 AM on 01/22/2011

Farmers are smarter than you think. He could probably teach me a thing or two about cows.

Maybe he never raised cows before? This is just weird. I'm from Minnesota, it gets to minus 40 F pretty regularly with wind chill. Its not like they don't know what cold is.

[sonofsamphm1c]

09:44 AM on 01/22/2011

It is uncommon for a herd of animals to die while under the care of a licensed veterinarian.

A percentage of the herd, yes, but this sounds like it was the vast majority, if not all.

[LHibbard]

03:49 PM on 01/21/2011

Wow - all these mass animal deaths are beginning to resemble the plot of a M. Night Shyamalan film.