Campaign to rebrand invasive Asian carp as 'copi' to attract diners and cooks is working, advocates in Illinois say

Invasive species of Asian carp

Adaptable, hearty and ugly are a few words to describe fish known as carp that advocateds are renaming "copi" to make them more attractive to cooks and diners. "It's technically a grouping of four separate [fish] species: bighead carp, grass carp, black carp, and silver carp," reports Kate Knibbs of Wired. "In the U.S., this fish is often seen as a threat, particularly to the Great Lakes," which are connected by canals to the Mississippi River system, where the species have flourished, hurting native species and warping the ecosystem, Knibbs writes. "But it's also a viable and abundant potential food source."

Amy Yang of Chicago, who fishes for copi in the Cumberland River and runs an Instagram account devoted to showcasing different ways to eat it, told Knibbs, "I grew up in China, so the fact that people weren't eating them didn't make sense to me." Knibbs writes, "She remembers seeing it on the dinner table as a child; the fish has been eaten there for thousands of years and remains popular to this day. . . . She tells everyone she meets about copi. . . . There's a growing movement of scientists, chefs, and the U.S. freshwater fishing industry working to convince Americans that it's an underrated, affordable, and eco-friendly protein."

The fish, generally known as Asian carp, came to the U.S. as grazers of grass that choked fish-farm ponds, They escapes to waterways and flourished, to detriment of other species. "Copi eat plankton and algae—so much plankton that other fish get bupkis and native populations dwindle or die out. . . . If they reach the Great Lakes, they could destroy their ecosystem," Knibbs notes. "Since 2010, Illinois Department of Natural Resources ecologist Kevin Irons has been working to promote the IDNR's preferred way to deal with copi: 'eat them'." Irons told Knibbs, "The name was a barrier. The association between Asian carp and environmental menace was too strong."

IDNR worked with an environmental tech group to rebrand "carp" into "copi," which is "a play on the word 'copious'," Knibbs reports. The rebranding has worked, she reports: "In central Illinois, distributors and fishers are jubilant that the fish is gaining traction as a food source. . . . Irons is already seeing this campaign make a difference in how many copi fill the local rivers. In the upper Illinois River, the population went down a whopping 97 percent. . . . Farther down south, where the numbers are much larger, they're already removing millions of pounds a year; as the fishing and processing infrastructure builds back up, the industry will be able to take an even more aggressive approach."

But there are reservations. "Daniel Simberloff, an ecologist at the University of Tennessee, has concerns that creating a commercial industry around copi will incentivize people to keep it around rather than kill it," Knibbs writes. "Commodification is a reasonable concern in theory, but regulations that are already in place prevent farming or otherwise raising these fish; they can only legally be caught in the wild, and anyone who tries to move them to new areas risks heavy fines. What’s more, the sheer size of the population makes eradication through commercial fishing highly unlikely."

A West Texas town is in the fifth year of a boil-water notice, and an answer to its water woes is still not clear

Ed Puckett, a volunteer, helps run the water plant in Toyah.
(Photo by Mitch Borden, Marfa Public Radio)

Most boil-water notices don't last years, but in Toyah, Texas, pop. 90, a boil notice was issued in 2018 and it's still in effect, reports Martha Pskowski of Inside Climate News. "A cascade of mistakes and mismanagement has left this small West Texas town without safe drinking water. . . . City leaders failed to hire properly licensed water treatment plant operators, missed grant opportunities and installed improper bypasses, while Texas Commission on Environmental Quality officials did almost nothing. . . In June 2018, routine water testing found that samples of Toyah's water tested positive for E. coli and the city issued a boil-water notice." Later vuolatins have included excess trihalomethanes, a byproduct of water treatment that can casue cancer.

"Elida 'Angel' Machuca, a former city council member, holds the TCEQ responsible for allowing the town to stall and remain out of compliance with hundreds of drinking-water violations it filed against Toyah over the past five years," Pskowski reports. Machuca told her, "TCEQ cannot remove themselves from the gross negligence that is here. The city, the county and the state have all been negligent."

Toyah, Texas (Wikipedia)

Kelly Haragan, director of the environmental clinic at the University of Texas Law School, told Pskowski, "It's really shocking and unacceptable that there was a boil water notice for four years and that there hasn't been clear communication to people in Toyah about what's going on. And that no one did anything to provide people with clean drinking water in the meantime."

Pskowski reports, "TCEQ spokespeople declined repeated requests to comment on the case, citing the ongoing civil suit. . . . Gordon Hoyt, Toyah's new mayor, dismissed concerns about the water." Hoyt told Pskowski, "The water is tested by an independent laboratory. I see all the tests. I understand what's coming through the pipes and I drink it."

In 2020, "The TCEQ continued to issue violations for a litany of problems. . . . In May 2022, the Environmental Protection Agency joined the investigation. Finally, in September 2022, the Texas attorney general brought a civil suit against Toyah," Pskowski reports. "Haragan said there are questions the lawsuit doesn't resolve, like finding a more cost-effective water supply for Toyah. That might mean consolidating with a larger water system." She told Pskowski, "People have to actually figure out, how are we going to get water to this community?"

'Covering Mental Health Issues' webinar at noon ET Thurs.

Investigative reporter Brett Sholtis will discuss "Covering Mental Health Issues" in a one-hour GoToWebinar session at noon ET Thursday, March 23. Registrants must have a computer and audio/phone to participate. There is no cost for members of the Pennsylvania Newsmedia Association, which is sponsoring the training; for non-members, it's $20. Click here to register.

Mental illness is a delicate and powerful topic that touches almost all Americans," PNA says. "This webinar is an opportunity to learn how to report on the issue with care and impact.

Sholtis was the 2021-2022 Reveal Benjamin von Sternenfels Rosenthal Grantee for Mental Health Investigative Journalism with the Rosalynn Carter Fellowships for Mental Health Journalism. He was a health reporter for WITF-TV until early 2023 and now reports for Lancaster Online, focusing on extremism, voting systems and threats to democracy.

Video visits with mental health providers can help rural elderly still receive care without the travel

Bette Helm, right, who lives in Iowa, visits via iPad with a
psychiatric nurse practitioner in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Tony Leys, KHN)

Amid a national shortage of mental health providers, technology is providing a positive solution for older, more rural patients. "Video visits are an increasingly common way for residents of small-town nursing homes to receive mental health care," reports Tony Leys of Kaiser Health News. "Patients don't have to travel to a clinic. They don't even have to get cleaned up and leave their bedrooms. . . . Online care providers face fewer appointment cancellations, and they often can work from home. While some other telehealth services may dwindle, providers predict demand for remote mental health services will continue to increase in rural nursing homes."

