Curbing Cow Burps

  • Stonyfield says their new diet has cut cow burps by 12%. (Photo by Peggy Greb, courtesy of the USDA)

Cows burp methane gas. It’s a potent greenhouse gas. The Environmental Protection Agency says cow burps alone make up 20% of the methane emissions in the US. Rebecca Williams reports some people worry the government might step in:

Transcript

Cows burp methane gas. It’s a potent greenhouse gas. The Environmental Protection Agency says cow burps alone make up 20% of the methane emissions in the US. Rebecca Williams reports some people worry the government might step in:

The farm lobby’s worried Congress will try to regulate gassy cows.

But if you thumb through the giant climate change bill before Congress, you’ll find Section 811. That section says the government can’t regulate cow burps.

In the meantime, some farmers are trying to make their cows less gassy.

The company Stonyfield Farm is getting its dairy farmers to change their cows’ diets.

Nancy Hirschberg is with the company. She says the new diet has cut cow burps by 12%.

“It’s very much like people. When you are feeling good, you’re not having a lot of gas – you’re more efficient, more of your energy is available for living life. The same with the cows, you want as much energy as possible to go into producing milk, not into burps which are in fact, waste.”

She says the cows also have sweeter breath.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Hunter Contracts Disease From Deer

  • Humans can contract bovine tuberculosis. In most cases, people get bovine TB from drinking unpasteurized milk. A spokesman from the Michigan Department of Community Health says contracting bovine TB from deer is rare. (Photo by Kia Abell)

In a rare event, a Michigan hunter has been diagnosed with bovine tuberculosis. Health officials are using the case to call for greater vigilance among hunters and farmers who could be exposed to the disease. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tracy Samilton
reports:

Transcript

In a rare event, a Michigan hunter has been diagnosed with bovine tuberculosis. Health officials are using the case to call for greater vigilance among hunters and farmers who could be exposed to the disease. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tracy Samilton reports:


The northern part of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula has been under quarantine since bovine TB was found in wild deer in 1994. It was later found in some of the area’s cow herds. The strain of bovine TB in Michigan is unique to that state, and this is only the second time it has been found in a human. The hunter caught the disease when he cut his hand while dressing an infected deer. T.J. Bucholz is a spokesman for the Michigan Department of Community Health. He says humans are vulnerable to bovine TB, but this case is unusual.


“This does occur, most often in people that consume unpasteurized milk, people can also be infected when you’re in close contact with live animals. This particular hunter’s direct contamination through a wound, so it’s a fairly rare occurrence.”


Other states in the Great Lakes are currently considered bovine TB-free. The disease was found in 1991 in captive elk herds in Wisconsin, but those herds have since been destroyed.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Tracy Samilton.

Related Links