Cows, Cities, Water and Wildlife

We have a few cows that like to go swimming.  They don't stay in the water very long, but nearly every afternoon at about the same time they walk into the water and hang out for awhile.  This was taken yesterday as we were checking cattle, which we do every day.

When I saw this, my mind overlayed a scene from the movie "Apocalypse Now" when the guy rose up out of the swampy water.  It also made me think of the character John Clark of Tom Clancy novel fame when in "Rainbow Six" he goes into Vietnam on a rescue mission and spends a great deal of time in a similar situation of using the water as cover and then rising up out of it.  Of course, the most obvious mental comparison is to an alligator, or crocodile, sitting motionless in the water with just the top of their head showing as they lurk in hope of unwary prey.

Many people claim that black-hided cattle don't do well in a hot humid environment such as we have in our part of Texas.  You can tell from the photo that this lady is, ahem, well-insulated.  Yes, she takes a dip in the pond to cool off, but she seems to do quite well at maintaining a beyond respectable body weight.  In reality, only about 10% of our cows regularly enter a pond to cool off -- even on the hottest days.  I think that number would be similar for almost any breed of cattle in our climate.

We provide separate, clean drinking water for our cattle.  We have water tanks available that are plumbed to the rural water system so the cattle always have fresh, cool water available to drink.  We also have plenty of areas where there are shade trees deliberately left standing in the pasture in order to provide a place in which the animals can rest.

Those trees also provide roosting and nesting sites for birds.  The ponds provide a home for fish and turtles and a place for wildlife to find water during periods of drought when water is difficult to find.  A lot of people don't realize that many of the water resources for wildlife across the country are there because of cattle ranchers who build the ponds and other small reservoirs to provide water to their stock.  The added benefit is to the wildlife such as waterfowl who are often seen on those stock ponds.

Depending on the time of year, we often see ducks and geese migrating through.  The stock ponds make "safe stops" for those waterfowl -- sort of like a "bed and breakfast" with a meal and place to rest.

 The ponds also help to control erosion.  When there is heavy rain, they provide a "check" to the rushing waters that would eventually eat away the land and leave deep gullies and washes.  Instead, there are grassy waterways which filter the water which goes first into the pond and then as it becomes full, pass over a spillway and continue further down a grass-covered waterway to the next pond.  It prevents the full force of the waters from rushing into streams and rivers and helps to reduce the flooding by slowing runoff.

Flooding is becoming worse because we have so much development with housing and concrete and paved roads.  The water doesn't percolate into the soil, but instead runs off.  On ranch land the story is different as described above.  Not only is the speed of flow reduced, but the water is filtered by the grasses and therefore much cleaner when it enters the streams which often flow into large reservoirs which then are used to provide drinking water to the cities.

Yeah, I'm rambling a bit this morning.  It's a long way from "Apocalypse Now" to city water supplies -- or, maybe not.  I fear that the amount and availability of sufficient drinking water for exploding populations may be the largest single potentially apocalyptic situation we face.  We see flooding in the east and drought in the west.  People are blaming it on climate change yet, we hear lots of rhetoric and hand-wringing and little understanding or, action.  By action, I'm thinking in reference to how cities are growing and spreading and adding to the problems while the ranchers who do the things like controlling erosion and encouraging grasses to cover the ground, which by-the-way also have a cooling effect, are being blamed.  The thinking is absolutely upside down.  That's par for the course, though; it is the people who are exploiting the situation that push the messaging which inspires panic in order to profit from others -- much like "war profiteers" who did the same during the various conflicts that periodically occur around the globe.  I suppose, in a way, that completes the circle from a cow in a pond to "Apocalypse Now."  Well, sort of....