THE BATTALION Page 3
TUESDAY, JUNE 19, 1979
W$ Professor researches problems
Shipping cattle by rail studied
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By PEGGY C. McCULLEN
Battalion Reporter
The cost of shipping cattle by
(rucks is increasing with the rapidly
fuel prices. The result is
igher costs at the meat counter.
I One alternative method to truck
hauling is shipping by rail and a
Texas A&M University professor of
imal science is researching this
ethod.
Dr. T. H. Friend, assistant pro
fessor of animal science, is par-
ipating in a USDA-Texas Agricul-
ral Experiment Station funded re-
arch program which may put cat-
back on trains.
Because of a 1906 Livestock
Iransportation Act, which says that
estock shipped by rail must be
loaded, watered, fed and rested
for five hours every 28 hours, it has
become unprofitable to ship cattle
by rail.
According to Bill Gentleman in
alf News (May, 1979), the railroads
uled over 1.75 million car loads of
estock in 1916. Today, less than
12,000 car loads of livestock are
hauled annually.
A self-contained jumbo cattle car
at can transport cattle for long dis-
nces without rest stops, developed
by Gentleman of Amarillo, is being
tested.
Its profitability, the occurance of
pipping fever, and decreased stress
tnd shrinkage of the animals is
jeing evaluated.
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Friend, who began an animal be
havior program at A&M in the fall of
1977, is studying the behavior of
cattle in transit. US DA researchers
monitor environmental conditions.
Friend uses video cameras in the
double-decked rail cars equipped
with water troughs and hay racks.
Electrical generators, television
monitors, and video tape recorders
are operated through an adjacent
Dr. T.H. FRIEND
caboose.
The researchers ride in the
caboose during the entire haul, up
to five days.
Recently, Friend participated in a
shipment of 163 cattle from Birmin
gham, Ala. to Little Rock, Ark.
Friend said that during transit, cat
tle consumed the same amount of
hay and water normally consumed
in a feed lot.
Battalion photo by Clay Cockrill
“From the television monitoring
equipment, we were able to tell that
all cattle had ample opportunity to
drink and to eat,” he added. Re
searchers will begin another trip to
day, which will haul about 120 cattle
from Memphis to Amarillo in three
days. The trip will determine op
timum space requirements and
movement patterns needed in the
cattle cars.
Fuel shortage will change
eating as well as driving habits
The fuel crunch may change as
many eating habits as driving habits,
says a leading energy authority.
Texas A&M University Dean of
Geosciences Earl Cook predicts
large changes in American diets
over the next two generations,
primarily because of energy’s effects
on food production.
“Increasingly cheap and abundant
energy, mainly from fossil fuels, al
lowed us to mechanize agriculture,
manufacture fertilizers and pes
ticides, then refrigerate food and
transport it quickly cross-country
where marketers and consumers
preserve food by canning, drying
and freezing,” explains Cook.
As fuel goes up, so will food prices
and Americans will substitute milk,
eggs and poultry for beef and sea
food while consumption of beans
will increase and use of frozen food
will decrease, he forecasts.
Beef is like the automobile, ar
gues Cook, noting that both are
symbols of affluence and represent
inefficient systems.
“Of the energy in the plant food
eaten by beef animals, less than 4
percent gets to the table in disgest-
ible form,” he says.
Despite tough decisions on
whether to buy chicken, pork or
beef, consumers are likely to con
tinue to buy coffee, Coca-Cola and
beer, no matter the cost, thinks
Cook.
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hit-and-run whale
recks dream trip
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HALIFAX, Nova Scotia — A
madian fishing boat picked up a
year-old Welshman trying to sail
Be Atlantic in a 17-foot inflatable
finghy, but whose dream voyage
Bas foiled by a hit-and-run whale.
■ Canadian Coast Guard officials
said Paul Parsons had been plucked
from his dinghy about 40 nautical
miles southeast of Halifax harbor by
the Cape Pictou.
f But another seaborne adventurer
was faring better.
■ Kenneth Kerr, an oarsman trying
to row across the Atlantic in the
ijSBiallest craft ever used for such a
voyage, is “bang on course” but well
off schedule, a spokesman said Sun
day.
B Parson’s rescue came six hours
after authorities issued an all-ships
ted
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alert for Parsons, an Air Canada
baggage handler at London’s Heath
row Airport, who set out from
Halifax Friday to sail his craft, the
Pufia, 2,800 miles to Europe.
The blue-eyed, bearded Parsons
stocked the dinghy with food and 30
gallons of fresh water to sustain him
on the trip he thought would take
him two months.
Parsons had radioed that a whale
had smashed into his raft, damaging
the floorboards and throwing some
supplies overboard.
The coast guard said the ship was
expected at its home port of Lunen-
berg. Nova Scotia, June 26 or 27.
Radio operators determined Kerr
had rowed only 120 miles in the last
eight days — far short of his 30
mile-a-day target.
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