It is obvious to me that we have turned the “day length corner” and are heading toward increased daylight on the morning and evening commutes. I welcome that aspect of mid-February, as it offsets the reality that much winter weather likely remains.
What seems like chaos, from multiple directions, continues. I anticipate several more months of this and remain hopeful we can come through stronger and with clearer focus. CAHNRS continues to make a difference in Washington state and beyond; that is our priority.
Just last week I learned that Rachel Wieme is lending her talents to the impacts of the nationwide avian influenza outbreaks. Rachel has been activated by the USDA to assist Missouri poultry farms as an animal mortality composting subject matter expert. The teams that she is part of are currently dealing with the disposal of 4.1 million chickens and 340,000 turkeys across a four-county area in southeast Missouri. Meanwhile, Tom Marsh lent his expertise on the economic impacts of the ongoing egg crises through a quote in The Economist magazine. Tom talked about the tradeoffs of not vaccinating flocks in order to meet export requirements. For those interested in reading the full article, please note that you must register with your email address. It is worth the read.
Did you hear that Kevin Murphy made the Washington Post’s list of 50 people shaping our society in 2025? How exciting and what a great story! Congratulations to Kevin! This story is also behind a paywall but worth the registration.
You don’t have to register to see that Patricia Pendry’s work with therapy dogs received a callout in last week’s WSU Insider! I am sure the students appreciate the therapy dogs. I am also quite certain that none of my four dogs would make a good addition to the program. Nice work, Patricia!
We learned last week that Lisa DeVetter will receive the WSU Provost’s Faculty Mid-Career Award at the end of April. This is a WSU-wide award given to only one person per year and it shows recognition for the scope and depth of Lisa’s program. Congratulations, Lisa!
These are just a few examples of the great things going on in CAHNRS, and they help muffle the other noise around us. Let’s keep doing what we do best.