Last Friday I had weather cows, this week it’s frozen cows. From the “winter that wasn’t” department, it seems that the winter in Colorado was bad enough to cause some free range cows to seek shelter in/around a rustic shelter cabin – and then froze to death in place.
The carcasses were discovered by two Air Force Academy cadets when they snow-shoed up to the cabin in late March. Rangers believe the animals sought shelter during a snowstorm and got stuck and weren’t smart enough to find their way out.
The cabin is located near the Conundrum Hot Springs, a nine-mile hike from the Aspen area in the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness area.
…
Forest Service spokesman Brian Porter said rangers saw about six cows inside the cabin, and several dead cows lying around the building.
“There is a lot of snow, and it’s hard to determine how many cows are there,” Porter said.
U.S. Forest Service spokesman Steve Segin said Tuesday they need to decide quickly how to get rid of the carcasses.
“Obviously, time is of the essence because we don’t want them defrosting,” Segin said.
They should be thawing just in time to feed the hungry bears as they come out of hibernation.
Why do they have to “fix” every problem? The scavangers need to eat too!
Larry
Conundrum Creek, Eh?
They need to carefully consider how they plan to use that explosive. Many people don’t understand this but explosives just don’t make stuff “disappear”.
Remember that law of physics called Conservation of Mass…
Maybe they should not take some advice from the Oregon Department of Transportation!
That did not turn out too well.
Sad. Poor cows. : (
Remember a few years ago when they blew up a beached whale and it rained blubber?
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ8jGqdE2iw&w=420&h=315%5D
Just leave the door open. The coyotes will clean up the mess as fast as it melts.
“We don’t want them defrosting…” Uh, yeah. I can agree with that 🙁
By the time GISS/NASA modelers get through, the number of Dead Cows will approach a ghost herd while the Ranger’s Cabin will be subject to long-range climatic scrutiny that suppresses the Medieval Warm.
What could possibly go wrong?
They’re going to defrost sometime, unless they’re burying them on Phobos.
sad story. No living thing deserved their fate.
Which way were they facing?
Bet the wolves won’t touch it. They only go after bleeding beef.
Fetchez la vache! http://youtu.be/JQ8jGqdE2iw
Anyone planning on opening a burger bar gets a nice head start. Location leaves something to be desired, though.
All they needed was some matches to light off their methane emissions to warm the shelter.
If they’re still frozen, just cut them up with a chainsaw and truck them over to the local supermarket.
/Mr Lynn
Spelling. Should the first paragraph end “froze to death in place” rather than “froze to death it place”?
That as the second thing I thought when reading the article, the first was the exploded whale.
Hire a butcher or big game hunter with a chain saw and if the meat is not fit for human consumption, spread the remains around outside for scavengers.
Doug in Seattle says:
April 17, 2012 at 6:33 pm
Yes they will! I’m pretty sure there are wolves in the area as well as other scavengers, too. No need to expend a lot of energy on this non problem.
It is common to “remove” a large dead animal (horse or mule) from on or near a hiking trail in a remote area in this manner. If actually on the trail the protocol is to “relocate” the trail some distance away. In the case of the cows in the cabin the plan might be to drag them out and away, assuming the cabin is to be kept intact.
Moving heavy things (rocks, logs) in remote areas is easily accomplished with this item:
http://murphyindustrialproducts.com/cable_grip_hoists_grip_pullers.html
Reminds me of a story I heard about the university pharmacology department in Giessen, Germany. They used to store radioactively contamined cadavers of experimental animals in a big chest freezer. One day there was a power failure, and the cadavers all thawed and coalesced into one big gooey gunk. The power then came back on, and the whole mess turned into one big block of frozen, radioactive gunk.
How do you dispose of a thing like that? Well, they didn’t know, either, and while these events are a good while back, for all I know the frozen cadaver soup might still be there. Maybe the cowboys from Colorado have an idea how to deal with it, too?
“Larry Ledwick said at 6:20 pm
Why do they have to “fix” every problem? The scavangers need to eat too!”
They will, the forest service just wants to tenderize it first.
