Chapter 27 27. Foot-and-mouth disease swept across the grasslands

The plague broke out!Foot-and-mouth disease swept the entire grassland in August. Foot-and-mouth disease is a zoonotic highly contagious disease with high mortality.Cattle, sheep, deer, pigs...all animals with forked hooves have suffered, and people who have been in contact with infected animals will also be infected.The lesions mainly appear in the mouth and hooves, and it is widely transmitted among herds, so it is called foot-and-mouth disease.Affected cattle and sheep develop blisters and festers from the mouth and hooves, extending to all organs, drooling, loss of appetite, skinny and skinny within a week, muscles trembling so that they cannot stand, and often die suddenly due to cardiac paralysis.Vicious foot-and-mouth disease is basically incurable in wetlands with thick fog and heavy water.

The cause of the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease is abnormal climate.After a month of high temperature and drought in June, there were more than 20 consecutive days of heavy rain in July, followed by days of exposure to the sun and sauna, and a large number of germs grew.After the great disaster, there must be a great epidemic.Since the beginning of August, herdsmen have found that their livestock have been infected with diseases one after another. The root cause of the spread of foot-and-mouth disease is ecological imbalance.Originally, these sick and weak cattle and sheep were the targets of wolves to eliminate them, but the number of wolves was too small to complete natural elimination, and the cattle and sheep were within the scope of human supervision, so the wolves had no chance to approach, and the herdsmen were reluctant to kill them, allowing sick cattle to roam around Walk away, Violent Corpse Ranch.The blister fluid, milk, urine, saliva, tears, feces and corpses of the diseased cattle and sheep all contain viruses, and the gas of the disease spread rapidly in dense herds, and a pandemic broke out.

The Internet was down, and I couldn’t check the prevention and control methods. I asked my friends at the epidemic prevention station to send in medicines, and called experts for help. The answer I got was basically: “It’s right! The more sheep there are, the faster it will spread. There is no way to cure this epidemic, but to wait for death. You tell the herdsmen—cull! Bury deep! Disinfect!” We couldn't mobilize the herdsmen to kill cattle, so we had to run from house to house with medicines to help the herdsmen treat the dead cattle as live cattle doctors. I was holding a cow and was about to feed him medicine, when the cow fell to the ground with a bang, and said he would die.I looked back and saw that the cows and sheep behind me fell down in a large piece, kicking their legs, twitching, and doing a weird break dance.I panicked, life became such a joke in the blink of an eye.

Cattle and sheep are willing to die, but herdsmen are reluctant to bury them.The rancher called the dead cattle dealer with a sad face. I was anxious: "I can't sell it. This is a disease that kills cattle and sheep and can infect people." "They sell far away, don't be afraid." The rancher didn't care so much, "Is there anything safe for people in the city... so many animals died, we have to make up for some losses!" "It doesn't hurt to stand and talk." Another herdsman stomped the hard soil under his feet, furious, "Deep burial? This frozen soil can't bury a cow in a day. My cows die seven or eight every day. You let those experts Come and bury!"

"The government has excavators, let them do harmless disposal, and will compensate you half of the cattle price." Yifeng persuaded. "Who dares to notify the government!" the rancher yelled, "the government said that each sick cow would be compensated three thousand, but when they sent someone over, the experts said that this cow was going to die, and the other was also sick. Eleven killed a large number of them with a gun. If those cows were alive, they would all be worth seven or eight thousand, and if they were not treated, they wouldn’t all deserve to die! It’s not worthwhile to cull them like this! You go to the next-door ranch to inquire, and his family found One sick sheep honestly reported to the government, but when the government brought experts, all 800 sheep were shot. The herdsmen only got a little compensation, and they couldn’t cry!”

