Two stories in Animalnet today struck me as kind of fun.

The first one, about using turkey manure appeared on Minnesota’s TV KARE 11 website.  Minnesota Governer Tim Pawletny was quoted as saying "There is gold in that there manure."  The story suggests that 100 semi-truck loads of turkey manure provides the fuel to power 40,000 homes.
The $200 million 54 megawatt plant is owned by Fibrominn, a subsidiary of a British company that operates three similar plants in Great Britain.

The story says that for Minnesota turkey farmers it’s a dream come true; free trucking and a small payment for manure.  What interests me is how this power-from-poop impacts biosecurity practices and controlling animal diseases.  I wonder if and how the trucks are cleaned between loads, and what would happen if avian influenza (high or low pathogenic) appeared in Minnesota. 

The second story that I loved today appeared in Saturday’s New York Times and was about state and federal biologists in Colorado recently learning that they may have been protecting the wrong species of fish for the past 20 years.

It seems that the biologists have been trying to restore the rare greenback cutthroat trout to Colorado waters, but were actually saving the similar but more common Colorado River cutthroat trout.
A three-year study led by University of Colorado researchers and published in August found that out of nine fish populations believed to be descendants of original greenbacks, five were actually Colorado River cutthroat trout.

Tom Nesler, state biologist was quoted as saying (maybe the best quote I’ve seen in the past month or so) “Hey, science happens.”   New developments in DNA testing have illuminated the problem,  Nesler was quoted as saying that  "Up until a year ago, no one could tell us the difference between the two."