Wisconsin Public Television Transcript: In Wisconsin Original Air Date: Thursday, March 2, 2006 Patty Loew: Hello and welcome to "In Wisconsin." I'm Patty Loew. This week, could the biggest threat to our state's elk population be humans. Humans trying to help these animals? Find out how the waste from this combine might have a sweet, sweet payoff for you at the gas pumps. And take a wintry walk in search of a bittersweet history with our state's poet laureate. All that, plus more on the Jensen-Schultz, and a trial and the visit to the natural tall grass prairie in Wisconsin. Loew: What if you discovered you were hurting the very thing you were trying to help? Well, in our first report this week, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources officials say that may be the case. We're revisiting a story producer Liz Koerner first brought us two years ago. The re-introduction of elk to our state. Now, wildlife officials say the herd is thriving, but also facing real challenges that may have been created by humans. Narrator: Driving along the highway near clam lake you might glimpse what appears to be a deer in the distance. But while seeing deer is quite common in the north, the sight of this animal is still somewhat rare. Elk are at home again in the Chequamegon Nicolet national forest, a home lost to loggers and hunters before the turn of the 19th century. Twenty-five elk were set free here in 1995. Today, the DNR estimates there are just over 100 animals in the herd. It's Laine Stowell's job to keep an eye on these large by elusive animals. Laine Stowell: It's the best job in the DNR. Reporter: Stowell, along with other DNR staff keep track of the elk by trapping them in winter and outfitting them with radio collars. Stowell: She's collar 56, but she's in a different direction. Reporter: He tunes in their movements on a receiver, tallying the elk calves born each year, and the number of elk that die. Stowell says the herd has increased at a healthy rate, an average of 15% a year. That is, until last year. Stowell: From mid-May of 2003 to mid-May of 2004, we had four mortalities. From the same period from 2004-2005, we saw 14, that's a 350% increase. Reporter: A 350% increase in elk deaths in one year. A rate, that if it continues, would decimate the herd if that continues. So why are the elk dying? A few elk crashed through river ice and drown. In a dramatic rescue last year Stowell, got a rope around one animal in time. Stowell: Because the animal struggled for a half hour or 45 minutes I was able to get up to the animal. Slip the noose over its head and then with the help of a few other people, we were able to quickly pull the elk out of the water. Reporter: One elk was saved, but four others have drown. As a scientist, Stowell's supposed to remain emotionally detached. Something he admits is sometimes difficult. Stowell: Some of these elk calves I've found just hours after they're born. So, I guess I would have to honestly say that it's disappointing and frustrating when you see animals die, and then also in cases where you see animals die that are human related and avoidable. Reporter: Stowell's frustration is fueled by his belief that these deaths came about because of handouts from humans. He believes that people who feed the animals in their backyards are drawing them into danger. Stowell: These elk are crossing river ice and they become more at risk of falling through the ice and drowning. Reporter: State law limits what is called recreational feeding. Stowell: You can recreational feed small animals for viewing. You can recreational feed birds, but it is illegal to feed elk or bear in Wisconsin. Reporter: Attracting animals to backyard feeders might have another unintended negative impact. The spread of parasites in the herd. Shelley Dubay is a wildlife biologist at UW Stevens point. Shelley Dubay: Any time we have a potential disease situation, concentrating animals is not a very good idea, because the transmission rates will increase among those individuals at the feeding site. Reporter: Dubay is working with Tim Jennet, another wildlife biologist at UW Stevens point. They're starting a two-year study to find out how problematic the parasites are. Tim Jennet: What we would like to do is figure out what the incidence is in the herd and what percentage of individuals are infected with those. The way we do that is look for eggs or larvae in the feces. Reporter: According to Jennet, the parasites don't often kill elk, but could make the animals more vulnerable to predators like bears and wolves. Meningeal worms are one of the parasites plaguing the elk. Jennet: A heavy meningeal worm infection can cause impairment of nervous system function in animals. They may not obtain the energy and protein they need. Reporter: Researchers will also investigate the impact of another parasite called liver fluke. Jennet: Other things may happen particularly with heavy liver fluke infections is we may see some impact on reproduction or the thriftiness of the calves that are born. Reporter: The parasite study will provide answers down the road. Another deadly threat hits the elk at highway speed. Collisions with cars and trucks have claimed the lives of more elk than any other killer. The danger zone