Bette Helm is a patient receiving mental health video care for insomnia, Leys reports. "Helm lives in a nursing home in a central Iowa town of about 7,500 people, where mental health services are sparse. . . . She had an appointment with Ayesha Macon, a psychiatric nurse practitioner, about 800 miles away in Austin, Texas. They spoke via video, with Helm using an iPad she held on her lap while sitting in bed."

Telemedicine became more accepted during the pandemic, but it is not ideal for many medical situations. Mental health might be an exception to that idea, "Supporters of online treatment say it's a good match for mental health care, especially in settings where in-person services have been hard to arrange. They cite small-town nursing homes as prime examples," Leys adds. "The company that arranged Helm's recent appointment, Encounter Telehealth, serves more than 200 nursing homes and assisted living centers, mostly in the Midwest. About 95% of those facilities are in rural areas, said Jen Amis, president of the company, which is based in Omaha, Nebraska."

Leys reports, "Before telemedicine was available, more residents of rural nursing homes needed to be driven to a clinic in another town to see a mental health professional. That could eat up hours of staff time and add stress to the patients' lives. . . . Jonathan Neufeld, program director at the University of Minnesota, said in-person mental health care can be hard to arrange . . . . He noted the number of mental health professionals nationally has been insufficient for many years, even before the pandemic. And all kinds of rural employers, including nursing homes, face critical staffing shortages."

World is on the brink of a climate calamity, U.N. panel says

Cattle and a wind farm in Carbon County, Wyoming, which no longer
produces coal, in 2021 (Photo by Katherine Frey, The Washington Post)

"Human activities have transformed the planet at a pace and scale unmatched in recorded history, causing irreversible damage to communities and ecosystems, according to one of the most definitive reports ever published about climate change," reports Sarah Kaplan of The Washington Post. "Leading scientists warned that the world’s plans to combat these changes are inadequate and that more aggressive actions must be taken to avert catastrophic warming."

The warning comes in a report issued Monday by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which "found the world is likely to miss its most ambitious climate target — limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial temperatures — within a decade," Kaplan rpeorts. "Beyond that threshold, scientists have found, climate disasters will become so extreme people cannot adapt. Heat waves, famines and infectious diseases will claim millions of additional lives. Basic components of the Earth system will be fundamentally, irrevocably altered."

Citing the report, U.N. Secretary General António Guterres said the U.S. and other highly developed countries must eliminate carbon emissions by 2040, a decade earlier than the rest of the world. He called the report a “how-to guide to defuse the climate time-bomb,” and said “The choices and actions implemented in this decade will have impacts now and for thousands of years.”

Climate change has "caused irrevocable damage to communities and ecosystems," Kaplan writes. "Fish populations are dwindling, farms are less productive, infectious diseases have multiplied, and weather disasters are escalating to unheard of extremes. The risks from this relatively low level of warming are turning out to be greater than scientists anticipated — not because of any flaw in their research, but because human-built infrastructure, social networks and economic systems have proved exceptionally vulnerable to even small amounts of climate change, the report said."

Kaplan reports, "The researchers say it’s all but inevitable that the world will surpass 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming by the early 2030s — pushing the planet past a threshold at which scientists say climate change will become increasingly unmanageable. . . . Beyond 1.5 degrees of warming, the report says, humanity will run up against 'hard limits' to adaptation. Temperatures will get too high to grow many staple crops. Droughts will become so severe that even the strongest water conservation measures can’t compensate. In a world that has warmed roughly 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) — where humanity is currently headed — the harsh physical realities of climate change will be deadly for countless plants, animals and people."

Across rural America, people and pols are 'trying to get the Postal Service to do its job' and deliver the mail on time

Silverthorne, Colo., has reported mail delays of weeks or
months. (Photo by Elizabeth Findell, The Wall Street Journal)

"Snail mail" is meant to be an idiom for postal mail, but some rural areas of the country have started to feel like the phrase could be true. "Silverthorne, Colo., has reported mail-delivery delays of weeks or months," reports Elizabeth Findell of The Wall Street Journal. Ryan Hyland, manager of the town of 4,500, told Findell, "Christmas cards began arriving in February. But what’s not funny at all is driver’s licenses, disability payments, election ballots, prescriptions."

"Last month, seven Western Colorado towns and cities said they had banded together to hire lawyers to evaluate their options under the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006, which requires the U.S. Postal Service to provide service across the nation," Findell writes. "The mobilization comes as a lack of reliable mail service is increasingly being reported in small towns and rural areas across the country. . . . The Postal Service declined to answer any questions this week but has previously cited trouble hiring staff as its primary problem across the country."

States have written Postmaster General Louis DeJoy seeking help. Vermont Sen. Peter Welch told Findell, "We are at our wits’ end trying to get the Postal Service to do its job. Most of us are realizing it’s not just Vermont, it’s not just Colorado, it’s all across rural America.” Findell adds, "Nowhere are the staffing issues more pronounced than in mountain tourist towns, where the cost of living is high, workforce housing is scarce and hiring is a challenge across all industries."

Findell reports, "DeJoy issued a statement saying alleviating mail problems would require solutions from local leaders. 'The Postal Service can and will solve problems within our own power, but local economic conditions are not among them.' . . . DeJoy’s message angered local leaders, who called it an excuse and spoke of their efforts to keep city services on track amid workforce challenges. . . . In Crested Butte, Co., pop. 1,700, local officials have for years tried to negotiate to get USPS to install parcel boxes, offering town property to do so, without success, said Town Manager Dara MacDonald."

Hyland told Findell, "If the postmaster is waiting for local economics to be in his favor, that’s not acceptable. . . . This is like a wildfire, and I’m not seeing regional or national Postal Service officials treating it like the disaster it is."

More states impose poultry quarantines to stop bird flu; scientists explain why it could pose a threat to humans

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention graphic

As the U.S. continues to experience the largest bird-flu epidemic on record, and more flocks are quarantined, "scientists are closely watching the outbreak" to determine the threat to humans, reports University of Colorado biology profssor Sara Sawyer. "Many virologists are concerned that this virus could spill over to humans and cause a new human pandemic."

