Tens of thousands of cattle lie dead across South Dakota on Monday following a blizzard that could become one of the most costly in the history of the state's agriculture industry. As state officials spent the day calculating the multi-million dollar impact to the regional economy from Friday's storm, ranchers began digging up hundreds of cattle that are still buried beneath feet of snow. "This is absolutely, totally devastating," said Steve Schell, a 52-year-old rancher from Caputa. "This is horrendous. I mean the death loss of these cows in this country is unbelievable." Schell said he estimated he had lost half of his herd, but it could be far more. He was still struggling to find snow-buried cattle and those that had been pushed miles by winds that gusted at 70 miles per hour on Friday night. Martha Wierzbicki, emergency management director for Butte County, said the trail of carcasses was a gruesome sight across the region. "They're in the fence line, laying alongside the roads," she said. "It's really sickening." Silvia Christen, executive director of the South Dakota Stockgrowers Association, said most ranchers she had spoken to were reporting that 20 to 50 percent of their herds had been killed. "I have never heard of anything like it," she said. "And none of the ranchers I have talked to can remember anything like it." While South Dakota ranchers are no strangers to blizzards, what made Friday's storm so damaging was how early it arrived in the season. Christen said cattle hadn't yet grown their winter coats to insulate them from freezing wind and snow. In addition, Christen said, during the cold months, ranchers tend to move their cattle to pastures that have more trees and gullies to protect them from storms. Because Friday's storm arrived so early in the year, most ranchers were still grazing their herds on summer pasture, which tend to be more exposed and located farther away from ranch homes. Ultimately, Christen said, she believed that more than 5 percent of the roughly 1.5 million cattle in Western South Dakota had been killed. "It's much higher than that," she said. "But I'm not sure where that number is going to land." Jodie Anderson, executive director of the South Dakota Cattlemen's Association, said the pain for ranchers is now compounded by dysfunction within the federal government. While the government has programs to help ranchers who suffer losses from catastrophic weather events, those programs are in limbo because Congress has failed to pass a farm bill. The legislation is normally passed every five years and controls subsidy and insurance programs for the agriculture industry. Making things worse, because the government is currently in a partial shutdown, ranchers are unable to ask federal officials questions about how they might be reimbursed in the future. "A lot of the government agencies that we would normally be turning to for those answers are furloughed," she said. "So there's this sort of timing issue that's enhancing the frustration out there in cattle country." The shutdown was caused after House Republicans, including U.S. Rep Kristi Noem, R-S.D., refused to pass a resolution to fund the government unless Democrats weakened or delayed parts of President Obama's 2010 health care overhaul. On Monday, Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., pointed to South Dakota's battered ranchers as another example of why House Republicans needed to continue funding the government without preconditions. "Like the snow storm, the government shutdown is causing major disruptions in people's lives and every day business," he said in a statement. Whether they are eventually reimbursed for their losses or not, however, ranchers are likely to feel the pain for years. David Uhrig, 31, a rancher in Folsom, said he estimated about 25 percent of his herd had been killed, which meant far fewer calves this spring. "We are looking at years of rebuilding to get back to what we lost," he said. In the short term, however, Uhrig had far more pressing concerns. Read More: http://rapidcityjournal.com/news/tens-of-thousands-of-cattle-killed-in-friday-s-blizzard/article_558ef3ed-e941-5054-bc6b-115e04e10886.html http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9zqtvfPeeY FAIR USE NOTICE: This Video may contain copyrighted (© ) material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Such material is made available to advance understanding of ecological, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. It is believed that this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior general interest in receiving similar information for research and educational purposes.

• published: 10 Oct 2013
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