{"id":32758,"date":"2013-11-19T10:22:43","date_gmt":"2013-11-19T16:22:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=32758"},"modified":"2013-11-19T10:46:16","modified_gmt":"2013-11-19T16:46:16","slug":"should-texas-ranchers-worry-about-anthrax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2013\/11\/19\/should-texas-ranchers-worry-about-anthrax\/","title":{"rendered":"Should Texas Ranchers Worry About Anthrax?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/fusiontables\/embedviz?q=select+col1%3E%3E1+from+1pHHKRg93BJYn6qozRI99sERkvL_RGNVJopBRpG4&amp;viz=MAP&amp;h=false&amp;lat=30.96075231324154&amp;lng=-99.92735140625001&amp;t=1&amp;z=5&amp;l=col1%3E%3E1&amp;y=2&amp;tmplt=2&amp;hml=KML\" height=\"400\" width=\"600\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h5 style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>A map of reported Anthrax cases in Texas, by county. Map by Michael Marks<\/em><\/h5>\n<p>Texas is\u00a0cattle\u00a0country: there are nearly 13 million cows wandering through Texas, according to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.statisticbrain.com\/beef-cattle-production-statistics\/\">United States Department of Agriculture<\/a>. That&#8217;s over 14 percent of the country&#8217;s total cattle population.<\/p>\n<p>And our bovine friends have some company: there are also approximately 1.3 million <a href=\"http:\/\/www.agmrc.org\/media\/cms\/USGoatProductionFinal_E1367962C32D1.pdf\">goats<\/a>, nearly one million <a href=\"http:\/\/animals.pawnation.com\/places-largest-horse-populations-3749.html\">horses<\/a>, and 3.6 million <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tpwd.state.tx.us\/newsmedia\/releases\/?req=20130926b\">deer<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>So if just one grazing animal died of a lethal and highly transmittable disease, there would be cause for concern that large numbers of animals could be at risk.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s exactly what happened last Monday when the <a href=\"http:\/\/today.agrilife.org\/2013\/11\/11\/confirmed-anthrax-case-rekindles-need-for-awareness-of-indigenous-disease\/\">Texas Animal Health Commission confirmed<\/a> that a cow had died of anthrax southwest of San Angelo.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_32766\"  class=\"wp-caption module image left\" style=\"max-width: 300px;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-32766\" alt=\"Anthrax infected deer carcass \" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2013\/11\/Picture1-300x225.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2013\/11\/Picture1-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2013\/11\/Picture1-620x465.jpg 620w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2013\/11\/Picture1.jpg 1292w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Photo courtesy, Dr. Floron Faries, Texas A&amp;M AgriLife Extension Service<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">An anthrax-infected deer carcass<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Anthrax is<a href=\"http:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/anthrax\/\"> found naturally<\/a> in the soil, and &#8220;commonly affects domestic and wild animals around the world,&#8221; according to the Centers for\u00a0Disease\u00a0Control and Prevention.\u00a0Animals contract anthrax by ingesting bacterial spores in the ground while grazing, so it\u2019s most common among cattle, deer, goats, and horses. The disease is &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/today.agrilife.org\/2013\/11\/11\/confirmed-anthrax-case-rekindles-need-for-awareness-of-indigenous-disease\/'\">invariably<\/a>&#8221; fatal, according to Texas A&amp;M Agrilife, and an animal will die a few days after contracting it.<\/p>\n<p>Drought can make anthrax more common because its spores tend to rise to the surface when soil becomes dry and dusty.\u00a0These patches of spores are called \u201chot spots.\u201d They can spread by being blown by the wind or washed away by rain once they reach the surface.<\/p>\n<p>Animals are most vulnerable to anthrax in the summer. Over the last decade, 25 of the 27 reported cases of anthrax in Texas occurred between June and September.<\/p>\n<p>Anthrax is most common in a sparsely-populated agricultural region west of the Hill Country, in counties like Val Verde, Uvalde, and Sutton.\u00a0Even so, Texas\u2019 ranchers, farmers, and hunters aren\u2019t panicking over the news.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s still a stretch to call anthrax \u201ccommon,\u201d says Josh Blanek, an Agrilife Extension Agent for <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Tom_Green_County,_Texas\">Tom Green County<\/a>. Tom Green is the county where the most recent reported case of anthrax occurred.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe amount of livestock affected by [anthrax] in a year compared to the amount of livestock that are out there, it\u2019s nothing to be concerned about,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p>One of the reasons that anthrax is so rare is that a vaccine is so cheap. A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/#es_sm=91&amp;q=anthrax+vaccine+cattle&amp;tbm=shop\">quick search<\/a> shows that you can buy 50 doses of anthrax vaccine for about $50, shipping included. Blanek says it&#8217;s a worthwhile investment, given the current price of livestock. The A&amp;M Agrilife service is <a href=\"http:\/\/today.agrilife.org\/2013\/11\/11\/confirmed-anthrax-case-rekindles-need-for-awareness-of-indigenous-disease\/\">encouraging<\/a> ranchers to vaccinate their animals.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA dollar a head is cheap insurance. When you lose a cow or lose a sheep, you can pay for a lot of vaccine with it,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p>Farmers, hunters, and ranchers don\u2019t need to worry about keeping any for themselves, though.<\/p>\n<p>Blanek and others say to be careful around carcasses or animals displaying strange behavior. But no human in Texas has ever died from contracting anthrax, according to records from the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dshs.state.tx.us\/\">Texas Department of State Health Services<\/a>. Still, A&amp;M Agrilife is warning people to stay away from infected animals that are still alive, and use caution around carcasses. The signs to look for, from A&amp;M Agrilife&#8217;s website:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cThe carcass of an animal killed by anthrax usually shows little or no rigor mortis or the stiffness that occurs soon after death. Dark non-clotting blood usually oozes from the mouth, nose and anus and the body quickly bloats and decomposes rapidly.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\u201cAnthrax has been around since the buffalo roamed the plains,\u201d says Blanek. \u201cIt\u2019s here, it\u2019s always been here, and it\u2019s going to be here to stay because it is a soil bacteria. It\u2019s not a big problem.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A map of reported Anthrax cases in Texas, by county. Map by Michael Marks Texas is\u00a0cattle\u00a0country: there are nearly 13 million cows wandering through Texas, according to the United States Department of Agriculture. That&#8217;s over 14 percent of the country&#8217;s total cattle population. And our bovine friends have some company: there are also approximately 1.3 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":153,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[58],"tags":[61,126,320,199],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32758"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/153"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32758"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32773,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32758\/revisions\/32773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}