is Highway 77, which runs right through the elk's territory. To limit their loss the DNR posted elk crossing signs, but one sign has already been stolen. Stowell: Somebody thought that elk crossing sign would look better on their wall at home or something. Certainly, that's very dangerous for the elk, but also for motorists on that highway. Reporter: Even though some 14 elk have been killed on the highway since 1995, no one has reported personal injuries. In fact, according to Stowell, only four drivers have even stopped to report their accident. He says this fact, added to evidence at the scenes, indicate that large trucks hit the elk and just drove away. Stowell says this highway death toll also points to people who feed elk in their backyards. Stowell: People live next to the highways. You draw elk near the highways and you have greater risk of vehicle collisions with elk. Reporter: Recently, Stowell and his staff went door to door asking people to stop backyard feeding. Stowell: Hi, Ron. How are you doing? Ron Duval: Not too bad. Reporter: Ron Duval lives along the highway in Clam Lake and has been putting out food in his backyard for years, because he loves to see animals, especially elk. He spread alfalfa on the ground for the elk in the past. This year, because Stowell stopped by, he reluctantly agreed to stop. Duval: This year, they're eating the red pine needles and have them stripped already and they're eating a lot of balsam needles. When they was getting a little treat out here, they weren't doing that. I see them in the yard here and they don't look as good a shape as they did last year. Reporter: Elk learn to cross the highway for food over the years. Stowell admits that past DNR actions added to the problem. Their trapping location baited with sweet smelling food was too close to the highway. He's convinced that by closing the trap and getting people like Duval to stop backyard feeding, fewer elk will be killed. Duval doesn't agree. Duval: I'm not feeding. I don't know about the rest of the neighborhood. As far as the elk crossing the road that hasn't ceased. Reporter: The DNR hopes by notifying homeowners that feeding elk is against the law, they can convince them to comply. In cases where feeding continues, the DNR says that district attorney's in the affected counties are willing to prosecute. Stowell says he's optimistic that local residents like Duval care enough about the elk to follow the rules. Stowell: There are some individuals in any instance where they don't follow the rules. And there are still a few in the Clam Lake area, but the vast majority of people in the Clam Lake area are helping us in this issue. Reporter: And with the support of the Clam Lake community, Stowell will continue to advocate for the elk. Doing what he considers the best job in the DNR. Loew: The DNR is working with the National Forest Service to explore limiting ATV use on Memorial Day weekend in the Clam Lake area. That holiday weekend is the peak of the elk calving season. ATV use has gone up dramatically in the number of years, as has the number of tourists trying to get a glimpse of the elk. Loew: Last week, we reported on the background of the legislative caucus scandal. We also brought you details from the beginning of the trial of representative Scott Jensen and former assembly republican caucus staff member Sherry Schultz. They're both charged with felonies because of the caucus investigation. Here is reporter Art Hackett with more. Art Hackett: Republican state representative Scott Jensen is on trial on felony charges of misconduct in public office. Former assembly republican caucus staffer Sherry Schultz is a co-defendant. Both are accused of doing or authorizing campaign work using state resources. Earlier this week, jurors heard from several of Jensen's staff members. One of them was Lee Searl. Searl testified Jensen would bring campaign checks to his capitol office. Searl testified she kept records of the checks for Jensen's campaign organization, Taxpayers for Jensen. Searl testified that even though she was paid by the state, she eventually was moved to an office at republican party headquarters. Attorney: What percentage of your time was spent working on Taxpayers for Jensen. Searl: 100%. Attorney: No work in the Jensen office whatsoever? Searl: Correct. Hackett: In other testimony, lobbyist Patrick Essie said they met with Jensen to discuss fund-raising goals during the 1999 budget sessions. Sherry Schultz would follow up to collect the money. Essie: She would have direct information as to where the checks would be coming from and who they would be going to. Attorney: Those checks being checks you had previously discussed with Mr. Jensen. Essie: Correct. Hackett: There was also a preview of Jensen's defense when a witness for the defense was called early due to a scheduling conflict. Chad Taylor, who was Jensen's deputy legal counsel testified there was a policy against doing campaign work in the office. On one occasion, Taylor said he told another staff member who was copying campaign checks in Jensen's office, doing so seemed unseemly. Taylor said he didn't consider it a violation of state law or ethics rules. Loew: Art Hackett will have another report on the Jensen-Schultz trial