YAKIMA – Officials have located another cow from a Canadian herd that entered this country with a Holstein infected with mad cow disease, the U.S. Department of Agriculture says.
Investigators have been searching for 80 cows that entered the country from an Alberta, Canada, farm with the sick cow in 2001. The cow was slaughtered Dec. 9.
Federal agriculture officials later narrowed that search to 25 cows believed most likely to have eaten the same feed. Contaminated feed is thought to be the source of the infection.
So far 14 of those animals have been found.
The cow located Thursday was not in that group, the Agriculture Department said Friday in a news release. The cow was found in Mabton, but at a separate farm than Sunny Dene Ranch.
A total of 701 cows have been destroyed following the Dec. 23 announcement that a Washington state dairy cow had tested positive for mad cow disease.
Seattle
Taxi driver shot, killed: A taxi driver was shot and killed early Saturday morning in south Seattle. Police got a call about 4:30 a.m. reporting shots had been fired in a residential neighborhood. A police officer found the driver, a man about 40 years old. He had been shot several times. The victim’s name was not released.
Kent
Skull is that of missing man: A human skull found in a wooded area has been identified as that of Kirk L. Wheeler, a 41-year-old man who was reported missing from Des Moines in 1998. The identification was made by the King County medical examiner’s office, which did not immediately determine a cause of death. The skull was found Tuesday by a man looking for a friend in a homeless camp in the area.
Green River killer’s car on eBay: A real-estate salesman is hoping to make a few bucks on a car once owned by Green River serial killer Gary Ridgway. Bill Young of Kent is selling on the Internet auction site eBay a 1989 Mercury Sable GS he bought from Ridgway in 1996. The site initially objected to his description of the vehicle – which suggested Ridgway might have used the car to transport victims – but the item was back online Thursday, after Young toned down the advertisement. Young’s asking $12,000. In December, Ridgway was sentenced to life in prison without parole after pleading guilty to killing 48 women, mostly during a murderous binge from 1982-84.
Oregon
Coin designs leaked: One shows a covered wagon on a rutted trail, another depicts Crater Lake. Two others show leaping salmon. In all, the Oregon Coin Commission is reviewing six designs for the state quarter to come out in the spring of 2005. The 19 members were told that U.S. Mint policy was that the designs remain confidential, and state officials have been tiptoeing around public-meeting laws to keep them that way. But the Salem Statesman-Journal newspaper obtained six preliminary drafts, giving Oregonians a peek at what the new coins could look like.
B.C.
Skier missing after avalanche: One person was missing after an avalanche roared down on backcountry skiers in southeast British Columbia. Three skiers were caught in the slide just before noon Friday in the Russell Bowl area of Valhalla Provincial Park near Nelson. The other two were found by a search crew and taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. A dog team was brought to help search for the missing male skier, but rescue efforts were suspended at nightfall Friday.
From Herald news services
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