Environmental Science, 10th Edition (Cunningham)

Chapter 9: Food and Agriculture

GE Exercise: Feedlot

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Take a virtual field trip with Google Earth!
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An overview manual is available by clicking here... Google Earth Overview (342.0K)

To continue:
- Make sure you have the Google Earth software installed and running.
- Copy the following latitude and longitude and paste into the "Fly to" field under the Search tab.
- Hit “Enter” for Google Earth to take you to the specified coordinates, then come back here and read the following overview.

Latitude/Longitude: 37.7194, -100.842

Overview: Feedlot, p. 185

This is one of many feedlots in this part of Kansas, where steers (young male calves, neutered for faster body growth and cooperative behavior) are brought for fattening on corn. Steers may be trucked to this feedlot from farms and ranches as far away as North Dakota or Montana. The crop circles show that the landscape around this feedlot is used for producing irrigated corn and other commodities. Unless you are a vegetarian or eat only free-range meat, the meat you eat comes from a facility like this one or larger.

1
Zoom in until you can make out the individual lots in the feedlot. What are the black dots in the lots?
A)Cars
B)Storage bins
C)Manure piles
D)Individual steers or their shadows
E)People
2
Why are they lined up along the outer edges of many of the pens?
A)They're enjoying the scenery.
B)They're trying to break through the fence.
C)This is where the feed is distributed.
D)They're waiting for something – anything – to happen.
E)The fence is the only surface they can use to scratch their backs.
3
Feeding cattle on corn requires that the animals be fed a regular diet of antibiotics, because corn is richer than a cow's natural grass diet and tends to ferment in the animal's stomach. One of the health concerns involved in this kind of operation is that the dried manure contains antibiotic-resistant bacteria, which may then become windborne in hot, dusty, summer conditions. Is this an important risk factor in this location?
A)It is not an important risk factor at all.
B)It is a mild risk factor, at most.
C)It is a medium risk factor.
D)It is a fairly serious risk factor.
E)It is the biggest risk factor for workers.
4
Zoom out and search around the area. Can you find other, similar feedlots in this neighborhood?
A)There are no other similar feedlots in this area.
B)There are one or two similar feedlots in this area.
C)There are several similar feedlots within a few miles of this site.
D)There are twenty or thirty similar feedlots within a few miles of this site.
E)There are more feedlots than crop circles.
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