The public will have another month to weigh in on a controversial new mega-dairy proposed at the former Boardman Tree Farm property.  More than 2,300 comments have already poured in to the Oregon Department of Agriculture and Department of Environmental Quality on the Lost Valley Ranch, an operation that would add 30,000 cows to the area and generate roughly 187 million gallons of liquid manure each year.   ODA and DEQ are responsible for registering the dairy as a confined animal feeding operation, or CAFO. [node:read-more:link]

An environmentalist group has failed to persuade a federal judge that sheep grazing on about 220,000 publicly owned acres in Idaho violates environmental law.  Chief U.S. Magistrate Judge Ronald Bush has rejected several arguments by the Western Watersheds Project that federal land managers insufficiently studied the impact of grazing on sage grouse habitat.  In 2013, the U.S. [node:read-more:link]

Just as the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur began Tuesday night, a federal judge lifted a temporary restraining order against a California synagogue performing a ritual where chickens are twirled in the air before they’re slaughtered.  Judge Andre Birotte Jr. had granted the order last week at the request of an animal rights group called United Poultry Concerns, and he scheduled a hearing for Thursday. [node:read-more:link]

The avian influenza virus may be quickly inactivated by heat, a USDA researcher has shown.  Erica Spackman, of USDA ARS, recently completed research that provides various time and temperature profiles to effectively inactivate the avian influenza virus in chicken litter. For example, highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) was inactivated after just one day at a temperature of 90°F (USDA recommends two days to ensure inactivation, though). [node:read-more:link]

The Bureau of Land Management has horses grazing on a ranch the agency rents, one of 60 private ranches, corrals and feedlots where it stores 46,000 wild horses it has removed from the West's public lands. The cost:49 million a year. The expense eats up 66 percent of the federal budget for managing wild horses. The program cannot afford to continue old management practices that created the problem, or afford to come up with solutions that might fix it. [node:read-more:link]

A heavy burden – the potential future of the state’s dairy industry – now rests on the shoulders of the New Hampshire Legislature.  The Milk Producers Emergency Relief Fund Board met for the second time in as many weeks Tuesday and recommended that legislators approve a $3.6 million one-time payment to the state’s dairy farmers in response to this year’s drought.  The recommendation, one of three included in the board’s annual report, will be passed along to Gov. Maggie Hassan and House Speaker Shawn Jasper on Wednesday. [node:read-more:link]

The United States is awash in pork, beef, eggs, milk and bountiful harvests. U.S. meat companies are producing nearly 5 percent more beef than in 2015, thanks in part to plentiful feed supplies. In turn, the big food producers like Cargill, are seeing profits rise. The Minnesota conglomerate recently reported a 66 percent jump in profits because of demand for its steaks and hamburgers.  And yet the boom in supply is driving down prices at the grocery store, pinching retailer profits. [node:read-more:link]

One of the nation’s most popular travel booking sites is taking a stand on animal welfare by halting the sale of tickets to attractions that let tourists ride or touch wild or endangered animals. TripAdvisor announced plans to adopt the changes by early 2017, partly in response to pressure from animal rights groups to stop selling tickets to attractions that they feel exploit animals without offering any educational value. [node:read-more:link]

Gary Baise found this ruling on the impact if flooding on animal agriculture that is very pertinent to what our some of our coastal regions are facing.   The Clean Water Act prohibits the discharge of a pollutant into the navigable waters of the United States without a permit, specifically an NPDES permit. Under the Clean Water Act, discharges from certain animal feeding operations that occur under certain rainfall conditions are subject to a narrow exemption from the NPDES regulations for Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs). [node:read-more:link]