In southwestern Kansas, thousands of cattle have died of heat stress, amid a brutal heat wave.
There have been at least 2,000 heat-related deaths at feedlots in the last week, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment said, and agency spokesman Matt Lara told The Associated Press he expects that number to go up even higher.
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Temperatures shot up from the 70s and 80s to more than 100 degrees, and "it was that sudden change that didn't allow the cattle to acclimate that caused the heat stress issues in them," Scarlett Hagins, spokeswoman for the Kansas Livestock Association, said. The animals are worth about $2,000 each, and Hagins said federal disaster programs will help some of the cattle producers who lost livestock.
There are precautions that ranchers usually take to avoid cattle deaths due to high temperatures, including putting out extra drinking water and turning on sprinkler systems, but "we don't have any control over that pesky Mother Nature," Oklahoma City National Stockyards President Kelli Payne told AP.
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