Whaaaat? USDA poisoning birds?

Sisyphus · Post by **Sisyphus** » Thu Jan 20, 2011 2:33 pm

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/2 ... 11709.html

When hundreds of dead birds were found Monday in Yankton, South Dakota, many residents were puzzled, thinking it was the latest in a string of similar mysterious mass animal deaths around the world. But this is one instance of the many where a clear cause has been identified, as the U.S. government claims responsibility for killing the more than 200 starlings.

It was initially believed that cold weather may have caused the bird deaths, but then Yankton police received a call from the USDA, attesting that they had poisoned the birds at a feedlot 10 miles away, KTIV reports. Apparently, some 5,000 of the birds were defecating in the feed meal, posing a threat to the animals and farm workers, when the USDA decided killing them would be the best action to take.

Post by **DerGolgo** » Thu Jan 20, 2011 2:43 pm

Defecated in the feed meal?

What, do they store that stuff in the open air?
Some poles (like tentpoles, not actual polish persons) and plastic sheets ought to take care of that, ought it not?

Post by **DerGolgo** » Thu Jan 20, 2011 3:08 pm

Okay...well...still, poisoning them?
Crafty Americans used to trap pigeons for meat, some kinds of starlings are actually hunted as a delicacy in Italy, it does seem sort of...wasteful to poison them.

Oh, well, another horrible sign of the end times turns out to be man's doing, that'll put a damper on some people's rapture-mania.

Sisyphus · Post by **Sisyphus** » Thu Jan 20, 2011 3:08 pm

Even so, we don't poison fish because they're shitting in the ocean. And feed lots means they're feeding corn to cattle. Cattle are supposed to be eating grasses, so right there are two things going wrong. Starlings are invasive, and they feed corn to cattle.

Sisyphus · Post by **Sisyphus** » Thu Jan 20, 2011 3:40 pm

Doesn't the corn diet of beef cattle necessitate the heavy use of antibiotics in cattle? Or something?

My Little Pony · Post by **My Little Pony** » Thu Jan 20, 2011 4:07 pm

Yes, it is in many ways hostile to a cows digestive tract. It causes ulcers in the rumen, which as the cow gets near to slaughter age, often perforate. It sure makes for much more tender beef though!

red · Post by **red** » Thu Jan 20, 2011 4:50 pm

We have a huge starling problem here. Flocks of those damn things covered my truck in purple splotches of poo a few weeks ago.

Sisyphus · Post by **Sisyphus** » Thu Jan 20, 2011 6:16 pm

We keep guinea fowl for tick control, and they sometimes hang out on the roof rack of my car like a bunch of buzzards, all hunched over with their ugly heads and all. And they shit all over it.

But to comment on MLP's post, from my intimate knowlege of perforated gut and toxins in mammals, that can't be good.

motorpsycho67 · Post by **motorpsycho67** » Fri Jan 21, 2011 12:00 am

You eat what the cows ate.

Corn fed cows eat GMO corn grown in pesticide laden earth and are fed growth hormones and antibiotics to keep em 'healthy'.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/meat/cowbio041202.cfm

dozer · Post by **dozer** » Fri Jan 21, 2011 6:48 am

motorpsycho67 wrote:You eat what the cows ate.

Corn fed cows eat GMO corn grown in pesticide laden earth and are fed growth hormones and antibiotics to keep em 'healthy'.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/meat/cowbio041202.cfm

''

not to, you know, nitpick, but GMO grown veggies require LESS pesticides, not more, with regards to traditional methods.

Toonce(s) · Post by **Toonce(s)** » Fri Jan 21, 2011 9:29 am

Instead of poison, I would suggest either tiny snares, or flying microbots that only attack starlings. I'm fine with the anti-starling efforts, those birds are real jerks. They are the chimpanzees of birds.

thrasherbill · Post by **thrasherbill** » Fri Jan 21, 2011 2:03 pm

Rev wrote:This is why I only eat cattle I kidnap from the parking lot at Trader Joe's.

