The effect of rapid prerigor freezing and postrigor freezing and postrigor calcium chloride injection on the tenderness of callipyge longissimus was studied. Ewe and wether lambs (n = 49; 1/2 Dorset x 1/2 Romanov) were grain-fed and slaughtered at approximately 250 d of age. Based on leg conformation scores, 23 of the carcasses had the callipyge phenotype. Within each phenotype, approximately o...

Surveillance targeting dead wild birds, in particular American crows (Corvus brachyrhynchos), plays a critical role in West Nile virus (WNV) surveillance in the United States. Using crow decoy surrogates, detection and reporting of crow carcasses within urban and rural environments of DeKalb County, Georgia were assessed for potential biases that might occur in the county's WNV surveillance pro...

Salmon carcasses were recorded during October December along spawning streams in 3 study areas: 1 upper Shee Water, R. Tay system (2000 & 2001); 2. Upper Clunie Water, Aberdeenshire Dee system (2000 [part of area] and 2001) and 3. Kinlochewe River, R. Ewe system (2001 only). Estimates of numbers of salmon within each study area are based on fish observations, redd counts and counts at fish trap...

Intensive livestock production systems are particularly vulnerable to natural or intentional (bioterrorist) infectious disease outbreaks. Large numbers of animals housed within a confined area enables rapid dissemination of most infectious agents throughout a herd. Rapid containment is key to controlling any infectious disease outbreak, thus depopulation is often undertaken to prevent spread of...

In two phases, this study assessed the ability of two video image analysis (VIA) instruments, VIASCAN and Computer Vision System (CVS), to augment assignment of yield grades (YG) to beef carcasses to 0.1 of a YG at commercial packing plant speeds and to test cutout prediction accuracy of a YG augmentation system that used a prototype augmentation touchpanel grading display (designed to operate ...

Oxygen minimum zones (OMZs) in the ocean are of key importance for pelagic fixed-nitrogen loss (N-loss) through microbial denitrification and anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox). Recent studies document that zooplankton is surprisingly abundant in and around OMZs and that the microbial community associated with carcasses of a large copepod species mediates denitrification. Here, we investiga...

The objective of this experiment was to evaluate alternative sources of tropically adapted cattle germplasm and compare them with Angus- (AN) and Hereford- (HE) sired steers. Carcass, yield, and longissimus thoracis palatability traits from F(1) steers (n = 621) obtained from mating AN and MARC III cows to HE, AN, Brangus (BR), Beefmaster (BM), Bonsmara (BO), or Romosinuano (RO) sires were comp...

Nicrophorine beetles (Nicrophorus and Ptomascopus spp.) use small carcasses as a food source for young, a breeding ecology distinct from other silphid beetles. While adaptations to the use of small carcasses are well known for Nicrophorus (emitting sex pheromone, burying, rounding and removing hair from carcasses, regulating brood size, regurgitating to young, and preventing predation), there i...