In Pennsylvania, "207 poultry flocks in eastern Lancaster County and western Chester County that supply live bird markets" have been quarantined, reports Philip Gruber of Lancaster Farming. "A wave of farms in the live market system have tested positive for avian influenza, and others have tried to manage sick birds on the farm without reporting them to the state, State Veterinarian Kevin Brightbill told industry members. Brightbill said, “That is the kind of misguided thinking that can result in, frankly, a massive outbreak in Lancaster County and loss of all of our flocks."

Lancaster County (Wikipedia)

Gruber writes, "Brightbill said at least five farm owners have told him they had been dealing with sick birds for the past month but hadn’t mentioned this to the state. Farmers have been trying to control the disease by culling sick birds and not moving birds off the farm, but Brightbill said that's not enough. . . . The current virulent strain of avian influenza is adapted to waterfowl. The U.S. requires all flocks infected with avian influenza to be killed to prevent the disease from spreading."

In November, "Arizona, Mississippi, and South Carolina reported their first highly pathogenic avian flu outbreaks in poultry flocks, part of expanding activity involving the Eurasian H5N1 strain that has now affected poultry in 46 states, with poultry losses soon to pass a record set in 2015," reports Lisa Schnirring for the University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy. "The Arizona Department of Agriculture said that officials have quarantined the affected locations, where depopulation is under way. The virus had been previously detected a few times in waterfowl found dead in Arizona."

Scientists are watching how H5N1 mutates to gauge its threat to humans. In Colorado, Sawyer and her collegaues Emma Worden-Sapper and Sharon Wu did a Q and A; here's an edited summary:

1. Is this virus a serious threat to humans? The virus is highly pathogenic to birds, meaning that infections often cause extreme symptoms, including death. But its impact on humans is complicated. There have been relatively few human infections detected – fewer than 900 documented globally over several decades – but about half of those infected individuals have died. The good news about H5N1 for humans is that it currently doesn’t spread well between people. Most people who have contracted H5N1 have gotten it directly from interacting with infected poultry – specifically chickens, turkeys, ducks and geese, which often are raised in close quarters on large commercial farms.

Photo via Lancaster Farming

2. Why is this outbreak suddenly getting so much attention? H5N1 is causing the largest “bird pandemic” ever recorded. A certain viral variant that arose in 2020, called H5N1 2.3.4.4b, is driving this outbreak. In agricultural poultry flocks, if a few birds test positive for H5N1, the whole flock is killed regardless of symptoms or infection status. The Biden administration is considering vaccinating farmed poultry flocks, but the logistics could be quite complicated.

The second reason for increased attention is that H5N1 is now infecting more bird and mammalian species than ever before. The virus has been detected in a broad array of wild birds and in diverse mammals, including badgers, black bears, bobcats, coyotes, ferrets, fisher cats, foxes, leopards, opossums, pigs, skunks and sea lions.

The third and most worrisome reason that this virus is getting so much press is that H5N1 now seems to be transmitting well between individuals of at least one mammalian species. In late 2022, mammal-to-mammal spread occurred in Spain in farmed minks. H5N1 spread very efficiently between the minks and caused clinical signs of illness and death in the mink populations where it was detected.

3. Here’s the key question: If H5N1 can achieve spread in minks, why not humans? We are also mammals. It is true that the farmed minks were confined in close quarters, like chickens on a poultry farm, so that may have contributed. But humans also live in high densities in many cities around the world, providing the virus similar tinder should a human-compatible variant arise.

4. Why don’t we make a vaccine just in case? With avian influenza viruses, it is not possible to make effective human vaccines in advance, because we don’t know exactly what the genetics of the virus will be if it starts to spread well in humans. . . . Right now, the best way people can protect themselves from H5N1 is to avoid contact with infected birds. For more information about prevention, especially for people who keep domesticated birds or are bird-watching hobbyists, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a list of guidelines for avoiding H5N1 and other bird flu viruses.

Opinion: Loss of most mid-sized retail is a loss few mourn, but today's bigger department stores fail to offer real 'deals'

A Roses discount store in Hickory, North Carolina,
photographed in October 2018. (Photo via The Bulwark)

In 1985, the zealous hunt for a good deal could take you to Ames, Woolworth, Caldor or Szolds. Those stores don't exist anymore. "The loss of the regional mid-sized discount department store deprived us of 'deals' and left us with 'stuff,'" writes Addison Del Mastro for The Bulwark. "The period roughly from 1990 to 2005 was an absolute bloodbath for the discount department store world, as Walmart and Target aggressively expanded."

Mastro uses an unlikely find, a Roses discount store, as an example of an almost extinct business. "Roses is a living fossil: It’s one of the last remaining mid-sized regional discount department store chains in the United States. . . . Roses’ inventory and pricing are both impressive and distinct from that of Walmart or Target. . . . I got a sense that Roses employs some strategy and deliberation when it comes to what they buy and stock; they don’t compete solely on price, as Walmart does, or on a combination of price and style, as Target does. It’s not just bins of the same junk you’d find at every other discount store. Roses has a different stream of inventory that comes from different channels."

Mastro offers examples: "Thick, soft area rugs made of undetermined carpet remnants that have been professionally trimmed and finished. (Every single area rug I’ve seen in every other store is a thin imitation of real carpet.) . . . Big packages of cotton rags for pennies a piece (from a manufacturer called St. Mary’s, which has more presence on eBay than anywhere else online). . . . Roses is ultimately interesting because of the lost perspective it offers on the idea of a 'deal.' What I mean is: While we have no shortage of stores where cheap products are available, we have few that offer goods that could reasonably be sold for much higher prices in a different context—that specialize, in a word, in deals."

"Walmart caused us to lose a whole category of mid-sized, mid-scaled stores that had played a crucial role in the retail ecosystem—a role that has never fully been replaced," Mastro reports. "The demise of this retail category left many areas without a proper one-stop store, closed off opportunities for smaller suppliers . . . . Nobody really mourns this or even thinks about it. . . . But the regional discount department store chain that operated 50 or 100 or 200 stores, at 40,000-70,000 square feet each, in two or three or four states, in rural or small-town settings—when we lost those, we lost something important."

