PA Game Commission Asks for Help Controlling Chronic Wasting Disease

With the Pennsylvania deer archery season in full swing and the gun season opener right around the corner, the Pennsylvania Game Commission is asking for sportsman and women and landowner help with its fight to control Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) in white-tailed deer. CWD is an always-fatal brain disease affecting deer and threatening elk in Pennsylvania. Since CWD was first detected in Pennsylvania in 2012, CWD has been confirmed in the following counties: Adams, Bedford, Blair, Cambria, Clearfield, Franklin, Fulton, Huntingdon, Jefferson, Juniata, Lancaster, Perry, and Somerset. As of May 2019, a total of 250 wild deer have tested positive for CWD in the state. The National Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends no one consume CWD-infected meat.

For more info and full details CWD status, spread, and prevention in PA please visit the PA Game Commission web site by clicking here.

For a copy of the CWD questions and answers brochure click here.

More on the Glyphosate Hysteria

Here is an interesting article for all to consider, make your own opinion.  The article is by Ted Williams.  Ted writes on fish and wildlife issues. In addition to books and freelancing for national publications, he contributes to the monthly “Recovery” column for the Nature Conservancy’s online magazine, Cool Green Science. He also serves as CEO of the Native Fish Coalition.

Oct 14, 2019

You’ve seen the ads flooding television and social media: “Have you been exposed to weed killer Roundup? If you have cancer, you may be eligible for compensation. Call our law offices … ”

In 2018 and 2019, California juries ordered Roundup’s producer, Monsanto, to pay multimillion-dollar compensations to four non-Hodgkin lymphoma patients who claimed to have been sickened by Roundup (one of dozens of formulations with herbicide glyphosate as the active ingredient). As a result, there are now close to 20,000 lawsuits against the company from people who also allege that exposure to Roundup gave them cancer.

The California verdicts will almost certainly be overturned on appeal because they were based on the alleged failings of Monsanto, not on any scientific evidence that Roundup causes cancer. Follow-up suits that aren’t settled are likely to fail, too.

All scientific bodies that have seriously studied glyphosate report no link to cancer. These include the World Health Organization. But WHO’s loosely connected appendage—the International Agency for Research on Cancer—postulates a “probable” link. Instead of studying glyphosate, it reviewed existing studies of the herbicide. Based on this 2015 review, IARC placed glyphosate on its “2A List” of substances with “limited evidence of carcinogenicity in humans and sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in experimental animals” or, in IARC’s abbreviated translation, “probably carcinogenic.” That list also includes “very hot beverages” and “red meat.”

Read the rest of the story here.

New Publication: Managing White Pine Health

White pine occurs throughout all of PA, with particular presence in the north-central. The following may be of interest.

Thanks to Karen Bennett, University of New Hampshire Extension, for sharing this.

Field Manual for Managing Eastern White Pine Health in New England

This new publication provides guidance for identifying and evaluating health problems of eastern white pine. Pests include white pine weevil, blister rust, bast scale, white pine needle damage, caliciopsis canker, and red rot or red-ring rot. And outlines silvicultural practices to reduce health risks and improve productivity and quality at various stages of stand management.

KarenBennett

Forestry State Specialist