*Officials in Kansas City want you to believe that thousands of cattle died in recent days due to sweltering heat and humidity. Meanwhile, some ranchers and social media users believe something far more sinister is responsible.
“We do know from reports from our members that there has been a significant number (of deaths) in that area of the state,” Scarlett Hagins, Vice President of Communications for the Kansas Livestock Association, told McClatchy News.
According to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment spokesman Matt Lara, the weather “made it difficult for the cows to stay cool.”
Watch the video above for a different view of the situation.
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They did not die of extreme heat. I talked to multiple ranchers since I saw this video (one from Kansas) and they all say this needs to be investigated ASAP to get to the bottom of this because there’s no way heat caused 10,000+ cattle to drop dead. This is not normal. https://t.co/ct8kr6mEQV
— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) June 16, 2022
Here’s more from the report:
The deaths are centered in southwest Kansas where “several weather factors…led to heat stress for cattle,” a department spokesperson said. Temperatures were in the 80s and low 90s until a sudden spike to 100 degrees on June 11, followed by two more days of triple-digit heat, according to the Weather Channel. At least 2,000 animals were lost, Reuters reported.
While heat stress deaths are known to happen, they don’t to this scale. Cattle are generally hardy animals and able to handle heat, but there’s a limit. The problem in this case is that temperatures were high during the day but didn’t drop at night, or at least didn’t drop far enough — largely due to uncharacteristically high humidity, Hagins said. This worsens with consecutive days of high heat, and as such, the cattle couldn’t get any relief.
“This is a very unique and unfortunate event,” Hagins said.
“Normally western and southwestern Kansas is an arid part of the state. Although it gets hot, it’s not humid,” Hagins said. “The sudden change … is what really caused the losses. It didn’t give the cattle time to acclimate.”
“Ranchers are always concerned about heat during the summer,” said Sam Capoun, spokeswoman for the Kansas Livestock Association.
Meanwhile, as video showing hundreds of dead cattle continues to circulate — many social media users suggest that the deaths are linked to disruptions in the food supply.
“It’s not a mystery, it’s intentional,” one post reads.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service, there were 6.5 million cattle in Kansas, as of Jan. 1.
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