Rural

For more than two decades, the National Park Service monitored the wolf packs in Alaska’s Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve. Now, so many of the predators have been killed by the state’s Department of Fish and Game that the feds have had to drop the program. It's no longer feasible to conduct research.  The state has been shooting the wolves when they wander outside the boundaries of the federal preserve, to try to increase populations of moose and caribou for human hunters. [node:read-more:link]

The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife today ended its hunt for wolves in the Profanity Peak pack, 13 days after shooting two females.  WDFW issued a statement Thursday afternoon, saying it will resume lethally removing the pack in Ferry County if there is another confirmed attack on livestock. WDFW Jim Unsworth authorized the partial removal of the pack after the department confirmed its members had killed at least four calves and a cow in the past month. State wildlife officials shot and killed the two wolves, including the pack’s breeding female, from a helicopter Aug. 5. [node:read-more:link]

More advocacy groups have filed lawsuits seeking injunctions to stop researchers from surgically sterilizing more than 200 wild mares in Central Oregon.  The Bulletin reports the American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign and The Cloud Foundation jointly filed a lawsuit on Monday against the Bureau of Land Management arguing that the agency had violated the groups’ First Amendment rights by rejecting their request to record the procedures. Bureau officials say they are still reviewing the latest lawsuits. The U.S. [node:read-more:link]

Across the animal kingdom there is a strong trend for females to be more caring parents. Why? Researchers have now expanded upon previous theories to better explain why mothers and fathers differ in the effort they put into caring for young. [node:read-more:link]

These days, we don’t call it algae, we call it nutritional superfood, and we don’t call our furry friends “pets”, we call them companion animals. So, it’s hot news in the world of the advanced bioeconomy when TerraVia and Nestle Purina Pet Care announced a joint development agreement targeting the companion animal market. The agreement, which spans multiple years, will leverage certain commercially available algae-based advanced nutrition ingredients that TerraVia has developed as well as additional innovative ingredients and product concepts in TerraVia’s development pipeline. [node:read-more:link]

The message from the chief lit up Facebook in May 2015. “Any addict who walks into the police station with the remainder of their drug equipment (needles, etc) or drugs and asks for help will NOT be charged,” read the memo, posted to the page of the Gloucester, Massachusetts, police department. “Instead we will walk them through the system toward detox and recovery,” the message continued. [node:read-more:link]

he United States has lost nearly 5 million manufacturing jobs since 2000 alone, hollowing out factory towns all over the country and leaving countless working-class Americans struggling.  Getting those jobs back is a goal that politicians of all stripes eagerly line up behind. But the plain truth is that, legally speaking, there's not a lot that Trump or any other president could do to bring those jobs back, without an act of Congress. [node:read-more:link]

Weichelt is among the researchers at the forefront of monitoring injuries and deaths among children related to farming and agriculture at the National Children's Center for Rural and Agricultural Health and Safety. The 2016 report from the center released in July shows that children on farms are much safer from nonfatal injuries today than they were 18 years ago, but not any safer from fatal ones. Every three days, a child dies in an agriculture-related incident, Weichelt said. [node:read-more:link]

Scientists working with sophisticated DNA sequencing technology think they may have solved a 20-year-old mystery of what has caused thousands of Alaska’s wild birds to be afflicted with deformed, twisted beaks. The findings suggest that a newly discovered virus – poecivirus – may be the culprit behind the bizarre beak deformities in chickadees, crows, and other birds. Birds with the defective beaks, which sometimes cross like warped chopsticks, starve to death or die early. [node:read-more:link]

In a case of canine/feline role reversal, seven pit bulls were set upon by an aggressive cat — sending a dog and an owner for medical treatment. “The dogs were walking by, completely minding their own business,” she said. “The cat just goes at all of the dogs, not backing down.”  The pit bulls and pit bull crosses were leashed and none of them fought back, Grover said. They just began barking after the attack began.  Del Thompson said the sight of all the dogs would have been intimidating for his cat, Baby.  “She’s a watchdog and doesn’t know it,” he said. [node:read-more:link]