From the gut of a kangaroo (and other ridiculous ideas)

I love a good burger as much as anyone, even though as a former vegetarian and current animal rights supporter I feel terribly guilty about even the little mostly farm-raised beef that I do eat. The fact is, beyond the whole "cows have feelings and are really cute and the way we treat them is horrific" argument, there are many more economic and environmental reasons not to eat beef.

A vegan ex-roommate of mine has no particular soft spot for animals but boycotts animal products because a) killing is avoidable and unnecessary (and as we continue to evolve into more humane creatures, might be wrong) and b) the industries of producing animals for consumption is both wasteful and damaging to our environment.

In both the June 2007 issues of National Geographic and Wired, there appear small articles that reference problems created by cattle. I use the term cattle to denote herds raised for consumption rather than a cow here and there that an individual farmer or landowner might keep. And yet, neither article even hints at the obvious solution, let's stop raising cattle.

In National Geographic, the problem is the black-footed ferret (which is also very cute). A popular pet in some states, this is North America's most endangered mammal. There are less than 1,000 in existence and they live in the Badlands of South Dakota. Now I know the people of South Dakota have got it rough. A former co-worker from there has told me about the hard times her ranching family has come upon.

However, here we have a curious chain of events - perhaps caused by global warming - that affects our subsistence on cattle that in order to maintain will require even more tinkering. There's a drought in South Dakota so less grass is growing. The cattle have less grass to eat and are competing more now with the prairie dog, who also eats the grass. Ranchers want to poison the prairie dogs but guess who needs to eat them to survive? The cute little ferret!


Wired's story presents a much more serious problem. Cows produce 300 lbs. per day of methane gas, each, by burping. Methane is 20x worse for the atmosphere than CO2 but dissipates almost immediately. All we have to do to stop the damage is stop the methane.

The solutions proposed sound like the top ten list on Letterman:
1) The Aussies are working to extract a bacteria from the gut of the kangaroo, who also eats grass but doesn't produce as much methane, and inject it into the cow.

2) A California inventor came up with a "gas mask" that the cows would wear containing methane-consuming microbes.

3) We could put (yet even more) additives in their food, this one shown to cut methane by 20% but also causes cancer and is expensive.

4) Australia and New Zealand are already working on a "burp vaccine" to eliminate the methane producing bacteria in the cow's gut.

5) Canada proposed carbon credits (the "politically palatable" version of an earlier methane tax) for ranchers. Not sure how this one works...

Now, take the methane gas the cows are making and the effect it has on global warming and go back to the National Geographic story. See? The cows are making the grass dry up but now we're going to kill some animals that will in turn kill even more animals so these animals that we're going to kill have something to eat. Is it just me or is that totally nuts?