- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
News about animals under study in distinct branches of UC Agriculture and Natural Resources were featured recently in the Merced Sun-Star. A female Pacific fisher being tracked in the Sierra Nevada by UC Berkeley scientists has established a den within Yosemite National Park, the paper reported. Meanwhile, UC Davis scientists are joining in research with Michigan State University to study the housing of egg-laying hens, another story said.
Researchers with the Sierra Nevada Adaptive Management...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Cache Creek Meat Co. specializes in "pastured poultry" – raising chickens outdoors and rotating them through a series of pens. The birds spend their first month indoors then they go out to pasture, where they are plumped with organic feed and build muscle roaming around their 100-square-foot pens.
According to the Bee...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Raising backyard chickens for food and fun was the highlight of a Contra Costa Times story published over the weekend that was based on a Point Reyes Station 4-H workshop held last week.
UC Cooperative Extension Marin County director Ellen Rilla told reporter Rob Rogers that the growing interest in chickens seems to be tied to enthusiasm for the "slow food" movement, which embraces traditional methods of producing food.
"I think a lot of people have become interested in local food production," Rilla was quoted. "People like to know where their food is coming from."
The chickens were said...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
In the media coverage of Proposition 2's campaign and passage, reporters have made liberal use of puns. Here are a few examples:
Prop 2 . . .
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would crack the state's egg industry
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lays an egg for state producers
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is a study in cage fighting
There were many more, but Jim Downing of the Sacramento Bee came up with what I think is the best pun. In a story published last Saturday, he wrote:
"To a huge majority of California voters, it seems, the chicken does come before the egg."
For the story, Downing spoke to animal...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Here are three recent news tidbits on UC ANR research and extension in California.
Bees do the math
Newscientist.com reported that UC Riverside scientists believe honey bees make complex math calculations about flight paths to point hivemates towards nectar-rich flowers. "I find it remarkable that, with a relatively simple brain, they can do something so mathematically complex," David Tanner was quoted. Tanner and Kirk Visscher discovered that rather than picking a flight path based on the...