I have heard and unfortunately don't have a citation that it is the belching that is part of the cud chewing that is causing the methane rather than the flattulence is is common to all creatures. Apparently changes in feed can help the problem. I also wonder about when the buffalo roamed the west.

James A. Bryant

>>> Gavin Clarkson <[log in to unmask]> 1/8/2007 3:04 PM >>>
Ok, I can't help myself, so I have to pass this news story along.

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=20772&Cr=global&Cr1=environment 

Now, it might be legitimate to argue that cattle raising is a 
human-controlled activity, but it would also be legitimate to argue that 
the developing world is more responsible than the industrialized world.

As noted in the report, "The global livestock sector is growing faster 
than any other agricultural sub-sector. It provides livelihoods to about 
1.3 billion people and contributes about 40 per cent to global 
agricultural output. For many poor farmers in developing countries 
livestock are also a source of renewable energy for draft and an essential 
source of organic fertilizer for their crops.

Livestock now use 30 per cent of the earth’s entire land surface, mostly 
permanent pasture but also including 33 per cent of the global arable land 
used to producing feed for livestock, the report notes. As forests are 
cleared to create new pastures, it is a major driver of deforestation, 
especially in Latin America where, for example, some 70 per cent of former 
forests in the Amazon have been turned over to grazing.

At the same time herds cause wide-scale land degradation, with about 20 
per cent of pastures considered degraded through overgrazing, compaction 
and erosion. This figure is even higher in the drylands where 
inappropriate policies and inadequate livestock management contribute to 
advancing desertification."


Note, however, that the global warming activists have their own internal 
political struggle depending on which of the "greenhouse gases" are at 
issue.  A focus on CO2 would suggest that industrialized nations are more 
responsible for global warming, whereas a focus on methane would target 
the developing world.

--------------------------------------------- 
Gavin Clarkson
Assistant Professor
University of Michigan
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