Calif. farmers use guns, poison to safeguard crops

[undergroundpanther]

FRESNO, Calif. - Farmers in "America's Salad Bowl" are turning into hunters — stalking wild pigs, rabbits and deer — to keep E. coli and other harmful bacteria out of their fields.

It's part of an intense effort to prevent another disaster like the 2006 spinach contamination that killed three people, sickened 200 and cost the industry $80 million in lost sales.
The exact source of the contamination was never discovered, but scientists suspect that cattle, feral pigs, or other wildlife may have spread the E. coli by defecating near crops.

The pressure to safeguard crops comes from the companies that buy fresh greens. In response, some farmers are taking gun-safety classes to learn how to shoot animals that could carry the bacteria. Others are uprooting native trees and plants and erecting fences to make their land inhospitable to wildlife.

Spinach grower Bob Martin has even poisoned ponds with copper sulfate to kill frogs that might get caught in harvesting machinery or carry salmonella on their webbed feet.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080829/ap_on_re_us/food_safety_wildlife

Yet the govt. will not permit cows to be tested for BSE? WTF?

[riverdeep]

1. Huh. We don't know what caused it, so let's kill everything in sight.

That's pretty much modern agri-business in a nutshell. Your food grown in a wasteland.

[Truth4Justice]

2. This story sounds blown up. Many animals dont come out until night. These guys are out 24/7 ??

sounds like BS to make people think the crops are safe. Besides its illegal to shoot game or pests at night in most places. Animals have been feeding at planted fields forever anyhow.

[slackmaster]

3. The wild pigs aren't native, are very destructive, very likely E. coli vectors

And they taste good.