Cattle Tested for Effects of Altitude on Heart

JEMEZ SPRINGS, N.M. — For tourists traveling into the mountains, altitude sickness can be an uncomfortable reality. The lightheadedness. The nausea. The vicious headaches. Cattle, ostensibly, endure a similar fate. Each year, ranchers who raise their herds on the lush grasslands of the Rockies find that up to 20 percent can suffer from a form of high-altitude sickness, commonly known as brisket disease. The illness, brought on by a lack of oxygen, which causes the restricting of blood flow in small arteries in the lungs, is particularly costly for ranchers. Experts who have studied the condition estimate that it kills more than 20,000 cattle across the West each year and renders many more unproductive. For the three years now, as part of a continuing effort to contain the illness, a team of researchers from New Mexico State and Colorado State Universities have been trying to determine which cattle are more likely to be genetically disposed to survive at high altitudes, where grazing can be plentiful. On Monday, the team spent hours at the sprawling Valles Caldera National Preserve in northern New Mexico, performing pulmonary arterial pressure measurements on young cows and bulls...more