Wait, not cattle. Women.

12ci · Post by **12ci** » Fri Jan 21, 2011 2:26 pm

these "feed lots" you mention, they're pretty rural, right ? in the middle of farms & such ?

to me, sounds like a job for some good ol'boys with shotguns.

Sisyphus · Post by **Sisyphus** » Fri Jan 21, 2011 2:38 pm

No. Google earth Greely, CO and you'll see just how big these things are.
My wife grew up there. We went there about five years ago to visit her mom and you can smell the town long before you see it.

xtian · Post by **xtian** » Sat Jan 22, 2011 12:38 am

I guess you'll be happy to learn that there already are an increasing wave of dead birds phenomenons in europe since you mad cows started it ?

You liked UFO ? you'll LOVE Dead birds falling from the sky

soon in a suburb near you, already touring Italy, Sweden, England lebanon ...

JoJoLesh · Post by **JoJoLesh** » Sat Jan 22, 2011 9:10 am

erosvamp wrote:Instead of poison, I would suggest either tiny snares, or flying microbots that only attack starlings. I'm fine with the anti-starling efforts, those birds are real jerks. They are the chimpanzees of birds.

JoJoLesh · Post by **JoJoLesh** » Sat Jan 22, 2011 9:18 am

dozer wrote:
motorpsycho67 wrote:You eat what the cows ate.

Corn fed cows eat GMO corn grown in pesticide laden earth and are fed growth hormones and antibiotics to keep em 'healthy'.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/meat/cowbio041202.cfm
''

not to, you know, nitpick, but GMO grown veggies require LESS pesticides, not more, with regards to traditional methods.

Thank you Dozer.

You have to remember that groups such as the Organic Consumers Association are generally more interested in spreading propaganda, and pushing their agenda, rather than truly informing or educating.

As a C.A.F.O. operator I will simply say a few things and bow out. (confined animal feeding operation)

We, as an industry, are not perfect. There are many areas that we need to improve upon. We are constantly looking for ways to progress our facilitys, in terms of BOTH efficiency and animal husbandry.

We care for our animals, and try to provide for them in terms of both health and safety. There are always going to be some bad producers out there, who do not do so. They are by no means in the majority. Unfortunately, the general public seems to enjoy being unaware of the nature of their food supply UNTILL one of these bad seeds pops up. I find it truly unfortunate that when John Q. is asked where meat comes from, he will answer, “The meat isle.”

We as a species, bend other animals to our will. We have been doing this for a very long time. Doing so allows us many benefits. The world we live in today is possible only because of this.

The feeding of animals for the purpose of eating the products of those animals allows us to; make use of land that would otherwise be unproductive for other means of farming, use feed sources that are of a less nutritional value to create a food of high nutritional value, use less land to provide the same amount of food, and provide cost efficient food sources. These in turn allow us to make highly nutritious food available to more people than we would be able to do otherwise.

If buying organic makes you feel good about yourself, go for it. If cage free eggs let you sleep well at night, well I guess they are worth the extra dollar. Enjoy buying rBST free milk? Guzzle it down. Grass fed beef your thing, great, knock yourself out.

Organic is a money making scheme. That is designed to dupe the consumer.

Cage free chickens experience 2x the mortality and many times the morbidity of their caged counterparts.

For every million cows not treated with r-BST, causes an estimated 6.6 billion gallons of water to be wasted. (lost efficiency -> more cows needed to get same milk)

Grass fed beef contributes to soil erosion, deforestation, and destruction of prairie environments. Not only in our country but in others as well. Well...we dont really need that rainforest do we?

Buy organic, cage free, whatever you want. But, please, don’t kid yourself that you are doing it for the environment, your health, or some other supper eco-conscience green hippy shit. You are doing it to feel better about yourself.