What will it cost local water systems to remove 'forever chemicals'? It depends, and many haven't been tested yet

Florence, Ala., water superintendent Ryan Wallace
(Photo by Dan Busey, Florence Times Daily)

When the Environmental Protection Agency proposed last week that it start regulating "forever chemicals," which are long-lasting and ubiquitous, the first question for many Americans may have been, "What are forever chemicals?" Wired magazine answers: "It’s a foreboding and informal name for human-made chemicals that coat nonstick pans, food packaging, and waterproof clothes before ending up in the water you drink. . . . High levels of exposure can cause fertility issues, developmental delays in children, and reduced immune responses, according to the EPA. They can also elevate the risk of several cancers, including prostate, kidney, and testicular cancer."

The first question for many local officials in the 40 states that have no limits for the chemicals may have been, "How much will this cost our taxpayers and ratepayers?" As often in such cases, it depends, but Amanda Hoover of Wired magazine suggests it's coming to a water system near you: the chemicals "have been detected in more than 2,800 locations in all 50 states and two territories, according to data from the Environmental Working Group." And many areas have not been tested.

Arizona has tested 450 of its 1,200 public water systems for the chemicals and found them in 72, Clara Migoya reports for The Arizona Republic. "Many utilities have shut down contaminated wells to limit exposure. Until now, only Tucson and Marana have put a treatment system in place." The state is "working with public water systems to identify funding," including a state priority fund and the federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

In South Carolina, with 200 tests to go, "Updated statistics released Thursday show a disturbing trend," reports Sammy Fretwell of The State newspaper. "All told, regulators say 78 drinking water sources are polluted with forever chemicals at levels that exceed the recently announced federal standard of 4 parts per trillion for the two most well-studied types of the chemicals," perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFOA and PFOS. Collectively, the chemicals are called PFAS.

"A CBS News Colorado analysis of state testing records shows in 2020, 40 public water utilities in Colorado had levels of both PFOA and PFOS at or above 4 parts per trillion," Kati Weis reports. That is "the lowest limit at which the compounds can be detected with today's technology," The Arizona Republic notes. "If the chemical shows up, public water systems would have to clean it. For PFNA, PFHxS, PFBS, and [non-biodegradable] GenX compounds, the limit is relative. The combined limit of one or more of the chemicals would be calculated through an EPA-established hazard index."

"It's going to impact every water company in the country that gets surface water," Mike Doyle, chief utility manager in Florence, Ala., told Russ Corey of the Times Daily. Corey reports, "He said Florence is considering a reverse osmosis system to remove the contaminants, but that system is expensive to operate because of the amount of power it requires."

The rule won't affedct every water system, "but it's going to be a lot," Christopher Higgins, a Colorado School of Mines civil and environmental engineering professor who has studied PFAS for years, told Weis of CBS, who reports: "Higgins says while you wait for your water system to evaluate its PFAS levels, if you're concerned about it, you can use carbon filters or a reverse osmosis system to filter your drinking water at home. If you go with a carbon filter, Higgins advises changing the filter frequently. Higgins also says these proposed regulation changes will not affect private wells, and advises it's important if to get your water tested if your drinking water is supplied by a private well, especially if there have been fires in your community over the years where firefighting foam containing PFAS may have been used."

Overall costs of the proposed regulation are uncertain. EPA estimated annual costs at $772 million, "but Tom Dobbins, chief executive of the Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies, which represents some of the largest public water utilities in the country, said the estimated cost for a single entity to filter out PFAS, the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority in North Carolina, was $43 million," Lisa Friedman of The New York Times reports. EPA’s top water official, Radhika Fox, "emphasized that the economic benefits of the regulation are seen as far greater by EPA, with an estimated $1.2 billion per year in human health benefits — or over $100 billion in the lifetime of a child born today" reports E.A. Crunden of Environment & Energy News.

A weekly paper had to announce its demise for locals to fully appreciate it; community support encourages quick buyer

Two front pages, superimposed on a aerial view of the town (Citizen Facebook page)

The headline was stark: "Pulaski Citizen to end Feb. 15." There it was in black and white, announcing the end of a weekly newspaper that was founded in 1854 and serves a Tennesssee county of 30,000 people. The story made the familiar points about lack of revenue, but also some points not often made in such cases: "Giles County will have no newspaper or news platform dedicated solely to covering local news, sports, events, government and people."

Then Publisher Scott Stewart got more personal: "Some people will be upset about the loss of the Pulaski Citizen, some won’t. We’ve just arrived at the place in time where the number of those who are upset diminished to the tipping point. As devastating as this is for those of us who cherish what local news is and means to our community, so many people will never realize what they’ve lost until it’s gone. That may be the saddest part of the whole thing."

But Stewart wasn't quite right. His story said owners Sloan and David Lake were willing to sell, and Main Street Media, which has 11 other Middle Tenenssee papers, bought the Citizen in a matter of days. MSM co-owner Dave Gould said, "There was a passion for this newspaper within the community. There was a lot of angst and worry about it closing. So, we felt good about the purchase and have seen overwhelming support from the people of Pulaski."

Gould and Stewart discussed the chain of events on a recorded Zoom call with Mike Blinder of Editor & Publisher magazine, which turned it into its latest "vodcast." The star of the show is Pulaski Mayor J.J. Brindley, who said the announcement scared the town of 8,400 because “The newspaper has been there for everybody. . . .This almost had to happen for people to see how valuable this paper is and how much they did to serve this community. . . . It was a big wake-up call!”

Screenshot of Editor & Publisher "vodcast," online here.

Brindley, who has been mayor for three months, said he knows the paper is supposed to be a check on power, and he doesn't mind that: "They know what's going on, they see what's going on; I encourage that . . . They've always been honest and good people . . . The paper is a huge asset to this community." When Blinder asked if the paper be "put on a pedestal" to get community support, Brindley said yes: "The citizens need to contribute to this. We do need to put it on a pedestal . . . If you don't tell them the news, they're gonna make up their own news . . . We've got to rally behind the paper more than ever . . . I really respect what the paper does and understand more now what it means to the community."

Brindley said he is 36, and "A lot of people my age might not get the paper . . . Sometimes they look at the wrong things," such as social media. "I believe in the newpaper with everything I have."

Giles County (Wikipedia)

Stewart, who started as a reporter at the Citizen in 1995, said, "A lot happened in that one week . . . I wasn't in a good place as far as the community, because I thought they were letting us down, and maybe we were letting them down some too."

