This was the reality of an outbreak of foot and mouth disease in 1924 in Merced County. the majority of the animals, which included 18,000 cattle and 14,000 sheep, goats and hogs, ended up in long trenches at the Bellevue Ranch, on what was then called G Grade. Animals were also killed and buried in the Amsterdam and Buhach areas and Snelling.

Art imitated life in the 1963 film “Hud,” when the disease forced a family of Texas ranchers to shoot their livestock in a cattle pit.

“Technology has improved to a degree,” said Annette Whiteford, the state veterinarian who works for the California Department of Food and Agriculture. “But one of the tools would still be euthanasia.”

The United States hasn’t had an outbreak of foot and mouth since 1929, when there was another outbreak in California. But as South Korea scrambles to control its worst outbreak of the disease and it appears in other countries, including Bulgaria, California animal authorities are asking the state’s ranchers and veterinarians to be vigilant.

Whiteford said foot and mouth disease is highly contagious, and although humans don’t get it, the damage to livestock is horrific.

“This is a devastating, heartbreaking disease,” Whiteford said. “If one animal in a herd has the disease, the entire herd must be killed.”

The symptoms are blisters on the tongue, inside the mouth and on the hairline of the hoof, Whiteford said. Cattle will stop eating and display excessive salivation.

When the outbreak happened in 1924 in Merced, it started with cattle at the Bellevue Ranch. A livestock dealer shipped some infected cattle and then visited local ranches.

In March, cowboys from the Bellevue Ranch rode to La Paloma Ranch on La Paloma Road, north of Merced, and brought 500 cattle down from the hills.

Some of the cattle were shipped to Los Angeles, and with them the disease spread.

Whiteford said it’s believed the outbreak in 1924 was started when garbage from another country was fed to hogs.

Foot and mouth has appeared in several countries, and Whiteford said she’s convinced it will reach the United States.

“It’s not if, it’s when,” she said.

Anyone who sees any symptoms of foot and mouth in his cattle, sheep, goats or swine should contact a veterinarian as soon as possible, Whiteford said.

“The goal is to have vigilance,” Whiteford said. “We could deny and not recognize that something could be this disease because we don’t see it every day.”

If the disease is found in California, Whiteford said the best way to stop it is to report it as early as possible.

For more information on foot and mouth, go to the California Department of Food and Agriculture’s website at cdfa.ca.gov.

Reporter Carol Reiter can be reached at (209) 385-2486 or .