Immigrant Cattle Doing the Jobs American Cattle Won't Do
|Flickr user ILRI|
|Cattle from Mozambique--how many more immigrant cattle will come?|
Earlier this week, Foreign Policy published a somewhat tongue-in-cheek essay in which the author argued that the United States treats foreign cattle better than it does immigrants. According to the piece, the United States imported more than two million cattle last year, and the government did everything possible to make it even easier to bring in more bovines.
It's the great American immigration story, people: These invaders are doing the jobs American cattle won't do.
Out of KBTX-TV in College Station, Texas (home to Texas A & M, whose Department of Animal Science has one of the top beef cattle programs in the country), comes a story that American cattle stock is at its lowest in 50 years, and that the number of calves born is at its lowest number in 60 years. And because American cattle and their descendants are becoming so lazy, beef watchers say the price of beef will increase to record highs this year.
How long until hamburger eaters begin blaming immigrant cattle instead of directing their ire at the American working-cow class?