Mohave County miner. [volume] (Mineral Park, A.T. [Ariz.]) 1882-1918, 1916-07-15
DOGS, WOLVES AND
BUZzARDS INDICTED
AS GERM CARRIERS

The distribution of the diseases and
pests of live stock in the home, the
watering trough, and throughout the
range pastures, is greatly facilitated
by dogs, wolves, and buzzards Dogs
have been known to travel for several
miles to get meat from dead animals
Unless one happened to know the
individual animal he can not say
what has caused its death, and this
can not be determined unless the
stockman happens to be familiar with
animal diseases. Perhaps itInay have
had tuberculosis, anthrax or actinomy-
COSTS, which one is permitting to be
brought into his family by a pet dog
and handed out in wholesale quaint
ties to the children. If the cause of
death were blackleg, etc, the germs
would be scattered over the range.
And then after having visited a dead
animal, such dogs may stop at some
water hole to take a drink, thus leav-
ing millions of the germs to infest the
cattle, and if the stream should be
running one, the germs may be drunk
by some person.
The coyote and wolf spread stock
diseases in the same manner as dogs,
except that they do not infest homes.
There is no living species of ami
NAL life known through distribution
of disease germs and contaminate
more range and water than the buzz
card. Anyone who has ever had the
pleasure (if there be any of going
from windmill to windmill and clean
ing out the troughs so that it may be
possible for the cattle to drink the
water, is in position to know some
thing about the contamination of
range water by buzzards. Everybody
has doubtless heard the argument that
if the buzzard were not in the country
to eat up the dead cows, horses and
sheep, it would be impossible for man
to exist. If we could in some way pre-
vent the germs upon the grass, in the
water, buzzard from distributing the
disease and elsewhere, there would not
be so many dead animals, because the
diseases would be confined to a small
er area, since they would not have
such a good medium by which to
spread.
The Remedy
What steps should be taken to con-
troll the spread of disease by the dog,
wolf and buzzard, and to keep the
screw worm in check?
The dead animals should be syste-
matically burned or buried, and that
will be taking one of the best steps
toward freeing the ranges of disease.
Some say that burning and burying is
impracticable, others that it is impos-
sible; but it is the only way to make
the ranges of Arizona the most health
full in the world. Too often are sew
eral dead cows found in a waterhole.
It is certainly not impossible to re-
move them so that the water will not
become so contaminated that other
deaths will be caused from drinking
it. Sheep men, as we'll as cattlemen,
would do well to bury or burn dead
sheep, and when sheep die in streams
their carcasses should be removed.
On the open range, however, some
thing more than the individual efforts
of occasional stockmen will be need
ed. "What is everybody's business is
nobody's business" and my suggestion
is that the local or county cattle
growers associations take up this
matter of keeping the range clean as a
serious business proposition on a CO.
operative basis. A systematic per-
sistent cooperative effort rigidly car
ried out by the stocl1men will surely
result in reducing the enormous fnan-
cial losses due to disease and pests
G. W. Barnes, Livestock Specialist, U.
of A. Agr. Ext. Serv.