Save The Planet - Breed A 'Green' Cow
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After humans, cows are believed to be the biggest polluters of our Planet, responsible for three-quarters of all methane emissions - and most of it is thanks to their incessant burping!
Reducing this even slghtly, could help reduce greenhouse gas emissions substantially and really help in our fight against global warming. A Canadian scientist is therefore on a new quest. He wants to examine why cows produce so much methane and see if he can breed a species that will be more environmentally friendly!
In order to do that he is planning to examine which gene in the bovine's four stomachs is responsible for the methane production.
The Alberta scientist has several ideas that he think may work. Among them are breeding cows that grow faster, hence spend less time munching grass. He also thinks cows could be bred so that they can convert more food to muscle and hence produce less waste.
While these are radical methods and require genetic engineering of the animal, some natural methods that in our opinion make more sense are already being used.
One of the more humane ones is feeding the cows with a diet that is higher in energy and rich in edible oils - things like hemp, alfalfa and flax. Stoneyfield Farm in the USA is already using this method and has managed to reduce methane production by 12 percent. Scientists estimate a measure as simple as that, if followed by every farmer, would be equivalent of taking off half a million cars off our roads!
sources: dailymail.co.uk, sun.co.uk
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25 Comments
- Animal Loveralmost 4 yearsawesome. animals are cool hope the cows are alright
- Video game 🎮 about 4 yearsInteresting article I think it is good 😊
- FBFover 4 yearsYEAH! what 11bookworm said!
- shivi483over 7 yearsPeople we must care animals it is part of our world
- kell-bellalmost 8 yearsok stop messing with animals please people. let the world work the way it was supposed to. we just go and belch out smoke and smog, and the way we fix it is messing with animals? Why not just break our habits? seriously >:(
- hornadel000over 6 yearssave animals there dying because of that smoke and smog
- 11bookwormover 6 yearsawesomely said ☺ You go girl
- yellewabout 8 yearsgood
- John Doeover 8 yearsFirst pic isn't fake, it's just a trimmed hedge. Jeez.
- dolphinover 10 yearsoh wow.... awesome ..... cool
- oliover 11 yearsi'm only looking on this site for homework i have this article for a science project any one now the scientists name i really need some help.
- oliover 11 yearsi'm only looking on this site for homework i have this article for a science project any one now the scientists name i really need some help.