Let’s Talk Poop! with Ecologist Laura Cunningham

While exploring a cattle-free section of Point Reyes National Seashore, ecologist, anthropologist, and author, Laura Cunningham, spots some wildlife excrement that she believes to be from Tule elk. This leads to a comparison of wildlife excrement and domestic livestock excrement, particularly that of a dairy cow. One of the many lies agents of animal agriculture will tell the public is that domestic livestock can perform the functions that foraging wild herbivores perform as though they can be considered a replacement for nature’s ungulates. The truth is that they eat differently, move differently, and defecate differently. In the case of dairy cows these livestock are manipulated to produce unnatural amounts of milk. This is achieved by perpetual impregnation, separation of baby from mother, harvesting the milk, and feeding the cow incredible amounts of feed. Unlike a wild, foraging animal, in addition to open grazing the cattle are fed tons of supplemental feed just to keep up with the caloric n