No wolves in the area, IIRC. Plenty of bears though, the carcasses will be gone long before hikers make their way up there. BTW, amazingly beautiful area, some of the best hiking/camping/photography you’ll see anywhere. Also, have seen two international rugby tournaments in town. Aspen – Like a litttle piece of Rodeo Drive dropped in the mountains by the aliens.
Okay – okay … someone has to say it (since I don’t see any ‘cows’ in the above picture):
“Where’s the beef?”
.
Nature (NOT the publication) will take care of this the same way it takes care of any animal that dies in the wild. Why must there be any interefence by humans? Because it was a domestic animal and we feel guilty because they died and we didn’t do anything to save them? Let them rot in place. Close access to the hut for 12 months and problem solved.
Oh boy! More pink slime!
The ranger’s explanation doesn’t sound right to me. If they were clever enough to find their way in – how come they weren’t clever enough to find their way out?
Two possibilities: 1) there was one clever cow, everyone else followed, the clever cow died, the others were doomed 2) mass suicide – cow-cult style?
Q. are they all wearing tracksuites and trainers?
Michael Palmer says:
April 17, 2012 at 7:42 pm
Explosives again, only now you have a dirty biological bomb!
If this cabin is some historic structure, no one should be using explosives inside or close to it.
First thing I thought of was the frozen mammoth calf.
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2009/05/mammoths/latreille-photography
Second thing was let the EPA clean it up.
Third thing was tell some U of Colorado frat boys you know where there’s some cows they can tip.
Dave Dodd says:
April 17, 2012 at 8:25 pm
Michael Palmer says:
April 17, 2012 at 7:42 pm
Explosives again, only now you have a dirty biological bomb!
—
Good one. Come to think of it, it would be THE bomb – radioactive, biological, explosives, and since its from a pharmacology department, there will be some poisons, too.
Don’t forget the barbecque sauce!
Take a chainsaw to the walls, use a “come-along” ratched cable to move the carcasses out into the open, and then let the scavengers do their job.
Winterkill is one reason you pay more for free-range critter meat — low volume of survivors…
explosives: the government answer to everything
Let’s send this to Joe Romm and see how he spins it as a “consequence of Global Warming.”
Actually Colorado’s cold dry mountain air can do interesting things with dead cattle. A friend and I were hunting on the north side of the Gunnison river near the Blue Mesa reservior when we spotted a cow laying down in the bottom of a gully. We hiked down through the gully and when we got to it we found it was stone dead and freeze dried like nothing I have ever seen before. It was very strange. Nothing had bothered it. It was just like a taxidermy mount. Although, very poorly done.
Lived in Port Orford, Oregon,one day a very dead Gray Whale washed up on the beach at
Paradise point. This particular Whale had washed up on the Beach at Bandon. This time with
memories of the exploding whale fresh in the ODFW;s mind, they had the Coast Guard tow it out
to sea, and after ripening for a week at sea the thing washed up at Port Orford, now very
smelly the thing stank up the entire city, So one night a phantom back hoe, appeared and making
much noise buried the thing deep in the sands of Paradise,,
No one addmitted to doing it, no one cared, Except a certain road builder was seen renting
a steam cleaner, and seen buying several boxes of tide soap at the local Sentry store…
We used to have an explosives test bunker at our labs. Thick concrete. Looked very much like that cabin, except there was dirt piled on top to damp the noise. It was pretty well used, and had been around long enough for a tree to grow in the dirt on the bunker roof, about 4m high. When you let off a kilo of ANFO the tree and dirt would bounce a couple feet into the air, then fall back down in a big cloud of dust. Never seemed to harm the tree.
In this case a charge of ANFO would both raise the roof nicely and give a good slug of blood and bone fertiliser to the trees methinks. I hope they all wear raincoats when they light it off.
You should come to the UK where under EU mad laws all fallen stock must be removed for “safe” (expensive) disposal, meaning that the scavengers now have to go for livestock, pets or the poor old song birds.
Or as a quote one of my sons found says “there is no problem that cannot be solved with explosives”
James Bull
This is why the government shouldn’t be allowed to hire rednecks.
Dismantle the cabin. Reassemble in a nearby location.
