Canada lynx proposed for new habitat protections in US southern Rockies — Matthew Brown, Associated Press
U.S. wildlife officials finalized a recovery plan for imperiled populations of Canada lynx on Wednesday and proposed new habitat protections in the southern Rocky Mountains for the forest-dwelling wildcats threatened by climate change and human activities.
The fate of the plan is uncertain under President-elect Donald Trump: Officials during the Republican's first term sought unsuccessfully to strip lynx of protections that they've had since 2000 under the Endangered Species Act.
Almost 7,700 square miles (20,000 square miles) of forests and mountains in Colorado and northern New Mexico are covered under the habitat proposal. That's a change from previous U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service policies that left out the southern Rockies and concentrated instead on recovery efforts elsewhere, including Wyoming, Montana, Minnesota and Maine.
"This is a significant change and a good one," said Matthew Bishop, an attorney for Western Environmental Law Center who has been involved in efforts to protect lynx through court actions. "They weren't really committing to conserve lynx in Colorado anymore, and now they are."
Areas of protected habitat also are being added along the Idaho-Montana border. Protected areas in Wyoming would be sharply reduced under Wednesday's proposal.
Wildlife officials said they were removing some locations where officials consider lynx unlikely to thrive in the future, while adding new areas considered more suitable to their long-term survival.
Lynx are elusive animals that live in cold boreal forests and prey primarily on snowshoe hares. Climate change is melting away their snowy habitat and could decrease the availability of snowshoe hares.
As a result, declines for lynx are expected across the contiguous U.S. under even the most optimistic warming scenario that officials have considered.
There are roughly 1,100 lynx in the contiguous U.S., spread across five populations. The largest concentrations are in the northeastern U.S. and northern Rockies.
Those numbers are expected to plummet in some areas, and officials are aiming for a minimum contiguous U.S. population of a combined 875 lynx over a 20-year period across the five populations.
Most areas suitable for lynx are in Canada and Alaska, where the animals are widespread and hunting and trapping of them is allowed.
The changes announced Wednesday follow a 2016 court ruling that faulted federal wildlife officials for not designating protections for lynx habitat in Colorado and some parts of Montana and Idaho.
Habitat protections in Maine and Minnesota would remain unchanged under the proposal.
A final decision is expected next year.
NM must spend almost $180 million by the end of the year, or lose it to the federal government — KUNM News
The clock is ticking for the state of New Mexico and its cities and counties to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in COVID relief funds.
The Office of the State Auditor announced the governments will lose the money if it’s not ready to be spent soon.
In 2021, New Mexico received more than $700 million in State Local Fiscal Recovery Funds from the federal government with a deadline to have the money obligated by the end of this year, and to be fully spent by the end of 2026.
Almost $180 million of that still needs to be designated for specific projects and purposes, or it will be returned to the feds.
The funds were intended to help respond to the pandemic, create jobs and support recovery efforts.
Dave Peña, policy director for the Auditor’s Office, says the money could still go to what he calls “essential projects” like improving drinking water, upgrading wastewater and stormwater infrastructure, expanding broadband access, and providing emergency relief for natural disasters.
City Council creates committee in attempt to solve city, county boundary area issues — Elizabeth McCall, City Desk ABQ
An Albuquerque city councilor is pushing to create a committee that she says would clear up confusion between the different city and county jurisdictions. The proposal could also open the door to land annexations.
Councilors approved Councilor Klarissa Peña’s proposal to create a Boundary Area Advisory Committee during their Nov. 18 meeting.
Peña said the committee would help identify areas where there is a mix of city and county-owned property — referred to as “checkerboard areas” — and which agency is responsible for services and maintenance in the areas.
“So this really goes a long way to help an underserved community to be able to identify that… and then look at areas where we can just maybe incorporate it into the city, or incorporate it into the county, where it makes the most sense,” Peña said.
Some councilors deal with jurisdiction issues more than others because their districts butt up against the county areas in question.
Tom Menicucci, a policy analyst for the council, said the confusion with the boundary areas has been a long-term problem in the city — especially in Districts 2, 3 and 4, where next door neighbors can be on either side of county and city boundaries.
“[The legislation] is basically just trying to pull people together to begin dissolving these long-term issues,” Menicucci said.
Peña recounted a time in District 3 when streetlights were only installed on one side of the street because the other side was outside of city limits.
Councilor Joaquín Baca said he has had similar issues within his district and constituents have called him confused about why their trash has not been picked up, unaware they reside in the small parcel of county land.
“There are sections in District 2 where every other house is city, county, city, county — It’s ridiculous,” Baca said.
Council President Dan Lewis said he was concerned with the provision that would allow the committee to evaluate and recommend land annexations.
“I am uncomfortable with a county commissioner bringing an agenda to this advisory committee on an area in my district,” Lewis said. “I don’t see a whole lot of accountability here to the council in evaluating and talking about land swaps in my district.”
