05/27/08 HPAI & Watching Nature

HPAI & Watching Nature plus Food Forethought. I'm Greg Martin with today's Northwest Report. We haven't heard much about it lately but it sure hasn't gone away. Highly pathogenic avian influenza or HPAI. Dr. Andrea Morgan - Associate Deputy Administrator of USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service says USDA wants to teach poultry owners how to keep their birds safe and have launched an education and outreach program - called Biosecurity for Birds - aimed specifically at backyard bird owners. MORGAN: The first step is to look for signs of illness. The second step is to report sick birds. They can do that by calling their local cooperative extension office or their local veterinarian or state veterinarian or they can actually call a toll-free number that USDA established through this education outreach campaign. And then the third step is to protect their birds. Watching nature is going to get as close as your computer after the success of the Eagle Cam, the Forest Service Nature Watch will make more video feeds available according to Don Virgovic. VIRGOVIC: We also have a live salmon cam and that will be up and running in about 2 months and that one is located in the Columbia River Gorge. We're looking at one in Florida in a fresh water spring where they can see striped bass. We have some going on in Alaska; we're also looking at some other salmon cams. There's one of a beaver lodge. Now with today's Food Forethought, here's Lacy Gray. You can please some of the people some of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time. It was true when Abraham Lincoln said it nearly 150 years ago and it still stands true today; as Waste Management, a major landfill and waste removal company can attest to. Waste Management and other waste removal companies are collecting methane gas off of their mountainous piles of garbage and sending it to plants which turn it into electricity. This process can produce enough energy to power more than 2,500 homes, and is a large potential source of clean energy. A landfill as renewable energy seems like a win/win situation for everyone. Yet Nathanael Greene, the director of renewable energy policy for the Natural Resources Defense Council says "touting the benefits of landfills was akin to putting "lipstick on a pig". Instead, we should be trying harder to reduce waste." Yes, Mr. Greene, we should all work at reducing waste. But in the meantime isn't renewable energy off of our ever growing waste piles at least a step in the right direction? Thanks Lacy. That's today's Northwest Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.