Packages of mystery seeds from foreign countries have been showing up in the mailboxes of residents throughout the country, including some in Skagit County, and agricultural officials are asking recipients to not plant them and instead turn them in for investigation.
Hiking with your dog is a wonderful way to exercise and break up life’s routine. While hiking has its hazards, this article is not meant to discourage you from spending time with your pets and enjoying nature. There are many things to consider when hiking, but I’ll highlight two common summe…
MERRILL, Oregon — A local potato processing plant that reported several COVID-19 cases to Oregon Health Authority is back in full operation, with all employees recovered and back on the job.
TORRINGTON — A recent ad campaign by fast food giant Burger King proved to be the last straw for a group of Goshen County ranchers.
MOUNT VERNON, Washington — As chef Gilbert Rodriguez prepared spaghetti with summer vegetables last week on the campus of Skagit Valley College, he made sure each step was accompanied by a lesson.
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Federal regulators on Thursday threw a significant curveball at a coalition that has been planning for years to demolish four massive hydroelectric dams on a river along the Oregon-California border to save salmon populations that have dwindled to almost nothing.
MIDLAND, Washington — This summer, anyone driving through Klamath Project land will likely pass by many empty fields, left fallow after farms received only 40 percent of their required water allocation this year.
POCATELLO — Amid the market challenges farmers and ranchers are facing because of the coronavirus outbreak, the new USMCA trade deal offers the U.S. agricultural industry a ray of optimism.
RENO, Nev. — Conservationists are headed back to court to try to force the Trump administration to protect a rare game bird along the California-Nevada border as the government keeps changing its mind about whether to list the cousin of the greater sage grouse as threatened or endangered.
BELLINGHAM, Wash. (AP) — About 600 traps to catch invasive Asian giant hornets are being placed in Northwestern Washington’s Whatcom County by the Washington State Department of Agriculture, more than doubling the number already set out by citizens.
USK, Wash. (AP) — A paper mill in the small town of Usk has indefinitely shut down, dealing a major blow to the economy of rural Pend Oreille County.
MOUNT VERNON, Washington — Skagit Valley Gardens, a garden center and nursery south of Mount Vernon that has been in operation for 40 years, recently underwent a change in ownership.
American honeybee colonies have bounced back after a bad year, the annual beekeeping survey finds.
MOUNT VERNON, Washington — Since the pandemic began, local organizations have stepped up their work with farmworkers in Skagit County through educational outreach on COVID-19 with the goal to overcome language and cultural barriers.
SALT LAKE CITY — Rabbit Hemorrhagic Disease (RHDV2), is a highly fatal disease that affects rabbits. The fatal sickness has been spreading across the Southwestern United States and Northern Mexico and has now been detected in Utah.
BUHL — The water in the raceway shimmered with hundreds of wriggling gold and gray tilapia as Luis Carmona plunged his long-handled net into the swarm and scooped a few fish to dump into one of the tanks on the back of a delivery truck.
YAKIMA — Fruit warehouse worker Armida Rivera says her days in Yakima County, Washington, are filled with the fear of getting the coronavirus.
PORTLAND, Ore.— Livestock grazing won’t be allowed this year on four eastern Oregon allotments formerly grazed by Hammond Ranches. The Trump administration recently abandoned its appeal of a 2019 court ruling overturning then Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke’s decision to renew the fathe…
YAKIMA, Wash. (AP) — Apple growers in Washington state have asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture to reconsider its eligibility requirements for direct payments through the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program.
BELLINGHAM, Wash. (AP) — A fourth Asian giant hornet has been found in northwest Washington.
LOGAN, Utah — Evidence that a wolf killed a calf in the Monte Cristo area southeast of this city has prompted a state effort to exterminate the animal plus an environmentalist effort to save it.{/div}
CONWAY, Washington — As the harvest seasons begins, farmers will have to comply with new safety requirements to help reduce the spread of COVID-19 among workers, but getting their hands on some of those supplies has been challenging.
A Pocatello attorney recently prevailed in a monumental, decades-long water rights battle, stopping a planned 300-mile groundwater pipeline to Las Vegas that threatened a Native American holy site.
A fungal pathogen that can cause considerable damage in grain crops known as stripe rust has been confirmed in western Idaho, University of Idaho Extension confirmed on Wednesday.
SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — A dead Asian giant hornet has been found in Washington state, and officials said Friday they were trying to learn if the honey bee predators have established colonies here.
VANCOUVER, Wash. (AP) — Two dozen employees at a Vancouver, Washington, food processing company have been sickened with the coronavirus, officials said.
SPOKANE, Wash. — The state of Washington is implementing safety recommendations to battle a large outbreak of the coronavirus in an agricultural county in the central part of the state, officials said Tuesday.