In the face of the catastrophe, we are still thinking of profit, and we can't persuade the herdsmen no matter what we say.There is a reason for the government to do so, because sick animals and animals in the incubation period are the most dangerous sources of infection.A sick sheep can infect the whole flock. The onset is rapid and the spread is fast. The danger of the foot-and-mouth disease is not as simple as the herdsmen think. There are many cows that have rotted while they were still alive. Looking around, you can deeply understand what a walking dead is.The prairie was filled with ghostly and evil spirits, and corpses piled up into mountains.After the rain disaster, the roads broken by mudslides are still being cleared, and there are not enough excavators to bury dead cattle and sheep.A few excavators were temporarily called in, and their digging speed was far slower than the death speed of the herd.The government did not have time to deal with it, and most of the herdsmen took chances and refused to cooperate. The epidemic situation has not been brought under control for a long time.

Hongyuan, Ruoergai, Songpan... The large meat joint factories in several counties closed down because of this.The dealers of dead cows saw business opportunities, and they bought them in batches for 300 yuan per dead cow, and built a large freezer to store the dead cows that were too late to be sold.Half a month has passed, and more and more cattle and sheep are dying. The large and small freezers are full, and the dealers of dead cattle are too busy. They don't even bother to make a trip for two hundred yuan a cow. All of a sudden, there were dead bodies all over the field, and the vultures were paralyzed on the ground one by one, unable to fly, and could only pace around like chickens to digest food.The stomachs of the vultures and wild dogs are almost bursting, and there are still more and more rotting corpses that cannot be degraded.

In order not to let the dead animals pile up on the pastures and infect their own cattle and sheep, some herdsmen secretly throw the dead bodies into the river.The swollen dead cattle and sheep flowed down the river, and the river course was filled with rotten stench, the water source was polluted, and more people and animals were infected with diseases.Ruoergai, Hongyuan, and tens of thousands of square kilometers of grasslands have no pastures that have escaped this catastrophe. At this time, people thought of something: "Where are the wolves?!" Wolf?Do wolves dare to come!Immediately behind the dead cattle dealer is the poacher, poison!Under the clip!Foxes and wild dogs pinched to death by poison are everywhere, and even vultures have their necks broken.

When I rode around the field, whenever I saw a dead cattle or sheep that had been poisoned, I would cut off the poisonous meat and spray toilet water to warn the wolves.Found a wolf clip, take it away.Although horses are odd-toed animals and will not be infected with foot-and-mouth disease, they can also carry the source of infection. I carefully disinfect the horses every time I come back. Wang Qingjia, a herdsman near Wolf Mountain, suddenly sent a message: "In the few days when you went to the villages to treat cattle, three and a half wolves came down to eat dead cattle, but they were discovered by dead cattle dealers. They chased them on motorcycles. , I heard that one was caught, you should go and see it.”

I was in a state of confusion, there was only one litter of wolf cubs in the Langshan area, and there was no news for so long, so it must be that something happened to them! We hurriedly called Tashi, and according to Wang Qingjia's instructions, we found the dead cattle dealer's den near the Heihe Bridge. Yifeng called out the dead cow dealer: "Where is the little wolf you caught? We want it!" "Do you want to buy it?" The dead cow dealer looked at Yifeng. Yifeng gritted his teeth: "Buy!" "It's been beaten to death, how much money will you pay for the dead one?" The cattle dealer opened the freezer, kicked out an ice lump from behind the door, and the ice lump slid to my feet—the frozen wolf!

