Cayo Ranchers Hit Hard by unexplained Cattle Deaths

A family of cattle farmers in El Pilar, Cayo, is sounding the alarm tonight after losing more than a dozen heads of cattle in just six weeks, and they still don’t know why. When they returned to the ranch today to vaccinate the herd, they found three more animals dead. Adrian Balan told us the cattle were strong and healthy, fully vaccinated, and that even with help from the Ministry of Agriculture, the deaths keep piling up. For this family, every loss is a hit to their livelihood, and the mystery only grows.

 

On the Phone: Adrian Balan, Cattle Farmer

“We have been having that issue years a back with our family, because it is a family thing that we have in that area, uncles, brothers, cousins. We have cattle in that area. So, every year we are losing animals. We put vaccines, because here in Belize they put vaccine for black legs and rabies. So, we out black legs and rabies every year back-to-back. But we vaccine every year and we are still losing. I would want to know what is happening because we done get test from the water, test from the cattle, blood test and everything and everything comes back negative. In that video you are seeing there are three animals down and we went to vaccine today, just today we went to vaccine again. We found three animals today and animals started to die from starting January. Right now we done lose like sixteen animals already. We done vaccine for everything already, black legs, rabies, thick fever. They look healthy and everything. We have taken the Ministry of Agriculture to help and they are saying it is not black leg because when it is black leg the ones from BAHA they know when it is black leg because that is their job. And they are saying it could be tick fever, but I done vaccine for tick fever two times, and still we are still having the same problem.”

 

Balan says his family is desperate for answers as their herd keeps dying despite vaccinations, tests, and help from agriculture officials, leaving them worried about how much more they can afford to lose.