on "Here and Now." It airs Fridays at 7:00p.m. and Sundays at 10:30a.m.. Beyond following the news of the week, Art Hackett has also been looking into issues relating to ethanol. In fact, Art's been reporting on ethanol since his days as a young radio reporter 30 years ago in Nebraska. At that time, fermented corn was being used to create a fuel called gasohol. Flash forward to the present and Art now has a report for us on some research that could sweeten the pot for ethanol producers and anyone else who gases up at the pump. Art Hackett: The ethanol fuel industry and corn growers are joined at the hip. The letters on the side of this ethanol tank in the Columbia County community of Friesland stand for United Wisconsin Green Producers. Bill Herrmann raises over 1,000 acres of corn. He's also vice president of the corporation which owns the ethanol plant. Bill Herrmann: It has been working out real good, both for me as an investor, I think, and also as a corn farmer for delivering corn up there. Hackett: The Friesland ethanol plant buys 15 million bushels of corn a year. Some arrives in tractor-drawn wagons combined minutes before in a field a mile and a half away. Dan Wegner: Right now, we have 80% of our corn coming from within 10 to 15 miles. Herrmann: The ethanol buys from both farmers and elevators. Everybody in the area, farmers and elevators alike are thankful that that plant is there. We're going to use 15 million bushels of corn. That means 15 million bushels of corn would have to be hauled out of state. So that's a big savings. Wegner: Most people are realizing at least a 10-cent increase in their prices per bushel. Hackett: Four ethanol plants are already operating in Wisconsin. Two more are under construction. A seventh plant in Jefferson is in the planning stages. It would be three times as big as any of the existing facilities. Demand for ethanol from these plants would increase if a bill pending before the state legislature passes. The bill would mandate all gasoline sold in the state be an ethanol blend. The DNR estimates that currently only about 1/3 of the gas sold contains ethanol. Even though most ethanol produced today comes from corn, it doesn't have to. In fact, while reporting this story, I learned something about that ethanol I saw being pumped into cars in Nebraska 30 years ago that I never knew. It didn't come from corn, it came from paper mill sludge. In fact, if you talk to a researcher here in Madison, he'll tell you the future of ethanol is not in the fields, it's in the forests. Dr. Tom Jeffries: If this runs too long without having any nutrients in it is, the cells get sick and die. They'll starve. Hackett: Dr. Tom Jeffries is talking about yeast cells. They feed on glucose. The same type of sugar found in corn starch. At ethanol plants, yeast turns glucose from corn starch to ethanol. But the yeast in Jeffries' lab are not ordinary yeast cells. They have names, 21 and 38. Jeffries: We've knocked out one of the respiratory enzymes. Hackett: They're genetically engineered mutant yeast, designed to crank out more ethanol. Jeffries: What that does, by knocking out the capacity for respiration, we force these cells to become far more fermentative. They have to grow. In order to grow, they have to use fermentation. Hackett: And the mutant yeasts are special in another way. They don't just ferment glucose. Jeffries: They ferment xylose. They turn xylose to ethanol. Hackett: Xylose is a different kind of sugar. It's not only found in the corn kernels that are fed into ethanol plants, it's also found in corn stover, the stalks, husks and cob spewed out the back of the combine and left to compost on the ground. Jeffies: Xylose is the second most abundant carbohydrate in nature. It's found just about everywhere you look. You go for a walk in the woods and xylose makes up about 20 to 25% of everything you see. And if you look out on a corn field, xylose makes up about 25% of all the corn stover. What we're trying to do is trying to develop technologies that will enable us to convert the xylose that's in corner stover, wheat straws and soy residues and in hardwood residues into ethanol. Hackett: Tom Jeffries is looking for uses for waste from the forest products industry. After all, he works for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Forest Products Laboratory. It could be trees too small to turn into lumber, or paper mill sludge, the brown broth in this beaker is from the waste water of a fiberboard plant. Jeffries is fermenting wood residues currently going unused to see if they can be sources of ethanol for your fuel tank. Jeffries: In many parts of this country, we have such abundant wood residues that we don't know what to do with them. This is a big problem. This is one of the reasons this research is being conducted at the forest products lab, is because every year every summer, our country is ravaged with forest fires, because of overstocked stands. Because of small diameter timber that is so abundant there is not enough water to sustain its growth. And so, what we would like to be able to do is to use some of those small diameter trees, trees currently overstocked in regions where it is very arid and use those for renewable fuels and our technology will contribute