Record-breaking Blizzard Kills 75,000 Cattle: Ignored by Biased ‘Global Warming’ MSM
Ranchers are still digging out thousands of their cattle that became buried in a record-setting snowstorm in South Dakota late last week and over the weekend.
One would think the death of 75,000 cows by upwards of five feet of snow might get some national attention, but as one blogger observed, it has taken some time for the news of the precipitation massacre to reach outside of local media.
“I searched the national news for more information. Nothing. Not a single report on any of major news sources that I found. Not CNN, not the NY Times, not MSNBC,” Dawn Wink wrote Tuesday. “I thought, ‘Well, it is early and the state remains without power and encased in snow, perhaps tomorrow.’ So I checked again the next day. Nothing. It has now been four days and no national news coverage.”
Wink dubbed it “The Blizzard that Never Was.”
National syndicated photo services also yield only a few results documenting the storm. The Weather Channel, taking photo submissions from locals, seems to have the most dramatic pictures of the scene.
At least four deaths were attributed to the weather, including a South Dakota man who collapsed while cleaning snow off his roof.
Gary Cammack, who ranches on the prairie near Union Center about 40 miles northeast of the Black Hills, said he lost about 70 cows and some calves, about 15 percent of his herd. A calf would normally sell for $1,000, while a mature cow would bring $1,500 or more, he said.
“It’s bad. It’s really bad. I’m the eternal optimist and this is really bad,” Cammack said. “The livestock loss is just catastrophic. … It’s pretty unbelievable.”
Cammack said cattle were soaked by 12 hours of rain early in the storm, so many were unable to survive an additional 48 hours of snow and winds up to 60 mph.
“It’s the worst early season snowstorm I’ve seen in my lifetime,” said Cammack, 60.
“As the days warm, more and more carcasses are exposed. So many have lost so much,” Wink, the blogger, wrote of her mom saying.
“It’s the worst early season snowstorm I’ve seen in my lifetime.”
Early estimates suggest western South Dakota lost at least 5 percent of its cattle, said Silvia Christen, executive director of the South Dakota Stockgrowers Association. Some individual ranchers reported losses of 20 percent to 50 percent of their livestock, Christen said. The storm killed calves that were due to be sold soon as well as cows that would produce next year’s calves in an area where livestock production is a big part of the economy, she said.
“This is, from an economic standpoint, something we’re going to feel for a couple of years,” Christen said.
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