Don’t use explosives, just build a big fire. It would be a heck of a great BBQ. ;-))
As several have already pointed out, a chainsaw cuts ’em up (while they are still frozen) into easily carried pieces right quick. Explosives? Yeah, and let’s swat flies with dynamite too…
But the really ignorant statement is that the cows “couldn’t find their way out”. LOL. Not the brightest animals on the planet, but not as dumb as that. The article even goes on to mention several MORE cows lying dead OUTSIDE of the building. What happened to them? They froze to death waiting for the others to come out?
Karl Koehler says:
April 17, 2012 at 9:48 pm
This is why the government shouldn’t be allowed to hire rednecks.
Oh yeah? What’s wrong with rednecks? They’ll get it done a lot quicker and cheaper. And if you don’t like it, son, why don’t you just do it your self. No doubt we can cut that $1.3 trillion federal deficit pretty darn quick with a few rednecks instead of all those fancy suits running things now.
Maybe you can send you a few of our rednecks to fix up Europe one more time. Like the last time our boys did that in 1942-45 and let’s not forget the All Americans in 1918.
Well, I’m glad I wasn’t the first to think of it–it does seem pretty obvious…….
Need to look up the beached whale experiment….
Just sayin’
I agree with Bob Diaz! Yum! Hey, it was flash frozen… 😉
You lot keep making the dumb cow jokes, but they will fight back some day.
Heavy snow falling. Cows seek shelter in and around hut. Much more snow falls, blocking doorway. Cows near shed also trapped in deep snow.
Mystery solved!
Hoser says:
April 17, 2012 at 10:06 pm
Oh yeah? What’s wrong with rednecks? They’ll get it done a lot quicker and cheaper. ……
Maybe you can send you a few of our rednecks to fix up Europe one more time. Like the last time our boys did that in 1942-45 and let’s not forget the All Americans in 1918.
Some of us had been working on those problems for more than 2 years 1939-42 and 4 years 1914-18. What took your rednecks so long?
I want to know why the door wasn’t closed, if there is one, and there should be. Do they want tired hikers stumbling in and finding a sow bear with cubs in residence? Or a rabid raccoon. Ah heck, just to keep the snow out!
Udder nonsense.
One needs to be English and of a certain age for this one:
A farmer walked out into his field after a severely cold night and saw that his whole herd of cows were frozen solid.
He phones the vet who arrives but shrugs his shoulders saying there is nothing he can do. “There is someone I know”, he says, “who should be able to help you”. He makes a phone call, then takes his leave.
An hour or so later a mini drives onto the farm and out gets a rather short old lady. “Frozen cows?” she asks. “Leave this to me”. So the farmer goes back into his kitchen for a cup of coffee. After 15 minutes or so he hears the sound of cows mooing from the field. Stepping outside he is amazed to see all the cows warmed up, walking around and breathing steam into the cold air.
Thanking the old lady, the farmer insists on paying her for her services, although she tries to refuse. He writes the cheque anyway, and asks her for her name. Her reply: “Thora Hird”.
Ah a freezer full of steak. Why remoove them, a pleasant feast for the wild animals when they thaw out, the bears will be udderly thrilled.
A sad end for the cows. A nice bit of practical surrealism to suggest the subsequent use of explosives, though.
Thora Hird! Haven’t herd that one in a while!
This reminds me of the old joke about calling the English Actress Thora Hird
No pressure…
I worked as a summer student in a large explosives plant in my home town. While I was away at university, there was a terrible accident at the plant and a building called the Nitrone blew up at shift change, killing about a dozen men. I went home that weekend, and drove down to see what was left.
This steel and concrete building, about the size of a small public school – a few classrooms and a gymnasium – was apparently vaporized. There was nothing left but the floor slab, and the long grass was flattened in a radial pattern , all blades pointing towards the centre of the blast. A house across the river was blown about 6 feet back on its foundations.
So yes, explosives will do the job just fine – you just have to use enough – it will also clean up the cabin, and the surrounding trees.
phlogiston says:
April 18, 2012 at 1:16 am
DAME Thora Hird if you please! A wonderful actress, sadly no longer with us. Even at the age of 88 she was still sharp enough to accurately portray an elderly dementia sufferer, in the TV drama Lost for Words. She would doubtless see the irony of this story.