to that. Hackett: While today's ethanol economy with function on corn grains, the future maybe in ethanol from other sources. The ethanol industry is ramping up the marketing of an almost pure ethanol fuel, E-85, 85% ethanol. Only 15% gasoline. Jeffries says its production will bump up against the supply of corn. Can we run the united states on E-85 only using-- Jeffries: No, no way. The demand is far too great. Hackett: Jeffries and his colleagues recently licensed the use of a mutant yeast to a company with two ethanol plants in Iowa. They could be making ethanol not just with corn kernels but corn stover as well. Jeffries: Eventually, they want to use this organism or another organism that we're working on now to produce ethanol commercially from corner stover. Hackett: Assuming corn farmers want to part with the residue, Bill Herrmann says he wouldn't be interested. Herrmann: Much of our land is low in organic matter. So, the corn stalks you see out here add to the organic matter of the soil. I wouldn't be interested in selling corn stalks, unless they were off of some really low high organic land. Or else we would be depleting our soil and have to buy commercial fertilizer to increase the nutrients in the soil. Hackett: Farmers elsewhere with betters soils might feel differently. And there is always all that wood waste. Jeffries: It's abundant. Every year, we make many, many, many times more bio mass that we use in our entire energy economy. But we can't begin to tap into that for fuels until we solve the problem of xylose fermentation. It's so abundant we can't afford to throw it away. We have to use it. Loew: The legislative bill that Art mentioned is still pending. If it passes, at least 10% ethanol would be included in all regular grade gasoline sold in Wisconsin. Loew: We head now to the Green Bay area in search of some history and poetry. Producer JoAnne Garrett created a series about poems about places, where some of our state's poets collaborated with our videographers. Together, they fashioned visual poems. In this chapter, Poet Laureate Denise Sweet paired with videographer Everett Soetenga and spent the day looking for Red Banks, the place where Jean Nicolet is believed to have first reached the shores of Wisconsin. Denise Sweet: Beauty at its best is undisturbed in winter. The white wings of ice and snow wrap around this forest without so much as a whisper. This dry oak savanna fills and fills without warning, without witness. And then one day, we're buried in our own mock amazement. Where did all this snow come from? As though drifts of snow and slates of ice would not be here had we paid attention, had we not slept through the howl of storm or let go of the rope that tethers us to autumn. I wander the wooded corridor on the way to Red Banks surrounded by silver maple, poplar and birch, slender red cedar stemming skyward. I'm left to plod and stammer through drifts of snow, no tracks for me to follow or a posted map with arrows and stars to mark the spot on which I stand -- you are here. The sky is all I recognize. The star stories and the legends of naked eye astronomers stir and sway within the wind, as I whisper my real name and reach through to the Anishinaabe Adisokan. In my third season I life, I have finally learned to be still. I have finally learned to wait. Here, the people of the thunders gathered around the stranger on the shore of this inland sea. They listened to the one who spoke with eloquence and grand gesture, his splendid robe, ornate with feather stitching, folds of satin and tiny beads. The one who could throw lightning with his hands and split open the sky with a crashing report no one could remember ever hearing before. A red tail hawk has begun to follow my curious wandering. I tighten my shawl and wrap my thin coat closer to me as I leave. Beyond this stretch of forest is a highway and the distressing sound of 18 wheelers and SUVs sailing through this moment towards an urgent other place. Some may be unaware of the slow searing stare of the hawk, or have not witnessed the mincing steps of a white tail deer before she leaves the wooded grove, before she races frantically, back and forth, and then across the highway into an open field or another stand of trees. But we can imagine what moves, moves. What moves within can bring us back to the remembered earth, back to the shores of where we began together. A star story, sweeping through the sky pours over us each dawn, hoping to be remembered, hoping to be told to the children of the 7th fire. The story of the heart of the earth, shuddering like thunder beneath our feet with a pulse we recognize as our own. Loew: Artistic reflection on a winter day. April is national poetry month. We'll bring you another chapter in our "poems about places" series then featuring Wisconsin poet John Lehman. That's our program for this week. You won't find us on the air during the next few weeks. We'll be taking a break, while Wisconsin Public Television features some special programming. We'll be back with another new episode in three weeks on thursday, march 23. Until then, enjoy this video postcard from iowa county of a winter day at Avoca Prairie State Natural Area. For "In Wisconsin," I'm Patty Loew. Thanks for joining us.