USDA Blog

Ant keepers enjoy a fun and educational hobby, and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) also has an interest in it. You might wonder what ant keeping has to do with American agriculture and natural resources. Some invertebrates that people—including ant keepers—import into the U.S. or...

Rabies, one of the oldest known diseases, remains a significant wildlife-management and public-health challenge. September 28 th will mark the 17 th annual World Rabies Day, a global health observance started in 2007 to raise awareness about the disease and enhance prevention and control efforts...

Invasive fruit flies, such as the Oriental, Mexican, Mediterranean, and European cherry fruit fly, pose threats to many U.S. commercial and homegrown crops. If established, these flies could cause significant economic losses, requiring costly treatments to protect fruits and vegetables and reducing...

Producers, feeders, and other stakeholders who want a better understanding of factors that contribute to the market value of cattle, and how these factors can inform marketing and production decisions, can join us at three upcoming in-person events at the USDA Cattle and Carcass Training Centers...

As of December 2022, United States and Mexico are celebrating 200 years of bilateral relations. Over these two hundred years, our nations have developed rich diplomatic and cultural ties where agriculture and trade considerations feature a prominent role.

Lately, when we hear about bats in the news it's often in the context of emerging infectious diseases. Yet, despite potential public health threats, bats are extremely important to the health of our natural ecosystems.

As silvery moonlight washed across the Montana meadow, it sent long shadows over the grass. Tonight, I didn’t need the gentle clang of the grazing bell to tell me where the horses were feeding. My leggy quarter horse was as brightly silver-white as the full moon. The distant lowing of cows across...

After weeks of searching, Washington State Department of Agriculture (WSDA) entomologists–—using a radio tag provided by USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service and a trap developed by the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service–— have located and eradicated the first Asian giant hornet (AGH)...

Many claim that 2020 has been a year of chaos and calamity, but for one rare squirrel, it might be a year of hope and new beginnings. The Delmarva Fox Squirrel (DFS) is a subspecies of fox squirrel found on the eastern shore of Maryland, Southern Delaware and Virginia. This pudgy, slow squirrel with...

Did you first learn about rabies through the children’s book or movie “Old Yeller”? Rabies has changed drastically over the last century in the United States, moving from a majority of cases occurring in domestic animals like the literary canine hero, to a disease occurring predominantly in wildlife...