Hurricane Harvey didn’t just devastate human lives; the storm likely killed thousands of head of livestock as well.
As Texas Standard reports, the full effect of the hurricane on the cattle industry in Texas won’t be known for some time.
The good news is, the vast majority of the cattle affected by Harvey survived. The bad news? The storm’s lingering effects, including stress and respiratory problems, are still being felt among Texas’s livestock. And flooding can lead to snake and rat bites, and eventually botulism.
The region hit hardest by Harvey was home to over a million head of cattle. The hurricane losses could be worth tens of millions of dollars to Texas ranchers and feedlots.
It’s not yet known how much the rebuilding effort will cost, but it’s not going to come cheap judging by past storms. In 2008, Hurricane Ike resulted in over $65 million worth of losses to the Texas cattle industry. And Harvey was worse than Ike.