Cows With PTSD Pt 1
I'm Bob Larson. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is a serious problem the military has been dealing with for decades.
But, a new study by Oregon State University researchers seems to indicate CATTLE that have been involved in wolf attacks show signs of PTSD as well ...
REINALDO COOKE ... "Maybe about 7 or 8 years ago when I first started, we heard a lot from beef producers in northeast Oregon with the wolves coming into Oregon and their cows grazing on public allotments. With the wolves' presence, that once the cows came back home, they were much more aggressive, they're calves were much lighter, probably the cows weren't producing as much milk and the calves were stressed out, not nursing as much as they should. Not only lighter, but with a greater incidence of sickness."
OSU animal scientist Reinaldo Cooke says it's all related to the stress cows experience during a depredation episode ...
REINALDO COOKE ... "Everything that we did was just to show that basically to demonstrate that the common sense is just there. I mean, the stress of having those predators around all the time causes a stress-reaction in those animals that explains why they don't perform as well as they have if they have immune competence."
Cooke says cows that have been involved in wolf attacks behaved much differently than cows unfamiliar with wolves in their study simulations. They also showed PTSD-related biomarkers in their blood and brain tissues.
We'll have more on what these results might mean for Northwest ranchers dealing with wolf attacks, tomorrow.
