VPM Daily Newscast: Dec. 3, 2024
The VPM Daily Newscast contains all your Central Virginia news in just 5 to 10 minutes. Episodes are recorded the night before.
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Here’s a recap of the top stories on the morning of Dec. 3, 2024:
Room to grow: Cutting the forest of the future
Reported by VPM News’ Patrick Larsen
Ash Latimer and his dad run Conservation Forestry, a forest management and logging business that is taking a slightly unconventional approach to what he sees as an extractive industry. He cuts selectively, which is not an uncommon practice. It’s what he’s leaving behind that’s unusual.
“We’re really looking to leave behind the highest-quality trees, leave the most money — so even if we’re taking out a fair amount of volume, we’re still leaving actually a lot of value,” Latimer said.
Latimer and the landowners he works with are choosing to sacrifice some immediate profits for other benefits down the line. They’re still harvesting good wood, and enough of it to justify the costs of the work. It’s used for veneer, bourbon barrels, pallets, railroad ties and more.
But it’s not just an economic question. Latimer’s driven by a widespread failure of eastern hardwood forest regeneration. According to data from the U.S. Forest Service, young white oak volumes in Virginia declined by 21% between 2003 and 2022. And according to the White Oak Initiative, a coalition dedicated to hardwood forest management, the decline is likely to get more dramatic in the future.
Henrico County says 'happy birthday' to family of piglets
Reported by VPM News’ Lyndon German
Henrico County hosted a very special birthday party last week — with cake, squeals and a roll in the mud to celebrate a family of Ossabaw Island hogs at Meadow Farm Museum at Crump Park in Glen Allen.
Eight piglets were born Nov. 26, 2023, in the care of the county’s parks and recreation department. Officials celebrated the piglets’ first birthday this year with the four that remain in county care: Archie, Ducky, Iggy and Otis.
County animal care staff had to hand-raise the piglets, which zoology manager Jim Weinpress called “a 24-hour-a-day job,” after complications involving their mother’s ability to produce milk.
Staffers bottle-fed the piglets every two hours for the first 48 hours of their lives and continued to provide special care to Otis — the runt of the litter — much longer than that.
In other news:
- Virginia lawmakers to consider proposal to support regional airports (Virginia Mercury)
- Carilion wants to start a kidney transplant program in Roanoke. State health officials, and UVa, oppose it. (Cardinal News)
In case you missed it:
- A new mural at VCU Health's Adult Outpatient Pavilion by a cancer survivor looks to uplift (Style Weekly)
- Governor's office grows, as Youngkin pushes state efficiency (Richmond Times-Dispatch)*
- Virginia lawmakers want to know why 6 inmates have burned themselves (The New York Times)*
*This outlet utilizes a paywall.
