BURST
A hunter stumbled across the bloody carcasses of 11 dead cattle on a logging road near Quesnel earlier this week, sparking an investigation into what caused the gruesome deaths.
The owner of the animals, who holds tenure for an area of Crown land off the Barkerville Highway in B.C.’s Cariboo region, discovered the cows had ingested a nitrate-based fertilizer used in forestry to encourage tree growth, said Kevin Boon, general manager of the B.C. Cattlemen’s Association.
“It looks like the cattle licked it, thinking it was salt, and died of nitrate poisoning,” he said. “It’s very concerning. I don’t think they died an easy death.”
Photographs posted online show the cattle sprawled out on various points along the forest service road, bleeding from their eyes and mouths.
Boon said the rancher has found 11 cattle so far, but there are fears more may have been poisoned before wandering into the woods to die.
The fertilizer is usually applied in the winter or early spring, while cows aren’t grazing in B.C.’s forests. It appears to have been done earlier this year, due to a “lack of understanding,” said Boon, emphasizing that it doesn’t appear to be deliberate.
“When you have multiple tenure-holders on the land, this really shows the need for there to be communication with the stakeholders,” he said.
The fertilizer is usually loaded into a helicopter at a loading site on a forest service road. In this case, little piles of blue chemicals were left near the road, where the cattle were drawn to it.
The company responsible was immediately made aware of the situation and steps have been taken to ensure the material can’t be accessed by cows or other wildlife, said Boon. Forestry range branch officers were also expected to be on-site Thursday to investigate further.
Postmedia News has reached out to the B.C. Forests Ministry for a comment.
Boon said each of the dead cattle was worth about $6,000 to $7,000 and were “on their way home” after summer grazing on rangeland. The rancher holds a tenure that allows his cattle to graze until Oc. 15.
“This is hard on the rancher. These cows are their babies, not to mention the financial hit,” he said.
More to come …