@Bruce April 17, 2012 at 9:38 pm
“When you let off a kilo of ANFO the tree and dirt would bounce a couple feet into the air, then fall back down in a big cloud of dust. ”
Strangely enough, after the zoological gardens in Kew (London) was hit by the hurricane of 1987, most of it’s collection of trees was nearly pulled out of the ground. A year later, all the older, more moribund trees, had started to thrive again. They now revitalise old trees using a mechanical method to achieve the same effect.
Pointman
Pamela Gray says:
April 17, 2012 at 7:04 pm
Bet the wolves won’t touch it. They only go after bleeding beef.
Since when?
Solution: One CH-54 + one of these. (should serve about 10 to 15 thousand, shhh don’t tell PETA)
Wait! Explosives can only be used on climate-denying cows. Just ask the 10:10 Climate Change Campaign folks.
DetCord and dynamite 1988 Yellowstone – one dead Old-timer bull bison near Canyon Village. Risk -many fire fighters and a few tourists with entry exit greencard in daylight hours, Threat – territorial Grizzlies protect a temporary food cache and run off any trespassers. Solution – blow up the dead bison. What nonsense most observers said, this would leave many food caches around for many Grizzles to smell. They bowed it up Henry, into many many very small pieces, picking up the few larger pieces that would create the need for grizzly prize protection. Several hundred meter noticeable droplet fall. End result no grizzles but many small scavengers mostly birds. Incidentally birds do have a pecking order.
phlogiston says:
April 18, 2012 at 1:16 am
One needs to be English and of a certain age for this one:
A farmer walked out into his field after a severely cold night and saw that his whole herd of cows were frozen solid.
Thats an oldie!! if a cow blows up, is it known as chuck steak?
I’m surprised they don’t just let them thaw then blame it on all the excess heat caused by CO2.
I think most of the responses to this article have been improperly critical of the forest service. The portions Mr. Watts choose to quote are to show the irony regarding the “winter that wasn’t”. However, if the reader wants to poke fun at the explosives idea, it would have been informative to read the cited article.
They want the cows hauled away because, “officials are concerned about water contamination in the nearby hot springs if the cows start decomposing during the thaw.”
I imagine that diarrhea on a hiking trip would be a miserable experience. A very large mass of rotting meat may not disappear quickly enough, since many predators are territorial.
The explosives were not the set plan. “”The options: use explosives to break up the cows, burn down the cabin, or using a helicopters or trucks to haul out the carcasses.”
Floating your ideas is not a bad thing. Rather, it allows you to learn from the feedback. A barrage of criticism for even mentioning the idea is a good way to convince people to say nothing to the public.
Joe Dunfee
The obvious solution lies within a sentence which includes the word chainsaw.
Here in these parts, vultures and coyotes will reduce a cow carcass to bones in less than 3 days. We just drag them over the hill yonder so we don’t have to watch.
I can’t imagine that anyone is spending this much time “worrying” about “what to do.” This is a non-problem.
Keeps a bureaucrat in a job, I suppose.
I once knew a redneck oil rig worker (at that point doing something else). He told me about camping in the Mohave desert and discovering a rattlesnake hole about 100ft from his campsite (they will usually have a large number of snakes together, possibly hundreds). Having some dynamite along, he decided to “remove” any possible threat from the snakes and dropped a stick in. Although he did kill a few, there was then a large radius of very angry snakes. He came back some days later to retrieve his camping gear.
Explosives?
Lost their marbles.
Cut em up. Frozen or thawed – no big deal.
By June only bones will be left. just like the elk skeleton found high centered deep winter snow over a wide ditch. Picked clean by local scavengers. I should have taken a picture.
Cow-boom!
Ever hear of maggots? It will all be down to the bone in a week with or without predators. The water ‘contamination’ issue is absurd too. Fish decompose directly in water so what’s the problem?
Bruce said
“In this case a charge of ANFO would both raise the roof nicely and give a good slug of blood and bone fertiliser to the trees methinks.”
Sounds like planting the seed of another global warming scare.
