The Rural Blog

A digest of events, trends, issues, ideas and journalism from and about rural America, by the Institute for Rural Journalism, based at the University of Kentucky. Links may expire, require subscription or go behind pay walls. Please send news and knowledge you think would be useful to benjy.hamm@uky.edu.

The Rural Blog

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Flora & Fauna: Joyrides for rats; feral pigs forage through Hawaii; serviceberry tree history; a unique "comeback" bird

Revenge of the tree rats: Some thoughts from rural Wisconsin on living too close to the Sciuridae family

Flora and fauna: Bear under a deck, ants to smell cancer, a vaccine for bees, a mini-horse for joy, Huron microbes . . .

Close encounters of the critter kind: Wildlife cameras catch interspecies meetings, caused in part by human activities

Sea otters have recovered from near-extinction, big time, but they're not charming to people who depend on shellfish

Iowa farmers want year-round raccoon hunting to lessen gnawed-down crops; population has tripled since 2006

Moving to the country can mean having to deal with snakes; the key seems to be eliminating their main prey: mice

As number of hunters falls, number of deer rises, increasing disease threats and damage to crops and landscapes

Exurbia, the housing beyond suburbia, is encroaching more on wilderness, and that means more animal-human conflict

BLM guesses shrinking wild horse numbers to cost $5 billion

Texas 'hog apocalypse' on hold after maker of deadly pesticide withdraws registration request

Wolves in most of Wyoming can be shot on sight

Texas lawmakers want more research conducted before pesticides used in 'hog apocalypse'

Declining wolf populations lead to explosion of moose on Isle Royale, posing possible problems

Texas seeks feral 'hog apocalypse' with pesticide that some fear could harm other animals

Appeals court says Wyoming wolves should be stripped of endangered status

Killing of more than 11,000 feral swine in Oklahoma in 2016 just 'a drop in the bucket'

Humans blamed for rising grizzly bear deaths at Yellowstone National Park

Federal agency that killed 3.2 million animals last year reaches settlement with animal rights group

It's almost deer season, in two ways; here's how likely a vehicle-deer crash is in your state