CONCRETE, Washington — Over the past several weeks, children and families in the Concrete School District have had a chance to enjoy blueberry pancakes, broccoli mac ‘n’ cheese and homemade ramen — without even a trip to the grocery store.
LEWISTON, Idaho (AP) — An Environmental Protection Agency report provides details about how federal government dams in the Snake and Columbia river system raise summer water temperatures, hurting endangered salmon runs.
TWIN FALLS, Idaho — On a typical day in May, Don Scarrow gets a handful of calls from customers looking to have a pig or cow processed. The spring is usually the slow season for custom processors in the Magic Valley.
BOZEMAN, Mont. — First, international ports closed, limiting shipping options. Then restaurants throughout the United States closed or stayed open only for takeout. Demand for fries and hash browns plummeted.
LEBANON, Ore. (AP) — An Oregon ranching couple, fined nearly $18,000 for creating an illegal burn pile that included 40 dead animals, contested the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality’s penalty and won.
A Skagit Valley County, Washington, farm advocacy group has raised concerns that proposed state rules to reduce the spread of COVID-19 in temporary worker housing would negatively impact farmers’ ability to harvest their crops.
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — (AP) A South Dakota pork processing plant took its first steps toward reopening Monday after being shuttered for over two weeks because of a coronavirus outbreak that infected more than 800 employees.
OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — Washington Fish and Wildlife officials say they will start spring trapping of wolves, an activity that was previously considered non-essential under Gov. Jay Inslee’s COVID-19 stay-at-home order.
SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — The world's largest hornet, a 2-inch killer dubbed the "Murder Hornet" with an appetite for honey bees, has been found in Washington state, where entomologists were making plans to wipe it out.
Zoonotic diseases or zoonoses — such as avian influenza, swine flu, and even COVID-19 — are the most common sources of new and emerging diseases. These illnesses mutate and spread from animal hosts to infect humans, and veterinary researchers are on the front lines: preventing future pandemi…
Spring is a typical time of year to vaccinate horses against disease. The American Association of Equine Practitioners has instituted a set of guidelines for equine vaccinations but a “standard” vaccination program does not exist.
MOUNT VERNON, Washington — At the start of the year, things were looking up for Skagit County’s dairy farmers, with milk prices trending upward after five years of low prices.
On the back of a bucking bronco, bareback rider Jamie Howlett tries his best to hang on for eight fierce seconds.
SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — The wolf population in Washington state increased by at least 19 animals in 2019, despite multiple lethal removals due to wolf-livestock conflict, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife said Monday.
The Asian giant hornet, the world’s largest hornet and an invasive species first documented in the state late last year, can attack and kill a honey bee colony in a few hours.
PORTLAND, Ore. — A team of retirees that scours the remote ravines and windswept plains of the Pacific Northwest for long-forgotten pioneer orchards has rediscovered 10 apple varieties that were believed to be extinct — the largest number ever unearthed in a single season by the nonprofit Lo…
MOUNT VERNON, Washington — Community-supported agriculture provides a way for the public to buy directly from area farmers, which is becoming increasingly important during the COVID-19 pandemic.
MOUNT VERNON, Washington — In the produce section of the grocery store, purple sprouting broccoli is likely to catch your attention.
MOUNT VERNON, Washington — For generations, Skagit County’s farmers supported themselves on green peas.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Salvador Calzadillas isn’t worried about catching the coronavirus when he’s picking mandarin oranges in the trees in central California. But he said the mere act of getting to the groves each day puts him and his wife, also a farmworker, at risk, and there’s nothing they…
KLAMATH, Calif. — The second-largest river in California has sustained Native American tribes with plentiful salmon for millennia, provided upstream farmers with irrigation water for generations and served as a haven for retirees who built dream homes along its banks.
As a surge in shopping has emptied grocery store shelves and strained the supply chain, Skagit Valley’s two flour mills are ramping up production to meet demand and feed the community.
SALEM, Ore. (AP) — The COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic is threatening to worsen labor shortages experienced by Pacific Northwest farms and food processors.
BUHL — Magic Valley wines are starting to make a name for themselves on the region’s biggest stage.
KLAMATH FALLS, Oregon — Dr. Terri Bloomfield at Shasta View Animal Clinic taught kids how to vaccinate their horses recently and the benefits of protecting them against diseases ranging from tetanus to the flu to Potomac horse fever.
ELLENSBURG, Washington — The emphasis has been centered on quality, so it’s taken longer than expected, but the Ellensburg Rodeo Hall of Fame is moving closer to a grand opening.
BELLINGHAM, Wash. (AP) — A recall was issued for frozen berries manufactured at a farm near Lynden, Washington amid potential exposure to Norovirus, federal food regulators said.
LEWISTON, Idaho (AP) — More than a dozen wolves were killed last month to help curb struggling elk populations in north-central Idaho, wildlife officials said.
