GILLETTE, WYOMING (Enviro Snowflake Brief)— At least 75 pronghorn have died from a cattle carrying bacteria, mycoplasma bovis, in a 35 square mile documented area this year, according to the Wyoming Game & Fish Department (WGFD).
Public land ranchers have assured WGFD “it ain’t the cattle’s fault.”
Game and Fish Wildlife Disease Specialist Terry Creekmore said, “We don’t know why this is occurring, but it ain’t the cattle’s fault.”
Wyoming Cattlemen’s Association released a statement pointing the finger at Wyoming’s gray wolf population as the likely host to the disease in the infected pronghorn area, but offered no scientific evidence of a link with mycoplasma bovis and wolves.
Creekmore said the disease does not affect horses, cats or dogs. When a reporter, at the press briefing, asked him if there was any science behind the suggestion by the Cattleman Association that wolves were spreading the bacteria he awkwardly responded,
“That question is above my paygrade, but we just hired Greg Walcher, former executive director of Colorado’s Department of Natural Resources, to investigate the wolf hypothesis made by our beloved ranchers- google him, smart dude.”
Although pronghorns are the fastest land animal in North America, these antelope-like creatures are not going to out run the cattle bacteria, mycoplasma bovis , and the cause of the spread will remain “unknown.”
“It ain’t the cattle’s fault,” was ringing in this reporter’s ears after WGFD’s press briefing.