Gould, asked why he is in a business that is getting more difficult, said "I do love local community journalism . . . These communities need us," for the government-watchdog function and to "bring the community together."

Ex-FDIC chair worries bank 'bailouts' could drive deposits out of community banks; they'd have less money to lend

Federal officials' determination that two bank collapses posed “systemic risk” to the banking system, justifying their guarantee of uninsured deposits at the banks, poses a threat to smaller banks, a former chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. told James Jacoby of PBS's "Frontline."

Ex-FDIC chair Sheila Bair (PBS image)

“I do worry about community banks, in particular,” said Sheila Bair, FDIC chair in 2006-2011. “For these larger institutions, $100 billion, $200 billion, that’s not huge. But if you’re a $1 billion community bank, it’s a big difference. And what happens to them if the market starts assuming anybody, say, over $100 billion is going to have their uninsured deposits protected? Then that money is going to start going out of the community banks into those institutions that are viewed as having favored status. So these one-off bailouts that are particularly just for a couple of institutions create a lot of distortions and competitive disadvantages for others.”

Referring to what she called "bailouts" of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, Bair said "It’s extraordinary that they’re singling out just a couple of midsized institutions to basically bail out all their uninsured depositors. That is extraordinary. I have never seen that before. And the systemic-risk exception itself, which is the legal mechanism they’re using, is very extraordinary to trigger. It is meant to be used very rarely when things are really dire. . . . If they think just a couple of these small institutions have to be bailed out, how resilient is the system, really?" Later, Bair said, "At this point, I still think these risks can be managed. I think that Silicon Valley Bank in particular was unusual, in that it had a lot of uninsured deposits. And it was a very concentrated group of depositors … Silicon Valley folks. And word spread very fast precipitating a bank run and that had a cascading effect on some other banks that had somewhat similar vulnerabilities though not as severe." That said, "The FDIC and the Fed have quietly bailed out most uninsured depositors since 2008," notes Los Angeles Times Washington columnist Doyle McManus.

What about us? "I would say, if you have your money in a traditional community bank or regional bank, one where you banked for a long time, that has lots of households and businesses that do business with them, have done business with them for a long time, most of their deposits were insured or with institutions that have loyalty and multiple relationships with them — that’s the vast majority of the regional banks and community banks in this country. Stay where you are, right? Don’t get scared. If you’re a household, make sure you’re under the insured deposit limits," $250,000 per depositor, per bank, in each account ownership category. "If you are, the FDIC has a perfect record. … Again, I think most banks are okay. What we need to guard against is just contagion: otherwise healthy banks starting to lose deposits just because everybody gets scared."

The threat to smaller banks is a threat to small busienss, report Justin Lahart and Telis Demos of The Wall Street Journal: "Even if any outflows are halted or reversed, small banks may now grow cautious, such as by simply sitting on more of their cash as a defensive measure. Doing so would effectively reduce their capacity to extend credit. For small and midsize businesses that rely on smaller banks, this would be worrisome, says Raghuram Rajan, an economist at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business and former governor of India’s central bank. Loans to them are often based on so-called soft information that local lenders have built up over years." Rajan told the Journal, “These are loans built on strength of character and a handshake.”

In battle to keep public notices, Iowa editor warns 'Without legal notices, you simply will not know what’s going on.'

What has become an annual battle in many state legislatures has higher stakes than ever for newspapers. They "are facing the loss of a key source of cash that many need to survive: legal notices," notes Ray Schultz, a columnist for MediaPost. "Newspapers, their very survival at stake in some cases, are condemning such bills." Here's an example from Iowa:

Art Cullen

By Art Cullen
Storm Lake Times Pilot

Politicians who flourish in darkness are set on undermining a strong and independent network of community journalism by eliminating paid public notices in Iowa newspapers.

A Senate subcommittee on March 8 voted along party lines, with majority Republicans in support, to advance a bill that would allow public notices to be published on a website hosted by the secretary of state and forego posting them in community newspapers.

They tell the public that they want to save money. In private, a senator told one of our folks in the capitol that the backers want to “cancel newspapers.”

Indeed they will if this bill passes. My friends in the Iowa Newspaper Association believe that a third of our nearly 300 community newspapers will fold if paid legal notices — council minutes, school board claims, probate notices and the like — are eliminated.

One of them will be the Aurelia Star, which we operate. The loss of public notices will deal a huge body blow to the Cherokee Chronicle Times and the Storm Lake Times Pilot. We will have to find more than $100,000 per year to make it up. Last year we showed a profit of $2,900 — Brother John is paid nothing and I am paid $900 per month. Maybe we’re bad managers, but we are still here against all odds and supporting 20 employees. But enough about us. Republicans said it’s not their job to make our payroll. (Although they shell out hundreds of millions in subsidies for Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Wells Fargo.)

Okay, we’ll take our lumps, but what about the public? What about you?

This bill will put public notices online at a state website for a couple weeks. After that, forget about finding out how much a county supervisor got paid for hotel expenses. The state will charge to post the public notice. If you think about it, and really want to find out what happened at the Alta-Aurelia School Board meeting, you can start searching the Internet. Currently, you can browse the Times Pilot and see that your spinster aunt’s probate is on file. Nearly 80% of Iowans read public notices in community newspapers.

Without legal notices, you simply will not know what’s going on.

This is not just an Iowa thing. It’s a national push to blot out newspapers and create news deserts where no local source of factual information exists. That vacuum gets filled by social media and political sites posing as legitimate news sources. Where newspapers die, government spending and tax rates rise. So does crime and corruption according to research from the University of Notre Dame and the University of North Carolina. . . . 

The community newspaper is your proxy. People call to ask why, after reading the list of claims, is the street department buying a new snow plow when they got one last year? They walk into the office with a clipping in the wallet they pull out of the front pocket of their bibs of a drainage notice that they think will flood out their low spots. They would not have known were it not for the legal notice. It’s not easy finding out this stuff now — the Iowa court system charges us a fee to look at criminal information online.

You will know even less when a third of Iowa’s newspapers sink.

That’s the way they want it. Keep people in the dark. Resist the audit that shines a light on tax increment financing or the Hawkeye athletic department, which may embarrass a lot of people. Cancel newspapers and live in blissful ignorance. That’s what’s going on.

