OMAHA, Neb. (AP) – A day of free admission has been scheduled at Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium.  First National Bank is the sponsor. Gate admission will be free from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday.

The zoo is located just south of Interstate 80, off Exit 454, South 13th Street, in eastern Omaha. It is open daily from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. through February.

The opening of deer season this weekend will also mark the start of another round of testing for Chronic Wasting Disease (C-W-D).  The Department of Natural Resources will be particularly focused on a few select counties this year. The disease which is fatal to deer has not been found in 10 years of sampling of the wild deer population, but this year it was discovered in deer held at private hunting preserves in southern Iowa. D-N-R biologist Willy Suchy says they won’t be increasing the number of tests very much.

“Well, we have to keep the cost about the same, so we not going to take too many more. We sampled about 47-hundred last year. We’re going to do pretty much the same, we’re just going to shift some around to different areas to do our surveillance and to target where we think there’s the highest risk,” Suchy says. They will sample more heavily in Wapello, Davis, Pottawattamie and Cerro Gordo counties where the infected deer were found. Most samples of the deer tissue are obtained by wildlife staff.

A majority of the samples are taken received from hunters, but Suchy says they also take some sample from road-kill deer too. “And the most important thing is if anybody sees an animal that appears sick of emaciated, to contact one of our wildlife officers or wildlife biologists to get a sample,” according to Suchy.

The D-N-R has worked with the facilities to contain the infected deer, but Suchy can’t say if that has kept the disease from spreading to the wild population until the check the samples. The heaviest focus on samples in past years has been in northeast Iowa after cases of C-W-D were discovered in the border states of Wisconsin and Illinois.

The state has tested samples from over 42-thousand wild deer thus far and found not positive tests for C-W-D.

(Radio Iowa)

WACO, Neb. (AP) – Monsanto is investing more than $100 million to expand four of its seed processing plants in Nebraska, Iowa and Indiana.  Monsanto officials told the Lincoln Journal Star that the expansion is needed to increase the company’s capacity to product corn seeds.  The St. Louis-based company announced the expansion on Wednesday.

Monsanto’s Shawn Schrader says most of the money will be spent in Waco, Neb., and Remington, Ind., because those projects will have the biggest effect on production. The Iowa expansion will be in Grinnell and Williamsburg.  Another reason why Monsanto is investing in the Waco, Neb., site is that the area is 100 percent irrigated, so the company would be somewhat protected against drought.  The company hopes to have the expanded plants operational by next year’s harvest.

ST. LOUIS (AP) – A new report shows that the nation’s worst drought in decades has worsened for a second straight week, after conditions had improved for more than a month.  The weekly U.S. Drought Monitor report released Thursday shows that 62.7 percent of the continental U.S. was in some form of drought as of Tuesday. That’s up from 60.1 percent the previous week.

The portion of the lower 48 states in extreme or exceptional drought – the two worst classifications – also rose, to 20.12 percent from last week’s 19.04 percent.   The dry conditions intensified sharply in Oklahoma, where 90.5 percent of the state is in extreme or exceptional drought. That’s up 19 percentage points.

The portion of South Dakota in those two classifications rose more than 8 percentage points, to 63.32 percent.

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The Iowa DNR reports an informational public meeting on state and federal floodplain permit processes, as well as post-flood sediment disposal, will be held Dec. 10th, at the Waubonsie State Park lodge. The meeting, jointly hosted by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, will take place in the lodge’s meeting room from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. The park is located at 2689 State Highway 2 near Hamburg.

A short informational presentation on how to gain appropriate state, federal and local approvals for projects along the river and in the floodplain will begin at 2 p.m. The presentation will provide details on the different types of approvals and the step-by-step application processes.

The Corps of Engineers and the Iowa Department of Natural Resources will have staff available before and after the presentation to answer specific project questions and provide technical assistance as needed.

Officials with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources say heading into Iowa’s busiest outdoor “opening day,” shotgun deer season hunters should expect to see fewer deer. While that downturn is by design, the DNR says hunters should still fill plenty of tags, during the December 1st-through the 5th first shotgun season, or the December 8th-through 16th, second season. Tom Litchfield, DNR deer research biologist, says “Deer numbers are projected to be down at least ten percent from last year.” Litchfield says they “Have been working to decrease deer numbers since 2003. On a statewide basis, the herd is very close to objective,  which would be the levels seen in the mid to late 1990s.”

With a relatively short season (five or nine days), shotgun hunters often must adapt to the weather. Looking ahead to the next week, seasonal temperatures and a continued brown—not white—landscape lie ahead for hunters holding about 172,000 paid first season, paid second season and landowner tags. One strategy that remains constant is hunting with the wind. Deer rely primarily on their noses, to warn of danger. Hunters should keep that in mind, especially as they set up drives.

Somewhat of a ‘wild card’ this fall and winter in conducting the deer harvest, according to officials,  will be the impact of Epizootic Hemorrhaging Disease (EHD) across much of the state. Nearly 3,000 reports of suspected EHD have been received; with concentrations in central and southwest counties and several more western counties through the Loess Hills. In all, 63 counties have at least one suspected case. The hot weather, insect-carried disease has essentially run its course for this year; with heavy frost killing off the midge, which spreads it.

Still, hunters may find more dead deer, as they fan out across the landscape. With the emphasis on downsizing the herd, Litchfield sees about 60 of Iowa’s 99 counties ‘at objective.’ Another 20 should reach it after this season. The remainder likely would fall into place after 2013-14. He is concerned, however, that the EHD outbreak could change that dynamic—lowering hunter harvest and post-season counts—for some counties.