Rural

In a revelation of wolf behavior from Minnesota’s Voyageurs National Park, researchers announced they have confirmed park wolves hunting for and eating fish out of streams as a regular part of their diet. The researchers released the first-ever video of wolves eating freshwater fish, and said GPS data shows one pack spent about half its time during several weeks in April and May “hunting” in creeks for  suckers and northern pike. [node:read-more:link]

As rural residents we are very concerned with the recent actions of the city of Austin.For decades, Lansing Township has been steadily annexed into the city of Austin bit by bit. More than 2,000 acres to date, despite the city experiencing a steady loss of businesses and population over those same years.Our township is a farming community; we have spent many years and resources maintaining these attributes. We need farms to stay farms. [node:read-more:link]

Over the past week, first responders have carried thousands of injured animals out of the ashes to emergency veterinary hospitals. Many of them were found sitting in the smouldering rubble of their former homes, burned and dazed.At VCA Valley Oak Veterinary Centre in Chico, California, the staff cancelled regular appointments so doctors could focus on wildfire victims. Hundreds of pets, mostly cats, were dropped off over the course of five days.We've run out of space," said Daniel Gebhart, the co-medical director at Valley Oak. He had about 20 animals under his care on Wednesday. [node:read-more:link]

Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson spearheads an 11-state coalition joining the fight to overturn President Donald Trump’s downsizing of two national monuments in Utah, a court battle that the American Farm Bureau Federation says will affect the value of federal rangelands and private ranches in the West. [node:read-more:link]

New research has assessed the impact of global warming on thousands of tree species across the Amazon to discover the winners and losers from 30 years of climate change. The analysis found the effects of climate change are altering the rainforest's composition of tree species but not quickly enough to keep up with the changing environment. [node:read-more:link]

Small-scale gold mining has destroyed more than 170,000 acres of primary rainforest in the Peruvian Amazon in the past five years, according to a new analysis. [node:read-more:link]

When the paper mill that had defined Bucksport, Maine, for eight decades shut down just before Christmas 2014, the town, like others before it, could have withered away. Instead, something else happened.Over the decades Bucksport became known for producing the finest lightweight coated paper in the world, paper that was used in such magazines as Time and Sports Illustrated and Good Housekeeping andNewsweek and catalogs like L.L. Bean and Sears and Victoria’s Secret and Avon. [node:read-more:link]

Farmers face many stresses and farm income is continuing to fall, but a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that farmers are not the workers with the highest suicide rate in America.That distinction belongs to workers in construction and "extraction" jobs, like mining and drilling, according to the new CDC analysis. [node:read-more:link]

The Senate action follows more than 100 cases of megaesophagus in dogs correlated with a specific pet food.

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The ‘new normal’ of a year-round wildfire season is a problem of our own making.Violent wildfires like the ones we’re witnessing today are of our own making. They’re the accidental yet catastrophic side effects of the way we live our lives; witness Redding, California, where the rim of a flat tire scraped the asphalt on a highway, causing the sparks that started the Carr Fire. They’re the result of people moving into fire-prone areas, along with forestry practices that suppress natural fires and human-caused global warming. Speaking to the media, Gov. [node:read-more:link]