We’ll get by somehow. They can’t kill us yet. They think we’re cockroaches and we will prove it by refusing to be eradicated. Not as long as you demand that we walk together in the sunshine. Information builds community, secrecy and lies destroy great republics and eat at freedom. We have our opinions but we keep them on this page. We hew to the facts on the front page. Some people can’t handle the truth and are doing their level best to knock us out. Never give up on democracy. We need each other.

Election-conspiracy movement still going; more states leave anti-fraud group after it won't drop pro-registration rule

About 250 people attended a meeting in Nashville March 11 that promoted doubts about election procedures. (AP photo) 

"As the nation barrels toward the next presidential election, the election conspiracy movement that mushroomed after the last one shows no signs of slowing down," reports Christina Cassidy of The Associated Press. "Millions have been convinced that any election in which their preferred candidate loses has been somehow rigged against them, a belief that has fed efforts among conservatives to ditch voting machines and to halt or delay certification of election results."

Cassidy's story reports on groups and individuals spreading doubt and disinformation. The delusion seems to have spread to election officials, who are withdrawing their states from a bipartisan group that was created to ensure that voter lists are accurate. Two more say they will leave since the group "decided Friday against making rule changes that had been pushed by Republicans amid conspiracy theories targeting the group," Cassidy and AP's Julie Smyth Carr report in another story.

The Electronic Registration Information Center, supported by 32 states, "has a record of combating voter fraud by identifying those who have died or moved between states. Yet it also has drawn suspicion among some Republican state leaders after a series of online stories surfaced last year questioning the center’s funding and purpose," AP reports. "Earlier this month, Republican election officials from Florida, Missouri and West Virginia said they planned to withdraw from the group, joining Louisiana and Alabama. Former President Trump, on social media, has called on every Republican-led state to leave, characterizing it, without evidence, as a 'terrible voter registration system that "pumps the rolls" for Democrats and does nothing to clean them up'."

Republicans want ERIC to drop a rule that member states "mail notices to people who are eligible but not registered to vote," AP reports. When election officials in the group declined, "Republican secretaries of state in Iowa and Ohio became the latest to say they would pull out. . . . The states’ departures threaten to undermine a voluntary effort that has stood for more than a decade as the only national system that helps states identify voters who are not eligible to cast a ballot."

Another change Republicans sought "was removing what they characterize as partisan influences within ERIC," AP reports. "They had targeted David Becker, a former U.S. Justice Department lawyer who served in both the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations. Becker, who was involved in developing the ERIC system . . .  has held one of two nonvoting seats on the board," both of which the board decided Friday to eliminate. "The other has been vacant. A group of Republicans, including Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and former Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson, defended Becker in a public letter, decrying attacks on him as disinformation."

AP notes, "There has been no evidence of widespread fraud or manipulation of voting machines in the U.S., and multiple reviews in the battleground states where Trump disputed his loss confirmed the election results were accurate. State and local election officials have spent more than two years explaining the many layers of protection that surround voting systems, and last year’s midterm election was largely uneventful."

Opinion: Agriculture producers and suppliers need to come together to address rural mental-health and suicide crisis

By Amber Weaver
RFD-TV

Agriculture is facing a problem no single brand can fix: mental health.

Unfortunately, no amount of marketing, technology or even seed chemistry can fix the ongoing crisis of mental health and suicide in rural communities. And not one company or government can come up with a cure on their own to fix this. However, if the industry comes together, we can make a difference by starting a tough conversation.

“It’s actually probably one of the simplest things that anybody can do and that is starting a conversation and it’s trying to make sure that people understand one, that the issues are there and that they’re not alone. Two, that they there are resources out there and helping them to find those resources and then breaking the stigma. I mean, we do not give ourselves the grace that we give to others, and it is an industry that is willing to help others, but we are terrible at asking for help,” says Lisa Homer, senior communications manager for FMC Corp., an ag-chemicals manufacturer.

Homer says it does not have to be a difficult conversation, but it does make the difference in saving a life: “I mean, it’s as simple as ‘You’re not yourself. What’s going on? Are you OK? I know you know a lot’s going on yeah, etcetera.’ And just showing that you care.”

Once they know how much you care and that no judgment is being made, then steps can be taken if extra help is needed because they are not alone, Homer says: “Statistics show that 40% of growers feel that it is a sign of weakness to admit that they need health or that they are having mental health issues and it can be, you know, depression. It can be anxiety. It can lead to bigger issues and this isn’t just about suicide, and which is the the worst possible end game for this.”

Homer says it is important to reiterate that no one has to feel that way and help is available for the entire farm family. If you or anyone you know is struggling with mental health, the Farm Crisis Hotline is always available, and you can reach that by calling 800-464-0258 or go online here.

Bucking stereotypes and trends, Eastern Kentucky originals return to Appalachia and build up their communities

Whitney Johnson of Lawrence County, Kentucky,
is a dedicated forager. (Courtesy photo via Herald-Leader)

As Eastern Kentucky native Whitney Johnson says she heard it, "If you ever want anything to happen good with your life, then honey, leave the holler," reports Rick Childress of the Lexington Herald-Leader. "Nearly every young person from Eastern Kentucky who was interviewed for this article said they'd grown up hearing a narrative they would need to leave the region to succeed."

People like Johnson are opting to stay in the hollows and hills and build up their communities. "Johnson can't imagine living anywhere else. Eastern Kentucky, and more specifically Lawrence County, is home, and she's proud of that — so much so she has the word 'Appalachian' tattooed on her arm," Childress writes. "Johnson shows the pride she has for her roots in more than just ink. She also broadcasts it to the over 740,000 followers that watch her TikTok account, appalachian_forager. As the name suggests, Johnson's videos show her foraging for mushrooms and other local, edible plants — like pawpaws. . . . She also recently pet a possum."

Since the 1950s, Eastern Kentucky's population has decreased "as the number of local jobs tied to the coal industry has plummeted," Childresss notes. "Meanwhile, the state's non-Appalachian counterparts grew by 5%. Worries over young people leaving the region and headlines warning of rural 'brain drain"' have accompanied population loss." However, "In the past decade, Eastern Kentucky hasn't seen the same population decline as Appalachian counties in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia." Chris Green, the director of the Loyal Jones Appalachian Center at Berea College, told Childress that Eastern Kentucky is "really a place of opportunity for educated youth who are encouraged to connect with where they're from, and bring those skills in."