The committee would include staff from the city, Bernalillo County, Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority, Albuquerque Metropolitan Flood Control Authority and the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District.
The city’s chief administrative officer and the county manager, “if the manager so chooses, will provide staff and resources, as necessary and appropriate, to assist the committee,” according to the bill.
The committee would meet quarterly and its duties include the following:
- Study and advise member agencies on best practices to provide coordinated and effective services for boundary areas.
- Receive and review testimony from residents of the boundary areas as to the manner that infrastructure deficiencies and service delivery issues impact their businesses, homes, neighborhoods and properties.
- Propose plans and processes to improve infrastructure and service delivery to the boundary areas.
- Evaluate and recommend areas for possible land swaps and annexations for the purposes of streamlining services.
No new detections of avian flu in New Mexico cows, poultry, people despite rising U.S. cases - Danielle Prokop, Source New Mexico
Bird flu is increasing the cost of what’s on people’s table this Thanksgiving, as deaths of millions of poultry in recent weeks have driven up egg prices and dropped turkey populations to the lowest level in nearly 40 years.
More than 90 million poultry – mostly chickens and turkeys – have been euthanized or infected with avian influenza in the United States. The deaths sharply drove up prices of poultry meat in 2022, which have only slightly abated this year.
Much of California, including some of the country’s largest egg layers, has seen increased infections from the migration of wild birds.Egg prices in California have nearly doubled in a month, as flocks get smaller and can’t keep up with demand.
New Mexico health and veterinary officials said avian influenza has not been detected in state dairy herds or poultry farms since August. Nor has anyone in the state tested positive, even as cases and concerns rise amid the ongoing outbreak elsewhere.
New Mexico was among the first of 15 states currently experiencing the avian flu crossover infections in dairy cows. Infections have spread to nearly 500 dairy herds this year, including top milk producers in California, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
But national experts said the U.S. is failing to keep track of the spread of the disease, because it has a less robust effort to track public health compared to other developed countries.
Instead, the U.S. relies on a patchwork of local health systems that don’t always have the funding for tracking emerging diseases, said Amira Roess, a professor of global health at George Mason University.
“It is hard to comment on whether or not (Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza) infections are truly rare, given that we do not have active surveillance programs,” Roess said.
WHAT IS AVIAN INFLUENZA?
Avian influenza is a family of viruses that usually impacts wild and domestic birds. Previously, people and other animals would only be sickened by coming into direct contact with sickened birds or carcasses.
In recent years, the H5N1 variant has “spilled” over into other species and has been devastating for marine mammal populations. Infectious disease researchers said the virus’ ability to adapt to different hosts and change its genetic code increases its pandemic potential.
Currently, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that person-to-person transmission of avian flu is not occurring, and that the risk to the general population is low but much higher for people in contact with poultry or other animals.
Dr. Samantha Holeck, the state veterinarian, said there have been no presumptive cases in New Mexico cows since August, keeping the number of infected New Mexico herds to 9.
Avian flu infections have been limited to Curry and Roosevelt counties, and include a poultry facility in addition to the dairies. There’s no further information about the number of animals impacted, state officials said.
In an emailed statement, Holeck said no deaths in New Mexico dairy herds have been “directly attributed to H5N1.”
It’s a different story for dairy herds in California. Instead of about a 2% mortality rate seen in other states from avian influenza, infected California herds had death rates of 15-20% preventing farmers’ ability to remove the carcasses and fueling further infection concerns.
INFECTIONS IN HUMANS ARE INCREASING
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 55 people have been infected, including 28 cases in California. People experiencing avian flu reported eye infections – officially called conjunctivitis – and others had flu-like symptoms including chills, coughing, fever, sore throat and runny nose.
In New Mexico, only seven people have been tested for avian flu though November. All were negative, said David Morgan, a spokesperson for the New Mexico Department of Health.
New Mexico health officials have only tested symptomatic people, following the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines released in April when the outbreak started. Only in early November did the CDC update its policies to test all farmworkers who come into contact with animals with bird flu, regardless if they’re showing symptoms or not.
Roess said one of the concerns of testing only symptomatic workers is that it can give health experts an inaccurate picture of infection rates. That testing strategy can miss people who carry the disease and quietly transmit it.
Without tests of symptomatic and asymptomatic people, it’s hard to assess how big the risk of an outbreak is or if enough preventative measures are in place.
She also said testing workers in dairies and poultry farms has specific challenges.
“A lot of food production workers are low-wage workers who do not have meaningful healthcare access,” Roess said. “It is extremely difficult to convince someone to take time away from work to go get tested when they are sick if that means they will lose income.”
Federal health officials are publishing data from wastewater monitoring, but independent public health experts have asked states and cities to do more testing for avian flu.
