|
|
|
Cooperative Extension Service Communications and Technology Department 3354 1000 E. University Ave. Laramie, WY 82071 (307) 766-6342 • fax (307) 766-3998 • www.uwyo.edu |
For Immediate Release
Contact: Steven L. Miller, Senior Editor
Phone: (307) 766-6342
E-mail: slmiller@uwyo.edu
Archived News Site www.uwyo.edu/agadmin/news/news.htm
Date: July 13, 2006
Red Rim elk die-off top story in UW Reflections magazine
Research into the death of more than 350 elk has been ranked as the top story for the University of Wyoming Agricultural Experiment Station (AES) research magazine Reflections, and its authors will share a $1,000 award.
“Two years later…What killed the Red Rim Elk?” was selected as the top submission by a review committee of College of Agriculture faculty and staff members.
The article details investigation into an estimated 350 animals, mostly cows and calves, that became paralyzed and died two years ago of either starvation, predation or euthanasia after eating Xanthoparmelia chlorochroa, a free-living lichen common to many parts of the state. The die-off was on the Red Rim southwest of Rawlins. UW researchers, in collaboration with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, determined usnic acid in the lichen was partly responsible for the deaths. They are now trying to determine what else was involved.
The article was written by Professor Merl Raisbeck, graduate student Rebecca Dailey, Associate Professor Donald Montgomery, Laboratory Technician II Roger Siemion, and Laboratory Technician I Marce Joseph Vasquez, of the Department of Veterinary Sciences in the College of Agriculture; and Professor Emeritus James Ingram, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado.
Reflections is a color magazine published through the AES and is designed to showcase the College of Agriculture’s teaching, research and outreach programs.
The magazine is sent to all land-grant universities, major donors to the college, all graduates of the college, all advisory board members, and Wyoming legislators, and is a handout at a number of college events. The magazine won first place for news-related publications from the Wyoming Press Association in January.
Other topics in the magazine are:
▪ Cent$ible Nutrition – Changing lives for the better
▪ Development and release of 'Shoshone' sanfoin
▪ Genetic sequencers provide world-class facility
▪ Did somebody say Gar-baaaaaaa-nzo (garbanzo bean research)
▪ Sustainable ranching...Improving the chances of staying in business
▪ Alternative methods to controlling Russian knapweed
▪ Two decades of tracking rabies across Wyoming
▪ What's for dinner? (predation on jointed goatgrass seed)
▪ Biocontrol and spatial technology in the fight against weeds
▪ Sustainable Agriculture Research and Extension Center anything but business as usual
▪ Think Big...Think agriculture
The magazine is scheduled to be available the latter part of this month. By midsummer, the magazine will also be at the research and extension centers in Powell, Sheridan, and at the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Extension Center near Lingle, and University of Wyoming Cooperative Extension Service offices. Copies can also be obtained via mail by calling the AES office at (307) 766-3667.
On the Web: http://uwadmnweb.uwyo.edu/uwexpstn/
###