Post by **DerGolgo** » Sat Jan 22, 2011 9:59 am

JoJoLesh wrote:Buy organic, cage free, whatever you want. But, please, don’t kid yourself that you are doing it for the environment, your health, or some other supper eco-conscience green hippy shit. You are doing it to feel better about yourself.

While there's a lovely wave of dioxin contaminated meat, poultry and dairy products sweeping my country, because some asshole industrial feed-producer bought cheap industrial fatty-acids from an unscrupulous dealer instead of the more expensive food grade stuff, allow me to just point out:
Milk from grass fed cows and milk from cows who graze on high alpine pastures, where there a lots of herbs between the grass, produces superior cheese. Especially when the cow ate a lot of herbs. They did a blind taste test study with gruyere.

Also, rBST isn't legaly approved in Europe, and yet we have enough milk.

As far as water and efficiency goes, aren't feedlots famous for polluting water supplies? How much water does that waste?
And how much of the antibiotics in the streams and rivers comes from what the cows excrete? Has the industry, as a whole, adressed this problem?

Industrial agriculture isn't bad per se, it's as always how it is done that is important.
Producing food and food animals with a lonely focus on mimum prices and maximum profit cannot lead to safer food, or better food, only to cheaper food.

The future is lab-grown meat and milk made by genetically modified microbes, anyway. Just wait and see.

Sisyphus · Post by **Sisyphus** » Sat Jan 22, 2011 11:34 am

dozer wrote:
motorpsycho67 wrote:You eat what the cows ate.

Corn fed cows eat GMO corn grown in pesticide laden earth and are fed growth hormones and antibiotics to keep em 'healthy'.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/meat/cowbio041202.cfm
''

not to, you know, nitpick, but GMO grown veggies require LESS pesticides, not more, with regards to traditional methods.

GMO produced foodstuffs only require less pesticides because they've been engineered genetically with genes from other animals or plants to be resistant to certain pests/diseases. In case you weren't aware, they way this is accomplished is by using viruses to break into cells to do the engineering, because viruses are very good at getting into cells. Gee, what could possibly go wrong with this idea?

And the bottom line is that cattle were not intended to be fed on corn. Whatever we do to cattle to make their relatively short lives possible while they get fat on corn to produce more meat or milk, is messing with the natural order of things. Just because you can doesn't mean you should.

I like my meat just like anyone else but it's a huge problem that hasn't been addressed with any real honesty on either side. As populations become more affluent, their appetite for meat increases. Meat takes a lot of room and resources to produce. How it can be done sustainably over the long term has yet to be discovered. We know pesticides kill aquatic life as well as their intended targets, and we know that antibiotics are expensive and over the long term ineffective. GMO's are not yet a proven solution to anything except how to endanger heritage breeds of animals and plants in the event of disease or catastrophe.

The next decade or so will be interesting.

WeAintFoundShit · Post by **WeAintFoundShit** » Sat Jan 22, 2011 11:58 am

Rev wrote:We either need faster, carnivorous cows, or starlings that behave more like grass.

Rev, you're on a roll!

For a prime example of high density feedlot operations, one could also do a little google earth tour of the I-5, a bit north of Bakersfield, Ca.

<iframe width="425" height="350" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" src="http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=36.3 ... "></iframe>

That dark brown wedge is over a mile long. There are a few such feedlots on I-5, and to drive by them is kind of disturbing.

rolly · Post by **rolly** » Sat Jan 22, 2011 12:38 pm

Sisyphus wrote:
GMO produced foodstuffs only require less pesticides because they've been engineered genetically with genes from other animals or plants to be resistant to certain pests/diseases. In case you weren't aware, they way this is accomplished is by using viruses to break into cells to do the engineering, because viruses are very good at getting into cells. Gee, what could possibly go wrong with this idea?

I'm uncomfortable with the GM food phenomenon myself for various reasons, but the use of viruses isn't one of them. I mean it is almost certain that I owe my health and perhaps continues existence, either directly or indirectly, to the widespread use of viruses aka vaccination.

