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Good report on 10,000 cattle isn’t enough to harm the market.
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I’m confessing up front that I’m an ignorant city girl, but can’t the beef still be salvaged for human consumption? Obviously, you don’t want to keep any meat that’s gone maggoty or been dead and exposed to the heat for very long. Is the problem that nobody noticed they were dying so the meat could be salvaged? Or maybe there’s no way to gather the carcasses in a timely fashion, or no place to store that many carcasses at once? Surely all 10,000 didn’t die in the same 30 minutes? Or maybe there’s a law that the cattle must be killed and not allow to die naturally?

Ah, the things I don’t know about agriculture. I learned only last year that red peppers were just green peppers that were left to ripen on the plant. This was AFTER I returned my green pepper plant telling them that I had intended to choose a red pepper seedling. City girls can be the source of so much entertainment for rural people. Having said that, my harvest of green AND red peppers, zucchini, tomatoes, radishes and onions was the envy of the neighbourhood last summer, so maybe there’s hope for me.

said, "can’t the beef still be salvaged for human consumption? "

No. even if the animals died of natural causes (not poisoned.)
You must keep the animal in refrigerator level temperatures I think around 50 deg F while butchering it. Cattlemen that butcher their own beef learned to process the animal when it's cool.

By the look of the pictures they didn't keep an eye on their animals as they would've died one at a time. They likely where out in the sun all day. May not be good for dog food.

LL, take this from a hunter’s widder woman. If you didn’t cause or see the death of an animal, all meat is suspect.

The cattle that died were in a feedlot. That’s where cattle go to fatten up before they’re butchered, or sent to the butcher. There’s like a gazillion cattle in each feed lot. The cattle eat out of troughs and drink out of them also. They don’t “roam the range” like most of us think when we think of cattle. The thought is to let the cattle roam very little while they pack on massive amounts of calories. A fat farm for cattle!

So, to sum it up, the ones who died were an acceptable and not very unusual amount. Like the author kind of says, a drop in the bucket.

I know, when I first just read the headline yesterday, I thought maybe someone would be investigated for animal cruelty. I mean, how many ranchers were so neglectful of their cattle that they each lost like 500 cattle? Did a whole group of ranchers decide to not let the cattle into the pasture with the crick or pond in it? Who turned off the spigot to the watering troughs????

Very glad I read the article...and glad I’m the granddaughter of a dairy farmer.

I’m confessing up front that I’m an ignorant city girl, but can’t the beef still be salvaged for human consumption? Obviously, you don’t want to keep any meat that’s gone maggoty or been dead and exposed to the heat for very long. Is the problem that nobody noticed they were dying so the meat could be salvaged?
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Certainly not for sale to consumers. One big problem is that those animals have not been bled out. On a kill floor, the stunned animal has an artery cut, and the still-pumping heart acts to empty the carcass of blood. After which the skinned and gutted carcass is taken immediately to a chill room or cooling room to bring down the temperature of the meat. Blood remaining in a carcass can carry pathogens, and hemoglobin promotes lipid oxidation which contributes to meat spoilage.

I do wonder how the financial loss was dealt with. Those animals were likely raised on open pastures, and then sent to the yard for finishing (fattening on a high-carb diet). Not cheap! Hope this helps.