[The explosives were not the set plan. “”The options: use explosives to break up the cows, burn down the cabin, or using a helicopters or trucks to haul out the carcasses.”]
They said helicopters were too expensive and they didn’t want to use vehicles in a wilderness area. So the set plan is indeed to use explosives.
“But Segin said using helicopters is too expensive and rangers are worried about using trucks in a wilderness area, where the government bars permanent improvements and tries to preserve the natural habitat.”
http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2012/apr/18/frozen-cows-pose-fresh-quandary/
On the topic of explosives, I’ll relate a story my father told me. Seems he passed through a town in the south and saw the local fire company hosing down houses that were clearly not on fire. On inquiring he was given the following explanation. It was in a limestone area where in order to dig a privy pit it was the usual practice to set off a stick of dynamite and shovel out the fragments, repeating the operation until the hole was deep enough. Well, this one fellow was doing that and after setting off one last charge he looked into the hole and saw that there was now no bottom to the hole; he had apparently broken into an underground river, leaving him with a privy pit that would never fill up. His quite envious next door neighbor saw this and figured that the same cavern must pass underlay his half-full privy pit, too, so he took a stick of dynamite and . . . .
Well, you know how it is. Adults like to give the children a chance to sort things out for themselves, but sometimes you just have to step in.
And the proper response to this floated idea is that it does not float. It is a stupid waste of effort time and money for a situation that nature is well equiped to take care of herself with no meddling from man.
Critters die in the woods every winter — ever wonder why you don’t trip over dead deer and elk every spring when you go for a hike?
I used to work at a local large company just outside Boulder Colorado. Every spring the local prarie dogs have a population explosion. They are protected from human control by the local tree huggers who get terribly upset if anyone talks about poisoning them and removing them from the open space frequented by joggers before they have the inevitable mass die off due to bubonic plague. Once they become infested they close off the openspace to human use until the plague finishes its work.
When they have their spring litters, the little critters have a contest to see who can run across the entry road during shift change without getting hit by the cars. A few dozen of them are eliminated from the competition every shift change.
One afternoon I was sitting in the car just at sun set listening to the radio prior to starting my night shift when I noticed a large coyote calmly walking down the entry road in plain view like it was an eat all you can smorgasboard (which it was).
I noticed the next morning that there were absolutely no prarie dog carcasses at sun rise. Every evening the fur covered night buffet crowd came in and cleaned up the dead critters at no charge.
Larry
I happen to have a ranch. On that ranch dear, elk, moose, bear, coyote, wolf, bob cat, turkey and other criters pass through. Never see any left overs, except the morning dudu. Everything is cleaned up by the masses.
Nederland has been dealing with a frozen dead guy for years…maybe they can offer a few tips on what to do frozen meat in a cabin…?
dcb283 says: “They said helicopters were too expensive and they didn’t want to use vehicles in a wilderness area. So the set plan is indeed to use explosives.”
The headline said they were in a, “quandary”. So, they didn’t have a solution they were happy with. We have a lot of valid reasons to criticize government. I think the sort of criticism we are seeing a lot of in this thread tends to both dilute the more appropriate criticism, and diminishes the value of places like Watts Up With That. A reader on the fence, may simply abandon the site because of seeing a lot of baseless criticism calling an agency idiots.
Joe Dunfee
Hmm. Didn’t know that, but it’s a mooot point. Unless there’ve been reintroductions, the last wolf in Colorado was a female that trekked down here from Yellowstone, in about 2009. Before that the last known was in 2004, killed crossing I-70.
I don’t think the same is true of other big critters that might scavenge – coyotes, bears, lynx and mountain lion. They might dispose of the carcases after, say, a summer or so. That’s a lot of meat.
I would agree with Bill, it’s a lot of meat. 6 cows frozen together in an enclosed space, at altitude, with partial shade. It may take years to decompose. In the tropics, it would be gone in weeks. The crows, ravens, jays and turkey vultures won’t be walking through the front door in mass.
Blow it up, or while there is still snow on the ground and the fire danger is moot…burn ’em…can you say Thermite?
Trying to decide whether to pull the Brits irons out of the fire for them yet again?