My main issue with GM foods is to do with non seed bearing crops taking over the ag industry, potentially giving control of the global food supply to a few corporations, but that's a whole topic in itself.

Sisyphus · Post by **Sisyphus** » Sat Jan 22, 2011 1:35 pm

No, it's related.

Without the virus-based technology used to even create GMO's, thereby making it easier to produce a crop of whatever, the other forms of whatever and their genetic diversity is threatened or even wiped out as a result.
The native Americans in Central America have been growing several different types of corn for thousands of years. The GMO corn pollens have taken over some of these crops, cross polinated with them. They are now all vulnerable to the same diseases/pests that the GMOs are.
The Irish potato famine was caused by a reliance on one single strain of potato. When disease caused massive crop failure, millions died. Now picture the same thing happening to the corn industry. It's a race to determine who will figure out the stronger influence on corn's genes: nature or man. My money is and always has been on nature. But thanks to the corn lobby and Big Ag, we've again put all our eggs in one basket: corn. Gee, what could possibly go wrong? Famine? Economic collapse? Who knows?

Sisyphus · Post by **Sisyphus** » Sat Jan 22, 2011 3:22 pm

Yeah, however it may have been influenced.

dozer · Post by **dozer** » Sat Jan 22, 2011 3:29 pm

Sisyphus wrote:Yeah, however it may have been influenced.

how old are you?

red · Post by **red** » Sat Jan 22, 2011 3:55 pm

GM food is also how we have been able to supply food to all the hungry people around the world.

<iframe title="YouTube video player" class="youtube-player" type="text/html" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/tIvNopv9Pa8?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowFullScreen></iframe>

Maybe I'm just a pawn of P&T's propaganda machine...

Post by **DerGolgo** » Sat Jan 22, 2011 4:11 pm

some dude on wikipedia wrote: Productivity claims

In 1999, a review of Roundup Ready soybean crops found that, compared to the top conventional varieties, they had a 6.7% lower yield.[94] This so called "yield drag" follows the same pattern observed when other traits are introduced into soybeans by conventional breeding.[99] Monsanto claims later patented varieties yield 7-11% higher than their poorly performing initial varieties, closer to those of conventional farming, although the company refrains from citing actual yields.[100] Monsanto's 2006 application to USDA states that RR2 (mon89788) yields 1.6 bu less than A3244, the conventional variety that the trait is inserted into.[101]

Googling around, these numbers pop up again and again.
Large corporations peddling dangerous technology promising something or other becoming too cheap to meter, where did I hear that before?

Monsanto didn't get into the seed business to sell seed. They got into the seed business to sell herbicides. Roundup Ready soybeans, for example, don't grow unless Monsanto's patented Roundup is actually present.
They are fucking the farmers front and back.

Also, this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Schmeiser

They like polluting other people's fields, and then suing them into oblivion.

Genetic engineering is interesting, but not something that should be given the chance to go into the wild. Letting private corporations, which only care about how much profit they make for their stockholders, and are run by executives who only care about this year's bonus, basically fuck around with the building blocks of life and the world's food chain, well, that will either end in mass-extinction (of humans, among others) or mankind being enslaved by the food companies. You might be able to live without oil, but these guys won't let you grow your own food if they can do anything about it.

Post by **DerGolgo** » Sat Jan 22, 2011 4:19 pm

Here's a good use of genetic engineering:

http://news.slashdot.org/story/11/01/22 ... f-Bacteria
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opi ... le1871149/

It has 'proven the process,' has produced ethanol (for example) at a rate equivalent to 10,000 US gallons an acre a year. It anticipates that this yield could hit 25,000 gallons an acre a year when scaled for commercial production, equivalent to roughly 800 barrels of crude an acre a year."

It only needs sunlight, CO2 and water. You could put it into perspex tubes and stick them in the desert.

