Wolf Trial & Bird Flu Continues Popping Up

Wolf Trial & Bird Flu Continues Popping Up

Wolf Trial & Bird Flu Continues Popping Up. I'm Greg Martin with today's Northwest Report.

It's not just farmers and ranchers that are having to deal with wolves these days. A northern Idaho man was hiking with his three dogs when a wolf surprised them. Fearing for the dogs and himself, no doubt, he shot the wolf. Now he has decided to take his chances in court rather than pay a $200 fine for shooting the wolf without a hunting tag. He did obtain a tag after the shooting when he decided to keep the pelt but that pelt was confiscated by wildlife officials.

A new detection of avian influenza in Washington's Okanagan County has officials on alert. Washington State Department of Ag's Communications Director, Hector Castro says they have quarantined the flock.

CASTRO: We got a report this past weekend from the owner of a flock of game birds that several of their birds had died, something like forty pheasants and a dozen turkeys. We took some samples and were able to determine it was avian influenza. A tram of veterinarians from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and from our agency have gone to this area and are beginning to conduct what they call some surveillance. They will look for poultry owners in the immediate vicinity and try and get some samples from their birds to do some testing to try and determine whether or not the virus has spread beyond the borders of this particular property.

A quarantine of a larger area around the infected flock maybe forthcoming.

That's today's Northwest Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network of the West.

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