In 2008, Berea "surveyed 169 students who hailed from Appalachia on how likely they were to live in Central Appalachia after graduation and what factors might determine their decision," Childress reports. "The study found that students from counties considered more economically challenged were generally more likely to say they wanted to stay, 'possibly indicating a higher attachment to the region.' Strong family ties also increased the attachment to Appalachia."

Luke Glaser, who is both a high school teacher and a Hazard city commissioner, encourages students to buck the Appalachian stereotypes. "His precalculus curriculum, he said, trains students to be problem solvers," Childress writes. Glaser told Childress, "We're not in effect learning exponents because we're going to use exponents when we get into our professional career. We're learning exponents because we're training our minds how to solve the big problems." 

Stacie Fugate the Coordinator of InVision Hazard in
downtown Hazard (Photo by Silas Walker, Herald-Leader)

Some young people who leave Eastern Kentucky are returning with big ideas. "Stacie Fugate, 24, graduated from the University of Kentucky and immediately returned back home to Hazard to work," Childress reports. "She's been civically engaged since she was a teenager. She is now the director of Invision Hazard, a nonprofit citizens' action group that seeks to solve community problems. She also is the coordinator for the grassroots Appalachians for Appalachia. Fugate told Childress, "I've always been proud to be Appalachian, and so it's really refreshing for me to see an uptick in how much people are interested in our culture."

Glaser told Childress, "Kids are certainly proud to be from here. They're certainly thinking about what it means to be from here in ways that they weren't 10 years ago."

Nominations sought for Tom and Pat Gish Award for courage, integrity and tenacity in rural journalism by April 15

Tom and Pat Gish in 2005, when the award named for
them was started and they became the first recipients.

Each year the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues presents the Tom and Pat Gish Award for courage, tenacity and integrity in rural journalism, named for the couple who exemplified those qualities as publishers of The Mountain Eagle in Whitesburg, Ky., for 52 years.

Nominations for the Gish Award may be made at any time, but the deadline for new nominations to be considered for this year's award is April 15. To make a nomination, send a detailed letter explaining how the nominee shows the kind of courage, tenacity and integrity that Tom and Pat Gish demonstrated at their weekly newspaper in the Central Appalachian coalfield. They withstood advertiser boycotts, business competition, declining population, personal attacks, and even the burning of their office to give their readers the kind of journalism often lacking in rural areas, and were the first winners of the award named for them. Tom died in 2008 and Pat in 2014; their son Ben is editor and publisher of the Eagle and serves on the award selection committee.

Documentation can be submitted after the nomination, and additional documentation may be requested or required. Send your nominating letter, initial documentation and any questions to Institute Director Al Cross at al.cross@uky.edu.

The Institute seeks nominations that measure up, at least in major respects, to the records of the Gishes and other previous winners. Other winners have been the Ezzell family of The Canadian Record in the Texas panhandle; Jim Prince and Stanley Dearman, current and late publishers of The Neshoba Democrat in Philadelphia, Miss.; Samantha Swindler of The Oregonian for her work at The Times-Tribune in Corbin, Ky., and Jacksonville Daily Progress in Texas; Stanley Nelson and the Concordia Sentinel in Ferriday, La.; Jonathan and Susan Austin of the now-defunct Yancey County News in North Carolina; the late Landon Wills of the McLean County News in Kentucky; the Trapp family of the Rio Grande Sun in northern New Mexico; Ivan Foley of the Platte County Landmark in northwestern Missouri; the Cullen family of the Storm Lake Times-Pilot in northwest Iowa; Les Zaitz of the Malheur Enterprise in eastern Oregon; in 2019, three reporters whose outstanding careers have revealed much about the coal industry in Central Appalachia: Howard Berkes, retired from NPR; Ken Ward Jr., then with the Charleston Gazette-Mail; and his mentor at the Gazette, the late Paul Nyden. In 2020 the award went to the late Tim Crews of the Sacramento Valley Mirror; in 2021 to the Thompson-High Family of The News Reporter and the Border Belt Independent in Whiteville, N.C.; and in 2022 to Ellen Kreth and the Madison County Record of Huntsville, Ark.

Revitalization plan in Danville, Va., pop. 42,000, generated skepticism, but now it's a model for other communities

Main Street in Danville (Photo by Rick Barker Properties)

The Industrial Development Authority in Danville, Virginia, "bought old, empty buildings — sometimes at above-market prices — with the goal of selling them to developers. The strategy drew some criticism over the years, but local leaders believe it’s paid off in increased tax revenues and new vitality for previously depressed areas of the city," Grace Mamon reports for Cardinal News, which reports on Southwest and Southside Virginia.

"Locals say that Craghead Street used to be like a ghost town, and now it’s home to restaurants, apartments, a brewery and a science center. The city’s downtown, called the River District, alone has seen about $300 million in public and private investment in the last decade," Mamon reports.

The IDA's approach began with buying old Dan River Mills properties "after the industry left in 2006, depressing the local economy," Mamon notes. Then it expanded the strategy to non-mill buildings, especially in blocks occupied by tobacco warehouses, another industry that declined, because many absentee owners weren't inetrested in redevelopment.

Corrie Bobe, Danville’s economic development director, recalled the skepticism: “People said, ‘Why are you spending so much money in one central area when there are other needs throughout the entire community?’” However, "Cut city officials believed that targeting the River District was a priority, predicting that a vibrant downtown would spur growth and redevelopment in other areas," Mamon reports, noting that "Ignoring downtown redevelopment had cost the city in the past."

She recalls the story of a manufacturing CEO who made an unannounced visit with his wife:  “They took one drive up Main Street and saw a bunch of boarded-up buildings, no one there, this dead downtown,” said Telly Tucker, economic-development director from 2004 to 2020. “It didn’t take long for them to say, ‘This is not the place where we want to put our business.’” She told Mamon that the loss of that opportunity was painful, but also was “a blessing to hold that mirror up.”

News-media roundup: A.I. journalism arrives; a Sunshine Week victory; hope for the future in a volunteer writer . . .

Community journalism produced by artificial intelligence has arrived, and it's scary, warns Reed Anfinson of Minnesota's Swift Coutny Monitor-News. He cites a Poynter Institute article by Alex Mahadevan and writes, "Deceiving the reader is going to become A.I.-assisted child’s play. Where does that leave citizens of a representative democracy who depend on trusted information to assess those elected to serve their needs?"