I doubt these people are responsible enough to engineer their organisms not to spread out of the production facility, but this is the sort of thing where genetic engineering at it's present stage belongs, not in food production.

rolly · Post by **rolly** » Sat Jan 22, 2011 4:47 pm

DerGolgo wrote:
some dude on wikipedia wrote: Productivity claims

In 1999, a review of Roundup Ready soybean crops found that, compared to the top conventional varieties, they had a 6.7% lower yield.[94] This so called "yield drag" follows the same pattern observed when other traits are introduced into soybeans by conventional breeding.[99] Monsanto claims later patented varieties yield 7-11% higher than their poorly performing initial varieties, closer to those of conventional farming, although the company refrains from citing actual yields.[100] Monsanto's 2006 application to USDA states that RR2 (mon89788) yields 1.6 bu less than A3244, the conventional variety that the trait is inserted into.[101]
Googling around, these numbers pop up again and again.
Large corporations peddling dangerous technology promising something or other becoming too cheap to meter, where did I hear that before?

Monsanto didn't get into the seed business to sell seed. They got into the seed business to sell herbicides. Roundup Ready soybeans, for example, don't grow unless Monsanto's patented Roundup is actually present.
They are fucking the farmers front and back.

Also, this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Schmeiser

They like polluting other people's fields, and then suing them into oblivion.

Genetic engineering is interesting, but not something that should be given the chance to go into the wild. Letting private corporations, which only care about how much profit they make for their stockholders, and are run by executives who only care about this year's bonus, basically fuck around with the building blocks of life and the world's food chain, well, that will either end in mass-extinction (of humans, among others) or mankind being enslaved by the food companies. You might be able to live without oil, but these guys won't let you grow your own food if they can do anything about it.

Here's another gem from Wikipedia, from the article on the man in the Penn & Teller bit that Red posted in fact, Norman Borlaug:

dozer · Post by **dozer** » Sat Jan 22, 2011 5:46 pm

DerGolgo wrote: Genetic engineering is interesting, but not something that should be given the chance to go into the wild. Letting private corporations, which only care about how much profit they make for their stockholders, and are run by executives who only care about this year's bonus, basically fuck around with the building blocks of life and the world's food chain, well, that will either end in mass-extinction (of humans, among others) or mankind being enslaved by the food companies. You might be able to live without oil, but these guys won't let you grow your own food if they can do anything about it.

what fantasy world do you live in? not let these plants grow in the wild? enslavement to the food companies?

There has been no evidence in all of the extensive testing ever that GMO crops spread and take over non-gmo crops like some godzilla plants. They simply are more productive with less energy. That's the future, and it's good. Corporations aren't that nefarious, with some backroom scheme to control people. They want to sell their produce, sure, but to take that and make it into some global enslavement conspiracy...c'mon.

Sisyphus · Post by **Sisyphus** » Sat Jan 22, 2011 5:58 pm

dozer wrote:
Sisyphus wrote:Yeah, however it may have been influenced.
how old are you?

41. Your point being...what? Seems like you have an issue with points of view that don't jibe with your preconcieved notions. Am I correct?

Before you go all jihad on me, my point was that we all started from the same place on this issue, that being that we all accept(ed) agriculture for what it is and has been since the 1970's. How I came to arrive at a different point of view now is obviously not how you arrive at yours.
I have dealt firsthand with the American diet and its negative effects on vulnerable people, namely my own children. I've also seen firsthand what America's thirst for resources has wrought in other parts of the world.

If you want to go to the mat on this, if you have an issue with my comment, let's hear it. Because this isn't about my age or your age, it isn't about GMO's or world hunger. Now it's about you not liking my opinion and if you think you're going to put me on the defensive by insinuating I'm young and inexperienced in the world, then you're wrong. Maybe you could explain your remark, since you put it out there, what exactly you meant.

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Whaaaat? USDA poisoning birds?

Whaaaat? USDA poisoning birds?