New Mexico officials are submitting results from H5 influenza tests in Santa Fe and Albuquerque to the national dashboard, but are not testing in Curry and Roosevelt counties – where the outbreaks in dairies and a poultry facility have been located.
Morgan didn’t say what would trigger increased surveillance, only saying the department “would pursue wastewater testing if the results would inform public health actions.”
State health officials previously gave sets of masks and gloves to two dairies for their employees and distributed 3,000 sets of personal protective equipment to community groups.
Morgan urged dairy workers and their families to get the seasonal flu vaccine, saying that, while it will not protect against the avian flu H5N1 strain, it will reduce infection from a common flu strain at the same time.
“Being vaccinated against flu also gives the H5N1 virus fewer chances to combine with seasonal influenza strains, which could enable it to transmit person-to-person,” Morgan said.
There is no vaccine widely available for H5N1. TheU.S. has only 5 million of the vaccines against the strain spreading right now.
MIGRATION SEASON SEES A SPIKE IN CASES IN OTHER STATES
As billions of birds are migrating, health officials in other states are raising the alarm about increased cases of bird flu in wild populations.
Contact with infected wild birds caused recent backyard farm animal infections in Washington including pigs.
Pigs plus avian influenza has been a deadly combination before. In 2009, the H1N1 variant (nicknamed the “swine flu”) was a new combination of genes from influenza viruses that infected pigs, people and birds. It infected 20% of the global population.
New Mexico has recorded only 41 cases of avian influenza in wild birds, which pales in comparison to the several hundred cases detected in surrounding states such as Colorado and Utah, according to the USDA’s tracker.
The last date of a wild bird with H5N1 was recorded May 24 in Roosevelt county, according to the USDA data.
Darren Vaughn, a spokesperson for the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish, said he could not provide answers by deadline to questions about the agency’s efforts to catalog avian influenza cases, or make anyone available for comment.
New Mexico man awarded $412 million medical malpractice payout for botched injections - By Susan Montoya Bryan, Associated Press
Jurors in New Mexico have awarded a man more than $412 million in a medical malpractice case that involved a men's health clinic that operates in several states.
The man's attorneys celebrated Monday's verdict, saying they are hopeful it will prevent other men from falling victim to a scheme that involved fraud and what they described as dangerous penile injections. They said the punitive and compensatory damages total the largest amount to ever be awarded by a jury in a medical malpractice case in the U.S.
"It's a national record setting case and it's righteous because I don't think there's any place for licensed professionals to be defrauding patients for money. That is a very egregious breach of their fiduciary duty," said Lori Bencoe, one of the lawyers who represented the plaintiff. "That's breach of trust and anytime someone is wearing a white coat, they shouldn't be allowed to do that."
The award follows a trial held in Albuquerque earlier this month that centered on allegations outlined in a lawsuit filed by the man's attorneys in 2020. NuMale Medical Center and company officials were named as defendants.
According to the complaint, the man was 66 when he visited the clinic in 2017 in search of treatment for fatigue and weight loss. The clinic is accused of misdiagnosing him and unnecessarily treating him with "invasive erectile dysfunction shots" that caused irreversible damage.
Nick Rowley, another attorney who was part of the plaintiff's team, said the out-of-state medical corporation set up a "fraudulent scheme to make millions off of conning old men." He provided some details in a social media post, saying clinic workers told patients they would have irreversible damage if they didn't agree to injections three times a week.
NuMale Medical Center President Brad Palubicki said in a statement sent Wednesday to The Associated Press that the company's focus is on continuing to deliver responsible patient care while maintaining strict safety and compliance standards at all of its facilities.
"While we respect the judicial process, due to ongoing legal proceedings, we cannot comment on specific details of the case at this time," he said.
NuMale also has clinics in Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Nevada, Nebraska, North Carolina and Wisconsin.
According to court records, jurors found that fraudulent and negligent conduct by the defendants resulted in damages to the plaintiff. They also found that unconscionable conduct by the defendants violated the Unfair Practices Act.
Taxidermied drones made at NM Tech aim to observe wildlife - Albuquerque Journal, KUNM News
It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a… Taxidermied drone?
As the Albuquerque Journal reports, researchers at New Mexico Tech are bringing a Thanksgiving twist to campus after they were seen piloting a drone outfitted with a taxidermied turkey this week.
While the ridiculous looking drones might draw some smiles or scare students, Professor Mostafa Hassanalian says they’re actually intended to observe wildlife.
Hassanalian, who told the Journal he is fascinated by the complexities of nature and evolution, has been prototyping what he calls “biomimicry drones” since 2013.
The idea is these drones – which usually cause animals to flee or attack with loud noise – could safely observe wildlife if their appearance and movement is masked by making them flap, paddle or even perch.
In all, the professor has developed three drones with the help of two students. He hopes to expand his biomimicry drone idea to extraterrestrial exploration.
That could look like robots that crawl like spiders, or miniature drones that disperse like the seeds of a dandelion.