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To: iowamark

Brucellosis is a form of TB that can pass the “interspecies barrier” ! Hence the practice of innoculating dairy animals and tagging them that’s prevailed for at least 50 years ! Milk - raw or otherwise - from these animals/herds is safe for human consumption ! Were it not so we’d have had an enormous TB outbreak decades back as all “dairy families” - and often their neighbors - drank “raw” milk !

The issue with Bison is one of long standing, as domestic cattle shared the same range with “wild” bison. Given the dispersed nature of both species in the West, its long been possible for interspecies breeding and transfer of mutually supportable diseases; aka brucellosis, before prophylactic measures could be implemented on domestic herds.

Personally, I don’t see any reason for the “wild” distinction, and many against it. IMO, the american bison throve upon developing genetic diversity within isolated populations that - in the fullness of time - were introduced/tested in the general population on a hapstance basis. The so-called “wild” population - sans TB protection - is small hence may be a genetic dead end FAWK ! Remember this was a species that evolved to create large populations and multiple genetic evolutions within that population, if Mendel’s Laws prevail. >PS


14 posted on 11/22/2011 5:47:43 PM PST by PiperShade
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To: PiperShade
Their hides simply weren't thick enough to stop bullets ~ failure of evolution I guess.

The brucellosis problem is a tad different. For many years the big complaint was that "wild" buffalo passed it to "tame" cattle ~ supposedly unfairly or something (big Democrat issue on that one).

I think the surrounding cattle in this case involve both buffalo raised under conditions of domestication and domesticated old world cattle raised for meat.

Not sure there are dairy cows out there wandering around in that part of the country now that we can haul milk cross country in tankers.

But you raise a good point about how buffalo succeeded in raising up huge numbers that weren't killed off by brucellosis or other diseases ~ and you'd better believe the brucellosis was fighting back trying to come up with "killer aps" that could strike back at the buffalo, and any humans in the area.

Notice that the American Indians, with a gazillion buffalo around, didn't domesticate any of them ~ so why? Down in South America the same Indians domesticated vicuna, guanaco, llama, etc. Obviously the idea of domestication was current in the Americas!

15 posted on 11/22/2011 6:40:52 PM PST by muawiyah
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