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Posted on 07/14/2007 10:58:14 AM PDT by Montana Headlines
Ordinarily, a roundup on the Morgan ranch would happen in the fall.
Jim and Sandy Morgan, along with Sandy's parents, Connie and Bruce Malcolm, and perhaps a few neighbors, would head into the hills behind the red butte south of Bridger and bring in the cows and their calves.
They would trail behind the cows and check out the bulky calves, admiring the traits for which their Black Angus herd is known.
But this week, the roundup came early, at the end of a two-month ordeal that began with the discovery that seven of the Morgans' cows had brucellosis, a contagious disease that causes cows to abort their calves.
......
If the state condemned the herd, the Morgans would have received no compensation.
"We expected their help; instead, they treated it like it was all our fault," Sandy said.
APHIS began negotiations by offering the Morgans $394,000 for the herd, while the Morgans estimated that the herd was worth closer to $740,000.
Earlier this week, the Morgans asked for $567,000, the average of four appraisals. Thursday, with the deadline for slaughter just four days away, they accepted an offer of $423,000.
Jim Morgan said that wouldn't cover the cost of replacing the herd.
"Everything we did was not to get rich, but just to stay alive," he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at billingsgazette.net ...
An example of heavy-handed government intervention without adequate compensation to those affected. The state government would ultimately condemn the herd if the deadline arrived, in order to preserve the state's brucellosis-free status.
But the federal government was responsible for compensating the family for its losses, since Yellowstone National Park is the reservoir of brucellosis -- in its bison -- a reservoir of infection that the feds have shown no real interest in attempting to address.
The ranching community in Montana is overwhelmingly Republican -- which may explain the seeming absence of intervention by our currently Democrat-dominated elected officials in Montana.
But that may be mere cynicism.
The fact that all of this is an esoteric issue to most people didn't help. For those interested in learning more, read the article and follow the links.
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Yea, I don’t see why they should receive a cent from the state. I also don’t see why the state should mandate the destruction of the herd. Just, IMO.
Didja know it can be passed to humans?
That’s udder nonsense!
I doubt that one could insure against brucellosis. Not sure, though.
The point at issue is that ranchers are not allowed to manage the source of potential infection.
Since they are not, the cost is the responsibility of the agency that won’t let them control it.
Similar eradication efforts have been successful in other parks, including Wind Cave National Park and Custer State Park in South Dakota and Wichita Mountain Wildlife Refuge in Oklahoma.
We really haven't seen efforts to eradicate the disease in the Yellowstone herd similar to the efforts in those other areas.
Granted, Yellowstone has much rougher country, and the kind of yearly roundup that takes place in Custer State Park wouldn't work as well.
But they need to try.
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