The ice wolf grinned, clenched its steel teeth, the expression on its face struggled and twisted, its wolf eyes widened with anger, the eyeballs had turned white, and its four legs were stiffly stretched out.She thought it was too late to save him, but it was too late.Looking closely at the wolf corpse, my heart stopped beating instantly.Even though he was frozen hard, I recognized him at a glance——Fuzai, my favorite child, the most resembling green wolf cub in the wolf den in Houshan, the wolf cub we desperately rescued from poachers. He was looking at Wolf Mountain with fiery eyes in his arms, but now he was lying lifeless in the freezer, mixed with piles of cow carcasses. A cold wind blows from the freezer, as if a silent cry hits my eardrums in the air. "How did you catch it?" Yifeng's voice trembled. "Good luck," said the dead cattle dealer proudly. "When I collected the cattle, there were three and a half big wolves lying there eating the dead cattle. They ran away when they saw us, and we chased them on motorcycles. We were going to catch them. Not this wolf, because he and another wolf of about the same size can run very fast, and they can't chase after getting through the fence. I focused on the smallest wolf. Lame, can’t run fast. We were about to catch up, but we didn’t know that the big wolf rushed back to us with its teeth and claws, and we knocked him over with a few sticks, but the little lame wolf ran away instead.” I opened my mouth, and swallowed back the words that rushed to my throat.The one who escaped must have been a small one, but I didn't expect that he still left regrets on his hind legs.Fu Zai has loved this younger brother very much since he was a child. When the little boy fell into the puddle, Fu Zai kept holding his head to prevent him from drowning.I still remember that when we were in the hut, the two of them sat on my lap silently looking at the direction home, and the little one started to eat only after listening to Fuzai's consolation.In Wolf Mountain, every time we hunted wild rabbits, Fuzai would always leave a portion for Xiaobudian. When Hot Mom tried to attack me, Fuzai and Xiaobudian blocked Mother Wolf for me. I still remember Fuzai gently shaking me The appearance of the tail...everything happened as if it happened yesterday, vividly in my memory, and everything disappeared with death. Fuzi, you are a good brother, but you sent yourself into this icy hell in exchange for your brother. My hands were frozen together with the ice wolf, so cold that I didn't feel any pain.The voice of the cattle dealer was still piercing into my ears like a poisonous bug: "Can you buy it or not? Why don't you just look at it and say nothing, if you buy it sincerely, you will give me a price, which is cheaper? You can use it to roast the whole wolf..." I clenched my fists, and the ice in my hand turned into steam.How much I want to take the body of the wolf back to the former residence and bury it.I called out his name, hardened my heart and pulled Yifeng out of the freezer door.Fu Tsai, I will never let your death benefit anyone. "I won't let him go!" Yifeng slammed the car door, and uttered a few words between clenched teeth. His voice had been distorted by hatred, making people shudder.I know that even if it brings revenge, he will not hesitate. That night, Yifeng and Tashi had a long discussion outside the house.I heard Yifeng light the fire again and again, the light of the cigarette butt flickered before his lips. A few days later, I heard that relevant government departments had detained the dead cattle dealer based on the report and sealed up the freezer.The other dead cattle dealers hid temporarily after hearing the news, and they will resume their old business after the news passes. Zhaxituo got Fu Zai's body back in private. I unwrapped the cloth and hugged Fuzai from Tashi.He's thawed out, limp, and his neck hangs limply in my arms.His ribs were broken, his skull was shattered, and two lines of pale red tears of blood melted from his eyes, slowly flowing down the bridge of his nose. We dug a foot of pure land in the wolf valley.In the end, he touched noses with Fu Zai, put his body gently into the burrow, straightened his limbs, and turned his head to the wolf's den where he was born... His eyes can't be closed, so let's open them.I curled my fingers and gently combed his wolf mane. The wolf fur had already been replaced, and the teeth were also strong wolf fangs. There was a bitter smile at the corner of my mouth: "Look, you have grown up, how good you look... My Fuzi will definitely be the wolf king in the future... You were caught when you were young, why are you so careless... ...it's all right now, it's over, you're home, no one can hurt you anymore..." The grief in my heart was pressed