My gosh, they are huge, like horses almost.
Posted on 04/08/2007 4:19:18 PM PDT by SwinneySwitch
BROWNSVILLE, Texas — South Texas ranchers brought nilgai antelope from a California zoo decades ago, when it became fashionable to stock their sprawling acreage with exotic quarry.
These days the species native to India and Pakistan are not so much a rarity in South Texas as a nuisance. For cattle ranchers they are a possible nemesis, threatening to spread a deadly tick to their herds. Federal wildlife officials say they are competing with native Rio Grande Valley species for food and trampling the brush they are trying so hard to preserve.
The fast-running, 600-pound antelope have wandered all around the region, where at least one picked up a kind of fever tick from Mexico that once nearly wiped out American cattle. The ticks spread among the population and threaten the cattle.
Federal officials said they had no choice but to hire a “helicopter and gunner” last week to slaughter them. Thirty-seven were killed during the two-day hunt on a portion of the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge that runs along the border.
“It’s about the only way you can do them,” said Edwin Bowers, director of field operations for the federal tick eradication program. “You can’t hunt them on the ground successfully, they’re extremely wary and fast and you can’t get close to them. These animals can spread the ticks to places where there are cattle. We’re obligated to get the ticks off of them however we can.” The USDA has been battling the tick (Boophilus microplus and Boophilus annulatus) for a century, enlisting cowboys to patrol a narrow tick eradication zone that runs about 500 miles along the eastern Texas-Mexico border.
The cowboys rope cattle and horses that may have wandered into the zone from Mexico so they can be quarantined and “dipped” for ticks. The tick has been contained in the zone since the 1940s.
The antelope cannot be similarly dipped because it’s too hard to catch them, wildlife experts said. At the turn of the 20th century, the tick wiped out 90 percent of the U.S. cattle industry with the deadly “Texas Fever,” said Larry Cooper, spokesman for the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. “It was devastating,” he said. “It virtually ended the old-time cattle drives.”
The storied King Ranch — at 825,000 acres the largest ranch in the United States — first brought the nilgai to Texas and boasts its current 10,000 head as a success in game management.
Its Web site advertises hunts at $500 per gun per day plus a harvest fee of $1,000 per nilgai bull or $300 per nilgai cow.
Other Texas ranches likewise advertise “safari” hunts for those who don’t want to go abroad.
Carlton McCain, owner of La Atravesada Ranch in Kenedy County, said a population that started with about 15 nilgai and was now at about 30,000.
“I think they’re determining they might be (a problem) because of the competition with the cattle,” he said. He said other rancher’s cattle had wandered on to his property because the nilgai had torn up the fences. The larger Kenedy Ranch, which surrounds his, contracts a helicopter hunter and portable butcher house to kill off some of the nilgai. He said the meat is sold elsewhere for about $16 a pound.
Refuge spokeswoman Nancy Brown said nilgai in Texas can proliferate because there are no tigers or other natural predators to kill them.
“Certainly a coyote is not going to take a nilgai down,” she said. “Nilgai are not a native species. They don’t belong on the Texas landscape.”
She said the helicopter hunts made sense because nilgai won’t come to bait like deer.
“We’re able to treat deer with treated corn, but because nilgai won’t come to it you would have to literally dip every one of those nilgai every two weeks, which is not feasible.”
But Stephanie Boyles, a wildlife biologist for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, balked at shooting the antelope.
“Those animals didn’t ask to be abandoned there,” she said. “The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is asking them to pay the ultimate price for someone else’s mistake. ... No one’s going to be able to shoot an animal and have them die a quick death. It’s going to get shot and wander off and die a slow and painful death.”
The nilgai carcasses were butchered and the meat was donated to the Food Bank of the Rio Grande Valley. Food Bank director Terri Drefke said the meat was appreciated as a lean source of protein.
“We don’t ever get enough protein,” she said. “Unfortunately the nilgai had to be killed but we’re happy that we’re able to take the meat. ...”This meat will go a long way in feeding people.”
Make great chicken fried steaks!
PETA: “It’s going to get shot and wander off and die a slow and painful death.”
Yep.
Then those disease-bearing ticks will get cold and jump off.....and die a slow and painful death, too.
ping.
If you want on, or off this S. Texas/Mexico ping list, please FReepMail me.
Bummer.
I hope the needy enjoyed their exotic steaks, with a nice South African red wine.
***I hope the needy enjoyed their exotic steaks, with a nice South African red wine.***
Somehow, eating steaks that are infected with TICK FEVER is just not my cup of tea.
Meanwhile, the ticks dislodge themselves from their dead host, and crawl up a blade of grass, waiting for a nice cow, deer or rabbit to come along.
If you cook it to death, it’s safe. Who would eat bleeding meat, anyhow?
“Those animals didn’t ask to be abandoned there,” she said. “The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is asking them to pay the ultimate price for someone else’s mistake. ... No one’s going to be able to shoot an animal and have them die a quick death. It’s going to get shot and wander off and die a slow and painful death.”
Idiot.
Can’t have weeds wandering around on the cow farms!
So develop a different treatment, dumb bitch!
Make it open season on them and eradicate them. They’re non-native species and I can’t think of a non-mative species that hasn’t caused problems.
My gosh, they are huge, like horses almost.
True, but lets start small, we'll do the house cat's first, non-native species.
No arguments from me but I hope you have your asbestos underwear on.
You think this is large. I’ve been on the Y.O. ranch near Kerrville where they’ve imported Elands.
Their shoulders were higher than my head. Check out the size of one of those babies—2 meters at the shoulder and over 700 kilos in weight.
http://www.awf.org/content/wildlife/detail/eland
Physical Characteristics
The cowlike eland is the world’s largest antelope and is the animal most often depicted in the early rock art of East Africa. Even today, it still holds an important place in the mythology of some southern African tribes.
The cow-like eland is the world’s largest and slowest antelope. However, it has the endurance to maintain a trot indefinitely and can jump an 8 foot fence from a standstill.
Both males and females have horns that spiral tightly, though female horns tend to be longer and thinner
Maybe what they need is a wall...
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