{"id":2158,"date":"2012-06-24T17:06:57","date_gmt":"2012-06-24T21:06:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/?p=2158"},"modified":"2012-06-24T17:09:40","modified_gmt":"2012-06-24T21:09:40","slug":"genetically-modified-grass-blamed-for-mass-cattle-deaths-in-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/2012\/06\/genetically-modified-grass-blamed-for-mass-cattle-deaths-in-texas\/","title":{"rendered":"Genetically modified grass blamed for mass cattle deaths in Texas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A form of\u00a0genetically\u00a0modified grass is being cited as the likely culprit in the sudden death of a herd of cattle in Central Texas,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/8301-201_162-57459357\/gm-grass-linked-to-texas-cattle-deaths\/\">according to CBS News.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Preliminary tests revealed that the grass, an altered form of Bermuda grass known as Tifton 85, had\u00a0mysteriously begun producing cyanide gas. Scientists at the U.S. Department of Agriculture are conducting further tests to determine if some sort of mutation caused the grass to suddenly begin giving off the deadly gas.<\/p>\n<p>The cattle died roughly three weeks ago while grazing on a ranch in Elgin, Texas, about 20 miles east of Austin. According to the ranch\u2019s owner, Jerry Abel, the cattle began howling shortly after being let out to graze one day. Fifteen of his eighteen cattle died, all of them in a matter of hours.<\/p>\n<p>Abel told CBS that he\u2019d been using the modified grass for about fifteen years with no problems, until now. And he\u2019s not the only one with a suddenly toxic pasture. Other farmers in the area who use the same modified grass have also found cyanide on their properties, though as yet no other cattle have died.<\/p>\n<p><strong>MORE:\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rawstory.com\/rs\/2012\/06\/23\/genetically-modified-grass-blamed-for-mass-cattle-deaths-in-texas\/?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story%29\">Genetically modified grass blamed for mass cattle deaths in Texas | The Raw Story<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A form of\u00a0genetically\u00a0modified grass is being cited as the likely culprit in the sudden death of a herd of cattle in Central Texas,\u00a0according to CBS News. Preliminary tests revealed that the grass, an altered form of Bermuda grass known as Tifton 85, had\u00a0mysteriously begun producing cyanide gas. Scientists at the U.S. Department of Agriculture are&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[257,22],"tags":[1264,1262,1261,897,1259,1260,1263],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2158"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2158"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2158\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2160,"href":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2158\/revisions\/2160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}