BY JOHN LAURITSEN

OCTOBER 13, 2023 / 12:46 PM / CBS MINNESOTA

https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/meeker-county-turkey-flock-destroyed-but-experts-dont-expect-itll-impact-thanksgiving-dinner-supply/

MEEKER COUNTY, Minn. — Earlier this week a turkey flock was destroyed in Meeker County after a number of birds tested positive for bird flu. 

It’s the first confirmed case in Minnesota since last spring. 

The flock of 140,000 birds was terminated to prevent the virus from spreading, which is a federal requirement when bird flu is detected. Symptoms include sudden death, along with decreases in water consumption and egg production. 

“Half of them were market ready so they were at the age where they were ready to go to the processor, said Abby Schuft, University of Minnesota Extension Educator.

The news wasn’t entirely unexpected, as during migration, water fowl can potentially come into contact with turkey and chicken flocks. Bird flu has been reported in six other states in the past 30 days, including South Dakota. 

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RELATED: Deadly bird flu reappears in South Dakota poultry flocks, as well as Utah’s

It’s a spike, but Schuft said there’s no real cause for concern yet. With Minnesota being the top turkey producer in the country, she says farmers continue to advance their biosecurity measures and birds themselves, so they can build up some immunity against the flu.

“There are lots of different aspects coming into play on why the outbreak now is more mellow,” said Schuft. 

Still, she has spent much of her time educating people with backyard chicken flocks, about how they can protect against the virus- such as minimizing contact with wild birds, and making sure dogs don’t track bird feces back to their yard. 

“At this point, the birds that are affected are such a small fraction of a percent of the overall inventory across the US, we shouldn’t see any impacts,” she said. “Compared to what we noticed in egg prices over the winter, the turkey prices should hold pretty steady.”

Poultry products found in-store are safe to eat. All those birds must be tested before they’re processed. 

“It’s just always a risk. But I think the risk is low at this point that it will be as intense as the spring of 2022,” said Schuft. 

The bird flu is not expected to impact the turkey supply for Thanksgiving, which is just over a month away.

EURACTIV.com with Reuters

 Est. 4min

 Oct 12, 2023 (updated:  Oct 12, 2023)

Content-Type: News Service

Beachgoers are seen next to the US Navy aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford in Piraeus, Greece 30 July 2023. The USS Gerald R. Ford, the largest warship in the world, is deployed to deployed to the U.S. Naval Forces Europe (NAVEUR) area of operations. [EPA-EFE/GEORGE VITSARAS]

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The United States must prepare for possible simultaneous wars with Russia and China by expanding its conventional forces, strengthening alliances and enhancing its nuclear weapons modernisation program, a congressionally appointed bipartisan panel said on Thursday (12 October).

The report from the Strategic Posture Commission comes amid tensions with China over Taiwan and other issues and worsening frictions with Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.

A senior official involved in the report declined to say if the panel’s intelligence briefings showed any Chinese and Russian nuclear weapons cooperation.

“We worry … there may be ultimate coordination between them in some way, which gets us to this two-war construct,” the official said on condition of anonymity.

The findings would upend current US national security strategy calling for winning one conflict while deterring another and require huge defense spending increases with uncertain congressional support.

“We do recognise budget realities, but we also believe the nation must make these investments,” the Democratic chair, Madelyn Creedon, a former deputy head of the agency that oversees US nuclear weapons, and the vice chair, Jon Kyl, a retired Republican senator, said in the report’s preface.

Addressing a briefing held to release the report, Kyl said the president and Congress must “take the case to the American people” that higher defense spending is a small price to pay “to hopefully preclude” a possible nuclear war involving the United States, China and Russia.

The report contrasts with US President Joe Biden’s position that the current US nuclear arsenal is sufficient to deter the combined forces of Russia and China.

The arsenal’s makeup “still exceeds what is necessary to hold a sufficient number of adversary targets at risk so as to deter enemy nuclear attack,” the Arms Control Association advocacy group said in response to the report.

“The United States and its allies must be ready to deter and defeat both adversaries simultaneously,” the Strategic Posture Commission said. “The US-led international order and the values it upholds are at risk from the Chinese and Russian authoritarian regimes.”

Congress in 2022 created the panel of six Democrats and six Republicans to assess long-term threats to the United States and recommend changes in US conventional and nuclear forces.

The panel accepted a Pentagon forecast that China’s rapid nuclear arsenal expansion likely will give it 1,500 nuclear warheads by 2035, confronting the United States with a second major nuclear-armed rival for the first time.

The Chinese and Russian threats will become acute in the 2027-2035 timeframe so “decisions need to be made now in order for the nation to be prepared,” said the 145-page report.

The report said the 30-year US nuclear arms modernisation program, which began in 2010 and was estimated in 2017 to cost around $400 billion by 2046, must be fully funded to upgrade all warheads, delivery systems and infrastructure on schedule.

Other recommendations included deploying more tactical nuclear weapons in Asia and Europe, developing plans to deploy some or all reserve US nuclear warheads, and production of more B-21 stealth bombers and new Columbia-class nuclear submarines beyond the numbers now planned.

The panel also called for boosting the “size, type, and posture” of US and allied conventional forces. If such measures are not taken, the United States “will likely” have to increase its reliance on nuclear weapons, the report said.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/theodore-roosevelt-national-park-to-reduce-bison-herd-from-700-to-400-animals/ar-AA1ib0Pt?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=ENTPSP&cvid=52e6eb9aeb8040dc9c91ccd0d852f46f&ei=20

The Associated PressFollow

Story by By JACK DURA, Associated Press •6h

FILE – In this May 24, 2017, file photo, a bison grazes in Theodore Roosevelt National Park in western North Dakota. National Park officials are planning to gather and reduce the bison herd in Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota. The “bison capture” is scheduled to start on Saturday, Oct. 14, 2023, and continue through the week in the park’s South Unit near Medora. (AP Photo/Blake Nicholson, File)© Provided by The Associated Press

National park officials are planning to gather and reduce the bison herd in Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota, rehoming the animals to a number of Native American tribes.

The “bison capture” is scheduled to start on Saturday and continue through the week in the park’s South Unit near Medora. The operation will be closed to the public for safety reasons.

The park plans to reduce its roughly 700 bison to 400. The park will remove bison of differing ages.

Related video: Book available to accompany PBS show about the American bison history (KPAX Missoula, MT)

deep connection to indigenous communities and the land.

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Bison removed from the park will be rehomed and come under tribal management, InterTribal Buffalo Council Executive Director Troy Heinert told The Associated Press.

The bison will provide genetic diversity and increase numbers of existing tribal herds, he said. The Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation and the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe will receive bison; more bison could go to other tribes, depending on demographics, said Heinert, who is Sicangu Lakota.

A helicopter will herd bison into a holding area, with a survey of the landscape and a population count before the gathering of the bison.

The park alternates captures every year between its North Unit and South Unit, to maintain the numbers of the herd due to limited space and grazing and for herd health reasons, Deputy Superintendent Maureen McGee-Ballinger told the AP.