Latest news with #hatchery
Yahoo
25-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Chicks left stranded as postal center in Delaware rescued and adopted
After thousands of chicks from a Pennsylvania hatchery were stuck at a postal distribution center in New Castle County, the surviving birds were rescued by the First State Animal Center and have since been adopted.
Washington Post
20-05-2025
- General
- Washington Post
Wanted: Homes for thousands of chicks abandoned in a mail truck
A Delaware animal shelter is scrambling to find homes for thousands of baby chicks after they were abandoned in a U.S. Postal Service truck for more than three days. At least 12,000 chicks were left inside a Postal Service truck at a mail distribution center in Delaware this month, the state agriculture department said in a news release. A Pennsylvania hatchery had sent the birds to dozens of customers across the country, but their journey somehow stalled about 60 miles southeast of the farm, according to First State Animal Center and SPCA, the animal shelter now caring for them.
New York Times
19-05-2025
- General
- New York Times
Thousands of Chicks Left in Postal Service Truck Overwhelm a Delaware Shelter
Thousands of chicks that spent three days in a United States Postal Service truck in early May have overwhelmed a Delaware animal shelter, frustrating the hatchery that had shipped them to various farms, the shelter and hatchery said. On May 2, the Delaware Department of Agriculture received a call from the Postal Service saying that it had 'an undeliverable box of baby birds.' The department contacted First State Animal Center and SPCA in Camden, Del., and employees there, along with agriculture department employees, reported to the Postal Service's Delaware Processing and Distribution Center. There, they found 4,000 dead chicks and 10,000 living ones abandoned in a delivery truck, according to a news release from the Delaware Department of Agriculture. They also found turkeys, geese, quail and chukars, state agriculture officials said. The chicks were part of a routine shipment from a Pennsylvania hatchery sent out on April 29. The department and First State Animal Center, a shelter, 'worked tirelessly' to transport the chicks there and provide them with care, according to the news release. First State Animal Center said in a Facebook post that the chicks were abandoned in the delivery truck 'without water, food or temperature control.' Since the chicks' arrival, the shelter has been asking for help from the state and the community as it has been caring for the thousands of chicks '24/7 with heat, food, water and survival care.' The shelter put the birds up for adoption on May 13. The shelter was closed on Monday, and phone messages and emails to the shelter were not returned. But The Associated Press reported on Monday that only a few hundred of the chicks had been adopted. The Freedom Ranger Hatchery, which raised and shipped the chicks, said in an emailed statement that the Postal Service had not explained why the chicks never made it to their destinations. The hatchery said it was unsure if it would be compensated for the loss, which has 'compounding effects with the many small family farms that were counting on these birds for their summer grow out schedules.' The birds were supposed to be shipped to several states, and at least 2,000 were intended to be delivered to Spokane, Wash., according to the Delaware Department of Agriculture. 'Federal mail was given out without permission and was dumped on a shelter who was not prepared to care for this live cargo,' the hatchery said in the statement. 'Once the USPS recognized their error, the best option for the Postal Service would have been to expedite the packages to get to their end destination where the recipients were prepared to care for the birds.' The U.S.P.S. did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Monday. But The A.P. reported that the Postal Service had said that it was aware of a process breakdown and was actively investigating what had occurred.
CBC
15-05-2025
- Health
- CBC
P.E.I. hatchery says it's produced 1st MSX-resistant oyster seed in Canada
Social Sharing A hatchery in western Prince Edward Island says it has produced the first batch of MSX-resistant oyster seed in the country, but at least one expert says it's still too early to determine those results. The Bideford Shellfish Hatchery is located in the heart of P.E.I.'s wild oyster production region, which has been hit hard by the parasite. Multinuclear sphere X, or MSX, is harmless to humans but can be deadly to oysters. Since it was first detected in Island waters in July 2024, it has devastated stocks in some areas, including the famed Bedeque Bay. The Bideford hatchery's new batch of seed — essentially young oyster larvae that are used to start new beds or reefs — have a connection to Bedeque Bay. It's one of the places where oysters were collected for the hatchery's breeding program. Guy Perry, a geneticist and the hatchery's manager, calls the seed "survivors" — and the theory is that they are the best hope for producing MSX-resistant oysters. "Our expectation is they should have the most resistance of any [oysters] on the Island, or even in Atlantic Canada," Perry said. "Essentially, the sites we picked them from have the most infected status of any of the sites currently in Bedeque Bay." WATCH | Experts urge caution, but P.E.I. hatchery hopeful for MSX-resistant oyster seed: Experts urge caution, but P.E.I. hatchery hopeful for MSX-resistant oyster seed 23 minutes ago Duration 2:36 Perry said he's basing resistance on the oysters' projected rate of survival, which he estimates to be in the 70 per cent range for the hatchery's new seed. The Bideford breeding program is the same type of system used on the Eastern Seaboard of the United States after MSX was discovered there decades ago. Perry said seed in that area have shown 89 per cent resistance. "Chesapeake Bay, Virginia, Long Island Sound, they all went exactly the same way where they took survivors of outbreaks and bred them into the system to produce a stock line." There is a lot more infrastructure, a lot more labour that is required to produce an MSX-resistant seed. The hatchery is located in the Bideford River Marine Centre. It was originally a federal government research station focused on the oyster industry before it was transferred to the Lennox Island Development Corporation in 2014. It relaunched it as a hatchery a few years later. Adrian Desbarats is an aquaculture business development advisor with Ulnooweg, a not-for-profit that supports Indigenous fisheries initiatives. He's been an adviser to the Bideford hatchery since 2015. Desbarats said the hatchery will produce about 25 million oyster seed this year, with plans to increase production to around 90 million over the next few years. After that, he said the breeding program will probably need more support from the provincial and federal governments to further ramp up its production. "There is a lot more infrastructure, a lot more labour that is required to produce an MSX-resistant seed," Desbarats said. "If we could get some recognition of that and support to help us achieve that MSX-resistant seed to get it out to the industry, that would be very helpful." According to the P.E.I. Shellfish Association, there were 72 million oysters sold on P.E.I. in 2023. 'Wait-and-see' approach The Bideford breeding program has been attracting attention, including from scientists in Atlantic Canada who study oysters. Eric Ignatz, a post doctoral fellow in the marine affairs program at Dalhousie University in Halifax, said if the Bideford hatchery can prove the seed is MSX-resistant, that would be a first in the country. But that can be tricky, he said, because there is so little known about the parasite and how it's spread, especially in Canada. Ignatz will be doing research on MSX this summer in Cape Breton and on Prince Edward Island. "I would view the field work components as kind of a critical first step to identify oysters in natural beds or on farms that would have been exposed to MSX over the past year, breeding those oysters that you at least suspect are resistant or tolerant," he said. "It's hard to tell whether oysters that you're spawning this year are going to be resistant or tolerant to MSX." Bob MacLeod, president of the P.E.I. Shellfish Association, said they're taking a "wait-and-see" approach to the results from the Bideford seed, and what kind of MSX resistance they have. The association is also taking some action of its own. It's had an enhancement program that grows oysters to be released back in the wild to replenish the stocks for years now. Staff are also adding a nursery, and are hoping to purchase some of the seed from the Bideford hatchery to study how to grow it. Perry is hopeful the Bideford program will be successful. "It's a fair degree of pressure, it's a deep sense of responsibility to the community," he said. "There's a lot of people that are very, very afraid right now. And I hate to see that. I really do. We're doing the absolute best we can, as fast as we can to deal with the problem." The hatchery has buyers for about half of the 25 million seed it's produced this year, and the rest will be sold on a first-come, first-served basis.
