Educating Bird Owners & Paying For Losses
Educating Bird Owners & Paying For Losses. I'm Greg Martin with today's Northwest Report.
The detection of high pathogenic avian influenza in the northwest has caused officials to ramp up education for bird owners. Madeline Benoit is avian health coordinator with the Oregon Department of Agriculture who does presentations to bird owners.
BENOIT: Our biosecurity presentations have been very, very popular. We go to 4-H events, we go to poultry swaps, we go to farm stores and we do our presentation and we are available for questions. We are getting very positive feedback. Every time we go to one of these events, we get invited to four more.
Jackson County, Oregon may be the first county on the west side of the Cascades with a means of paying livestock owners for losses due to wolf predation and subsidizing preventive measures such as installing fences and alarm systems. Seven wolves are known to call the region home and state figures for 2014 showed 18 sheep and four cattle confirmed killed, and others injured. There are a number of tactics that are available to ranch owners to discourage wolves including range riders on horseback or ATV's. Also, collared wolves can emit signals that set off loud security alarms installed by ranchers to spook the wolves away. Ranchers who sign up for notification programs can receive phone calls, text messages or emails alerting them to wolves in the area.
That's today's Northwest Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network of the West.