down layer by layer, like a huge stone, and I couldn't breathe.I thought I would cry, but I didn't, I just wanted to look at him in this quiet valley as before, and just talk to him quietly and quietly for a while. The cold soil was sprinkled in, covering Fuzai's body and face, bit by bit...covering all the memories of him. Yifeng didn't have the courage to look at him, his face turned blue and white, and his eye sockets were bloodshot, but he resisted not saying a word, sat with his head down for a while, then stood up abruptly, raised his neck, and forced the tears that were about to flow out. went back. There is a lone star hanging in the blue and white sky above Wolf Mountain. I don’t know if Fu Zai’s soul is attached to that star, and it is blinking at us, protecting the brother he bought back with his life. The wolves became more vigilant.dead body?Wolves don't wade in this muddy water!They hunted and killed some sick cows that were dying, and they wanted to eat safe meat.This made some herdsmen who had already suffered huge losses even more indignant: "I don't eat the dead ones, but hunt them alive. That sick cow won't die!" We no longer try to persuade the herdsmen. In the face of interests, my rhetoric is weak.We can't stop the epidemic, we can only watch the bones cover the wasteland. Tens of thousands of bodies await burial.Flies enveloped the corpse yard like a black mist, and maggots crawled out of the eyes of dead cows.Straw bags, feces, black blood, rotten meat, pus... mixed into a very penetrating stench, which could be smelled ten kilometers away.I wrapped the scarf around my mouth and nose, but the stench couldn't stop the stench from penetrating into my lungs. My stomach couldn't help convulsing, as if my body was rotting away.We feel so tired, so tired that we want to stay away from the crowd and run to a deserted sky.Human beings are too insignificant in the face of disasters, no matter how much they transcend, they cannot escape the natural world in which they live. The sky is still so blue, the ground is still so dark green, rows of white ribs hold the sky and the earth together.The wind whipped up dust and miasma in the cold air.The old bones piled up, and the newly dead cattle and sheep were pecked by the vultures until the white bones were exposed. The broken meat splashed on the meadow. There were waves of mosquitoes and flies, and the buzzing sound was like reciting a magic spell.The sound of the bones thrown by the vultures from mid-air and smashed on the rocks echoed in the dead silence.I looked around blankly, as if my heart was still in heaven, but my eyes were thrown into purgatory.Is this still the prairie I know? Beside the pile of corpses, there was actually a living creature.A young yak stood alone next to the dead cow, looking at the vultures in horror.He arched the cow's body, but his mother would not take him out of this horrible place again.There was a layer of watery light in the corner of Maverick's eyes, as if he had just shed a tear, which made people feel distressed. "It's Yakyu." Yifeng checked his quarrel, "He hasn't been infected yet! Take him away!" I folded my arms and hugged Yak Yu, he was only as big as a hunting dog, and he was so light, with only a handful of bones left.I took one last look at the cow, and the moment I turned to leave, Yakyu struggled in my arms and turned his head desperately. He opened his eyes wide and looked at the cow that was getting farther and farther away, and wailed loudly.I hugged him tightly to prevent him from struggling back. The heart-wrenching crying in my arms tore the clouds in the sky into shreds.The fear and desperation of having a child separated from its mother cannot be comforted by anyone. Yak Yu is a calf from Zeren’s younger brother’s ranch. The herdsmen recognize every calf, and Yak Yu’s impression on us is due to his mother—it was the end of spring this year, and the cow gradually fell behind. , Just when a few wolves went down the mountain to hunt for spring food shortages, we caught this scene with our binoculars. "The three wolves took down a single yak at will." At that time, Yifeng happily sneaked back to the hut to pick up the camera, because this was the first time we saw wolves hunting in spring.I stayed on the hillside and continued to monitor the fight between wolves and cattle. The cow resisted for a while, and the blood was seen on the hind legs, and the skin and flesh rolled up.Seeing that she was outnumbered, she suddenly bent her front legs and knelt down towards the biggest wolf with a plop. She lowered her head and her chin almost touched the ground. When she raised her head again, her eyes were filled with tears. She moaned with breath deep in her chest, a cry we had never heard before. Both Yifeng and I were