With Cows in Mind

Swiss Farmers Wage Litter Battle. Hard as it might be to believe, the orderly Swiss have a litter problem. Oddly, though, it is not in their towns and cities, where you might sooner stumble over a meteorite than a flattened Coke can or empty cigarette pack.

Out in the countryside here southwest of Basel, it is another story. So much litter is tossed out of cars that Swiss farmers have begun a campaign to fight it. They complain not just about the mess but about the danger the refuse poses to livestock.

Litter can be fatal to ruminants. Four years ago, when one of Mr. Wyss’s cows died, he was convinced the cause was litter it ingested by accident. “The problem is, a cow’s stomach cannot always handle metal or glass,” he said. Farmers or their veterinarians sometimes use magnets to draw out metal objects like screws or nails before they damage a cow’s stomach, but magnets are useless with shredded aluminum, he said.

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I would love to be a 'bovine scout' take a trip and clean up his property.