In general I agree with you, Stranger, but I don’t think we would see the extinction of all cattle by predation and lack of care. The hardier types, like Florida swamp and cracker cattle can survive just find without our management, and have feral populations in the everglades. Bigger alligators take calves, but the population is stable. Down here, we also have significant numbers of imported wilder types like the watusi. Certainly the breeds like dairy cattle would be in trouble, but sheer numbers ought to give enough of a head start on the feral populations of the tougher breeds to overcome rising predation. Of course, the introduction of zoo animals into the mix might significantly alter things.
No Lamarckian explanation required. Hormonal response would do the trick.
I agree with spoke-…hell, there are free range cattle in the US that pretty much take care of themselves NOW. Even if only 1% of them lived they would still be a viable population. I don’t think pigs and cattle would go extinct in the US…there are to many niches that would open up that they could occupy. Top predictors would take a while to get rolling as they have been kept down so long. There would be plenty of time for the hardiest ruminants to do the whole survival and breeding bit.
As I said in the zombie thread, I liked the show but I disagree with some of their conclusions. I thought it was interesting that they showed that city in Russia that was abandoned…but I definitely drew different conclusions than they did from looking at it. And they never did go into cities in arid environments like Las Vegas or Tucson or Phoenix. They focused mainly on New York with a couple of other places thrown in.
-XT
Cattle will most certainly not become extinct. Most breeds are perfectly capabale of surviving with no human interference provided they have sufficient food an water. As other shave noted, by the time predator populations become sufficiently high to exterminate cattle the animals in question will have evolved to apint where they are no longer able to be exterminated. The rate at which domestic cattle revert to wild phenotypes when they go feral is quite impressive. Certainly less than 50 years is all that is required, and there is no way that predator populations will rebound that fast.
My point was that the cattle population will inevitably crash. Some indivduals will form feral herds when fences go down, but most will simply starve or die of thirst before that ever happens. The same is true of goats, sheep and so forth. As a result most dogs will simply die of starvation within a couple of years at most. A few dogs will survive, as will a few cattle and over time they will form stable populations as they have done in numerous places on erath where there are feral dogs and feral cattle.
But the idea that billions of dogs in North America are going to simply go feral and manage to find enough food is ridiculous. The continent simply can’t support that many large predators without human agriculture. Maybe a few hundred thousand dogs might survive the first two years, more likely a few thousand. Most dogs are simply going to starve to death because they are dependant on human agriculture as much as humans are.
Well, Blake, I think I agree with most of that. I didn’t mean to imply that all dogs would survive, but that dogs as a species would be fine.
I don’t think cattle will necessarily be starving or dying of thirst on the scale you imagine. They eat grass, and when they get hungry, that’s when they start breaking through fences to get to the grass on the other side. Moreover, most pastures (in the eastern US at least) are situated around a source of drinking water (either a pond or a creek).
Dairy cattle will be in trouble, no doubt.
Well of course. Dogs as a species have existed ina feral state on every continent for thousands fo years.
Oddly enough they don’t. I’ve seen severe droughts in Australia and I’ve seen abandonded farms in southern Africa. In every single case cattle stood and died of thirst or hunger in their paddock. I have never seen cattle break down a fence to escape death from starvation or thirst. Cattle will certainly wander out if fences break, and when they are stressed they are more prone to testing fences, which means if the fence is already about to give they may break it, but they but they won’t actually break fences in good repair. Even when wakened fences break it is usually when cattle push their heads through to get feed, not as a a result of any attempt to actually break the fence.
It might seem odd, but cattle have been bred not to test fences, and the use of barbed wire has reinforced that through experience. Particulrlay in the case of thirst cattle actually become mroe dociel and placid.
The only exception live seen are already feral acttle. These will break down fences to get to feed, which is why controlling feral cattle becomes more urgent when feed is scarce, but domestic cattle delibertaely breaking down fences to get feed is almost unheard of.
The problem is that even in cases like that the carrying capacity of a paddock is already above maximum and depends on at least an annual cull to remain sustainable. Without people all feed would rapidly be depleted. In regions with severe winters this becomes even more pronounced. And when a small fenced enclosure is overstocked like that the herd depletes all food and then the entire herd dies.
Of course most garzing land is dependent on human water souces, bores, wells, tanks and so forth. In short order those are going to stop working and…
Dairy cattle will probably do better than beef herds. The stocking rate of a dairy paddock is set at a sustainable level because diary herds aren’t culled annually. Unless the paddock is irrigated it will support whatever herd is on it indefinitely. In contrast the whole point of a beef paddock is to produce a lot of beef that can be sold at the end of the season. That means the land is perpetually carrying more livestock than it can actually support.
As you might have noticed upthread, I grew up on a cattle farm. And I can tell you from years of painful experience that cattle do test fences. Regularly. They test wooden fences. They test barbed wire fences. They test electric fences. I have seen one particularly strong-willed heifer push against several strands of barbed wire until a (weakened) wooden post gave way. I have often seen cattle struggle their way between strands of barbed wire.
Moreover, due to herding instinct, when a lead cow breaks through, the rest of the herd will struggle mightily to follow.
You are simply wrong on this point. A barbed wire fence can contain cattle, but only if it is constantly maintained, loose strands are tightened, and weak posts are replaced. When we’re gone, that won’t be happening.
(And that is leaving aside all the electric fences that will fail very quickly.)
Oh, and as for dairy cattle, many (most?) of those are not kept in pastures at all, but are kept in barns or lots and fed on grain and hay.
Keeping dairy cattle in a pasture is problematic, because what they eat affects the taste of their milk. For example, if a dairy cow gets into a patch of wild onions, its milk will be undrinkable. For this reason, dairy cattle are generally raised on food provided by humans, and are thus more reliant on humans.
That is why they will be in trouble when we’re gone.
While I didn’t grow up on a cattle ranch just living in the South West I can tell you that cattle DO get outside of the fence…all the time. And those fences need to be constantly maintained…you SEE people out there working on the fences all the time. Also, the grazing lands out here are, well, really big. REALLY big. I don’t know how it’s done out east, but around here the cattle are usually left to basically fend for themselves until it’s time to drive them to market to be made into hamburgers and fine leather goods. The only thing that may be a problem is water…but a lot of the watering places have wind driven pumps that will probably last for a while unattended (some of them look like they have been working since the turn of the century…the LAST century). Also, at least around here, we have this big honking river going right through the middle of the city. If that water wasn’t being diverted for agriculture I’m fairly certain the cattle would find there way there fairly quickly.
-XT