stunned. We had never seen such a yak begging for mercy.What surprised us even more was that after whispering to each other, the wolves gave up their prey and withdrew. "Why is there no more content?" The two of us are on the side of the wolves, and we are on the sidelines of the hunting competition. "The leading wolf is so fat, he may be full and has a round belly." It was rare for a lone cow. We guessed that the wolves would call a large team for dinner, so we set up a telephoto on the mountain ridge and waited, but the wolves did not turn back. The cow struggled to get down the hill near our hut, fell down and never got up again.We guess she was badly hurt. Until the next morning, misty and rainy, we found a newborn calf sandwiched between the crotch of the cow, and the cow was licking the calf's afterbirth in the drizzle. I have mixed feelings.I don't know much about yaks. Both bulls and cows have horns. I can already recognize her as a cow.The yak is already fat and strong, and covered with long hair, it is really hard to see that she is about to give birth. So, I can understand the mother cow's maternal instinct begging for her son, but I don't understand how the wolves are willing to let her go?I've seen wildebeests give birth on the African grasslands, which is a good time for predators to kill.If you can't even do this, the wolf is not enough "wolf".Do you want to keep the cow and eat the calf in the future?It seems unreasonable to give up the big and take the small.The only explanation is that the wolf is full. On the way home, he saw a widowed cow and attacked him with his feet. Since the other party begged for mercy and he was not hungry, he had to spare the cow. This is a lucky guy who survived the wolf.We photographed the whole process of the little yak standing, and named the little yak "Yakyu" according to the weather that day. When I went down the mountain to visit this wobbly little thing, he shyly arched under the mother cow's belly with his legs splayed out, and pressed his head against the cow's huge udder to balance his body.The blue sky after the rain, the tongue of the cow licking his forehead, and the reflection of his long eyelashes on the clear black eyes of the calf, this is the world in Yak Yu's eyes. But later, I heard from the herdsmen that the three wolves turned to the back of the mountain and hunted another cow to eat.Later, when we found a litter of wolf cubs in the mountains, I suddenly realized that the fat wolf with a big belly might be the mother-to-be who was also pregnant at the time, and she spared her prey.But this is something I didn't realize until much later.Wolves do have a heart of compassion, and Green once made me feel this way. Perhaps the expression of the wolf clan's supercilious and aloof masters comes from the deep compassion in their hearts. It is a pity that the cow mother who begged the natural enemies for survival for her children is now crushed by the epidemic. Zeren looked at Yakyu's teeth: "Such a small cow has no milk to eat, and will starve to death soon. This foot-and-mouth disease alone killed tens of thousands of cows in our village, and the remaining calves are just It’s just a matter of getting through the day, it won’t last long.” "Anyway, please send the calf back to its owner. We don't speak Tibetan well, so I'm afraid we won't be able to explain it clearly. Let him be fed with a milk bottle, and he will always survive." I carried Yak Yu to the lake. In the car. Perhaps the struggle when leaving his mother had exhausted all the strength of the calf, and he curled up helplessly in the car, without even the strength to raise his head.His eyes were empty, and even the sorrow of losing his mother flowed away with tears, as if the world had nothing to do with him. "Bottle? Now the foot and mouth disease has killed a mountain of cows, which has turned the grasslands on their backs. They can't take care of injecting and taking medicine for the big cows. Who cares about feeding the calves with a milk bottle? How many cows die in this season? The calf was buried with him." Two days later, Zeren told me that the yak yakyu was returned to his younger brother. At that time, his younger brother was not at home, so he put the calf to sleep in front of his younger brother's house, where three Tibetan dogs were tied nearby to guard it.But that evening, after the calf woke up, he went to the three dogs and was bitten to death.When Zeren's brother found out, only the head and hoofs remained of the calf. My heart is full of lead.I really shouldn't have sent him back, but he was full of dogs when he got out of the wolf's mouth. Yak Yu, will the road to heaven be too crowded, have you found your mother?When you find your mother, there will be no more pain and no need to be afraid.