Concrete has a different way of responding to the energy in an impact pressure ‘wave’ than blubber has (or tissue; fat, muscle etc) … exceed the threshold at which the concrete remains in ‘crystalline’ (for lack of a better word) form and it fractures rapidly, disintegrating in the process. Blubber doesn’t, but rather ‘propagates’ a pressure wave much like an incompressible fluid. Now, if they hurry and the cows are still as ‘frozen as glass’ ice crystals ‘break’ in a similar way …
.
LOL, if the cows are frozen inside the cabin and they use explosives, what do they intend to do with the remains of the cabin not to mention what will be buried under the rubble?
Just use a chain saw and throw a BBQ for the neighbors.
I’m sure the FDA would allow the meat from these cows to be fed to children at public schools…as long as it was first treated with ammonia.
Man, that anti-British/anti-American stuff gets old very quickly. You’re both equally stupid – can it stop now?
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0txzFdI9ic0&w=640&h=360]
Chico or Bust.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0txzFdI9ic0&w=420&h=315%5D
Chico or Bust.
depending on how slowly these poor beast froze, the meat may not be edible, plus we do not know if they froze, unfroze, and refroze…plus the body cavitys would have been the last thing to freeze and you never butcher and eat meat with the guts contaminaing the meat, that is were all the bacteria is…. for instance any Lobster that dies in a tank or in your fridge must be tossed even though it has been dead a short period of time …I am a hunter and the verty first thing one does is clean (gut) the animal, particularly in freezing temps as it eadier while they are warm
OMG this reminds me of a story told to me by campus detectives (proctors) at Princeton many years ago (over 50). Seems some students got a hold of of a cow from a nearby dairy farm. They marched it through the front door of a dorm and up the stairs to a narrow hallway on the second floor. The proctors told us about a unique feature of cows. While they can walk up stairs, they can’t back down and the hallways were too narrow for it to turn around.
There was only one way to get the cow down. In pieces. And yes they had to dispatch the cow and remove it in pieces. They described the process as “very messy.”
“It may take explosives to dislodge a group of cows that wandered into an old ranger cabin”
WHAT?!?!?! What is wrong with you hippie city people? It doesn’t take explosives. It takes a small dog to dislodge cows. Or better yet, it takes a tiny .22 bullet or two (better because then you get to eat them). What kind of g*y b*st*rd said that explosives were needed? I’m guessing it was someone from California.
In Colorado, when someone freezes to death, you have to warm them back to 98.6 and ascertain that there are no vital signs and then pronounce them dead. Not to dump on the forest service
(sarcasm), but they missed a huge opportunity to increase the level of complexity by at least an order of magnitude. By having to put the cows in a special thermostatically controlled water bath to bring them slowly up to cow body temperature, have a team of veterinarians certify that they are indeed without their mortal coils and then blow them up, the gubment could easily have spent a quarter million dollars on this and put the contingency as a line item in next year’s budget
as well.
Whenever* I read or hear the words “explosives” and “cows” used in close proximity, I think of the game “Unexploded Cow”. http://cheapass.com/freegames/uxcow
*This article is, IIRC, the first time other than that game that I have seen those words together.
Bomb them!
…
Just let the rest of the animals have a meal for cow’s sake.
Throw them with a trubuchet …. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ8jGqdE2iw
🙂
Where’s input from Willis E., the cowboy genious?
The folks at Improbable Research have discovered the officially-sanctioned methods for destroying the carcasses. They cite http://www.sprout.org/site_media/matt/animal_carcasses/animal_carcasses.html .
[One has to be careful with Improbable Research which is, after all, a humor site, but the document appears to be genuine.]
No indication as to how to get the cows out of the building first, which would seem to be a requirement if they want to retain the cabin.
HaroldW;
Yowza! The “total obliteration” option (for 1 horse) uses 70 sticks of dynamite. Ooohhh — I wanna watch!!
Well, dang, looks like they’re not going to use the explosives …
SOURCE
Boooring …
w.
“Air Force Academy cadets snowshoeing in late March found the dead cattle in and around the cabin near the Conundrum Hot Springs”
I think those Hot Springs are near Paronomasia Creek…