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Recently the international press have been reporting wide spread live stock slaughtering in Europe to attempt to staff the spread of deadly Hoof and Mouth disease.

Is this wise? One for the media to focus on the slaughter. Second for the plague control officials to recommend slaughter as opposed to quarantine.

Biodiversity is key to insuring species are not subject to extinction when a new disease pops up. If whole flocks of livestock considered infected are summarily slaughtered any disease resistent biodiversity that might exist is lost.

Since this particular livestock disease seems to be contagious only to other like livestock (i.e. is in not skipping from species to species) there is no threat except to the species actually infected. Furthermore, what does slaughtering really accomplish? If a subject is fatally infected it will perish without need for slaughter. Only disease resistent subjects will survive. Slaughtering is pointless and prevents disease resistent subjects from being identified.

Quarantine of infected subjects is much better solution, however it is not as striking to the public as slaughtering. Here is where the media naturally accentuates the need for slaughter instead of more practical but less dramatic remedies.

As long as our infatuation with dramatic stories doesn't affect plague response policy there is no tragedy here. However, what does it say about evolution if one species infatuation with dramatic stories leads to the demise of another species.