The Trust Project announces that its seal of approval has been added to several more news sites "as need for trustworthy news reaches crisis." They include its first tribal-nation site, Osage News; its first entirely health-focused site, MindSite News, which focuses on mental health; and Eye on Ohio, Investigate Midwest and the Texas Tribune.

Kirsten Lane

When high-school junior Kirsten Lane volunteered to write for the weekly Hickman County Times in Centerville, Tenn., Editor and Publisher Brad Martin welcomed her, "because folks who like to write are few." He reports that Lane "is polite, a good speller, writes clean sentences, can ask a question, makes focused photographs, meets deadline requirements and offers to go above and beyond. . . . Even if she doesn't go into a writing field, she will know about newspaper writing ... a cousin to efficiency, attentiveness and the ability to analyze. You may not think those abilities are important, and that this nation's future will simply develop on the sentence-by-sentence creations entered into hand-held devices every few seconds. I must say, good luck with that."

Sunshine Week, the annual promotion of open government, saw "a huge victory" in Arkansas, reports Arkansas Publisher Weekly, from the Arkansas Press Association. A bill to ease less-than-quorum meetings of boards "was rejected in a voice vote at the end of an all-day hearing," before and after the House's floor session. "After testimony from eight FOIA advocates representing APA, the Arkansas FOIA Coalition, the legislature-appointed FOIA Task Force and other groups and individuals, several lawmakers asked [the sponsor] to pull the bill down and negotiate an agreement with the APA and other FOIA groups. She adamantly refused, and the House panel rejected the measure as several FOIA advocates cheered." The Arkansas Advocate has details.

Editor Tammy Shaw

When Paxton Media Group eliminated a reporter's position at The Sentinel-News in Shelbyville, Ky., James Mulcahy quit as editor and reporter Tammy Shaw was named to replace him. In her first column as editor, she writes, "Last week I talked to an official at a local meeting, and they asked if the company was winding down the paper, one employee at a time. Not in the least. . . . This paper is more than one or two people, no matter how great the loss. It has lasted a very long time and will continue as long as there is support in the community."

Muckrack's "State of Journalism 2023" reports after surveying more than 2,200 journalists: Two-thirds say their work has been affected by economic uncertainty; about half considered leaving Twitter, but only 28% say they plan to spend less time on the social network this year; they also say they plan to spend more time on YouTube, LinkedIn and TikTok.

Flora/fauna quickies: Dancing honeybees; brown widows attack black widows; bringing birds back to the farm . . .

The center bee does the waggle dance. (Photo by Heather Broccard-Bell, CC BY-ND)

They've got a waggle dancer, waggle dance groupies and distance dialects. It's not a rural string band, Black Velvet line dancing, or even "Hey! . . .Ho!" by the Lumineers. It's how honeybees tell each other "where to find resources such as food, water or nest sites," reports James C. Nieh for The Conversation, a platform for journalism by academics. Nieh studied how many "waggle skills" bees are born with and how many they learn from older bees, and reports, "In addition, each colony has a 'dance floor,' or the space where bees dance, with complex terrain that the dancers may learn to better navigate over time or by following in the footsteps of older dancers."

The connection between humans and whales has been so strong that a humpback whale song was included on NASA's Golden Records, launched into space on the Voyager spacecrafts as a representation of life on earth, reports Kiley Bense of Inside Climate News. "After decades of conservation efforts to protect whales, two recent books shed light on why they're still threatened—and how we might change that. . . . Tom Mustill's book, How to Speak Whale, offers one possible means of altering whales' fate: technology."

Black-capped chickadee (Photo by Scott Martin, Cornell Lab)

That's for the birds! What? Bugs. In California, the Wild Farm Alliance is working to bring birds back to the farm as natural pest control, reports Twilight Greenaway of Civil Eats. WFA Executive director Jo Ann Baumgartner told Greenaway, "There are so many beneficial things that birds do related to pest control, and different kinds of birds offer different kinds of pest control." Who are the best insectivorous birds? "Tree swallows, which are aerial foragers, meaning they're cruising around in the air and catching moths, flies, and flying insects," Greenaway shares. "There's chickadees, titmice, ash-throated flycatchers, violet-green swallows, and various kinds of wrens and nuthatches."

Mention Canada, and many people will think of mountains, beauty, Mounties, etc. One thing people don't think about is tornadoes. Canada has the second-highest number of tornadoes each year, reports Oliver Whang for The New York Times. Another surprise, Canada's tornadoes are hard to count. "Canada is vast. . . . Canadian tornadoes end up touching down in areas with no [human] witnesses. . . . The Northern Tornadoes Project in London, Ontario, has been seeking to address this. . . . Using social media and eyewitness reports, satellite imagery, drone footage and fallen trees, the group has tracked more Canadian tornadoes than ever before."

Left: Black widow spider. Right: Brown widow spider.
(Photos by Louis Coticchio, The New York Times)

Deadly, feared, found in song lyrics and old sneakers, black widow spiders have fearsome reputations. "But throughout the South, the bulbous arachnids with red hourglasses on their bellies are engaged in a lethal competition with the brown widow, a relative from abroad — and they're losing," reports Asher Albein of The New York Times. "Brown widows tend to be bold, investigating nearby webs and attacking spiders that don't resist. . . . The shy, retiring black widows generally try to escape, fighting back only as a last resort."

Found an egg in your pocket? Well, that's worth quite a bit. "For the first time in human history, the care and keeping of 11 hens all winter to receive one egg a day is now a pretty good deal," reports Eliza Blue of The Daily Yonder. "Imagine my delight then when the very next morning I arrived at the coop to discover not one, not two, but four eggs! It felt like I had won the egg lottery now that I knew how much they were worth. I complimented every single one of the hens since I couldn't be sure who had actually laid the eggs. . . . It also was a wonderful reminder that we've tipped toward spring and spring's abundance as hens increase their laying with the return of the light."

In some states, insects are not considered wildlife. They are left unprotected, and yet . . . "Bees, butterflies and beetles pollinate plants, enrich soils and provide a critical protein source for species up the food chain. The U.S. Forest Service says, 'Without pollinators, the human race and all of earth's terrestrial ecosystems would not survive,'" reports Catrin Einhorm of The New York Times. "Conservation officials in at least 12 states have their hands tied, legally speaking, when it comes to protecting insects. The creatures are simply left out of state conservation statutes, or their situation is ambiguous."