News 04.20.16
20 April 2016 News
A duck that lost its feet to frostbite is waddling again thanks to an area middle school teacher and a 3D printer. Vicki Rabe-Harrison rescued Phillip the duck and, after watching a video of a 3D printer online, turned to South Park Middle School teacher Jason Jischke in Oshkosh for help. Rabe-Harrison says she assessed Phillip’s quality of life and was planning to put him down when Jischke called to say he and his class were working on the project. It took them six weeks of trial and error to get the prosthetic feet just right. Phillip was a bit wobbly when he first tested his new feet, but he has now joined other birds and animals at a sanctuary in Cedarburg, 20 miles north of Milwaukee.
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An Oshkosh man is charged with having sex with an underage girl in Dodge County in 2014. Twenty year old Neil Kienast made his initial court appearance Monday. He’s charged with 2nd degree sexual assault of a child and using a computer to facilitate a child sex crime. Kienast and the then-15 year old victim allegedly met on the website, meetme.com. Kienast is accused of meeting and having sexual intercourse with the girl at the Inn Town Motel in Waupun. A preliminary hearing has been scheduled for June 9th.
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Waushara County will be holding a Prescription Drug Take-Back initiative at the end of this month. Sheriff Jeffrey Nett says the effort will focus on getting un-used or old medications out of people’s homes as well as trying to cut down on prescription opiate abuse. Nett says the goal is to provide a safe and convenient way to get ride of those medications. The Drug Take Back will be held April 30th at the Waushara County EMS Station on W. North Lake Street in Hancock. Items allowed include prescription and over the counter medications, ointments, patches, non-aerosol sprays, creams and pet medication. Anything illegal, hazardous, used for personal care or containing mercury is not allowed. Any questions can be directed to the Waushara County Sheriff’s Office at 920-787-3321.
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One of the more unique rites of spring continues in eastern Wisconsin. The annual sturgeon spawning season is underway. The large, ancient fish make their way up the rivers that feed the Lake Winnebago system to spawn. It’s a big draw for nature lovers who come to the Wolf, Fox and Embarrass rivers each year. Department of Natural Resources sturgeon biologist Ryan Koenigs says the recent warm weather has drawn fish to the Wolf River where the water temperature jumped about 15 degrees in less than a week. DNR crews net and tag the fish. Koenigs says they tagged about 100 to 150 fish on Monday alone.
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Gov. Scott Walker signs a half-dozen bills cracking down on child abuse and sex trafficking. The bills require the state to develop a procedure for investigating abuse of a disabled child; create the crime of repeated physical abuse of a child; and expand the definition of child sex trafficking to include transporting a child for commercial sex. The legislation also requires the state, county social services and child welfare agencies to report a missing child to police within eight hours; transfer $1 million from drug enforcement and the state’s crime labs to combat Internet crimes against children; and make parents who photograph nude children for sexual arousal guilty of a felony. Walker signed the bills Tuesday at various stops around the state.
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You may have noticed gas prices are up. As of Monday, Wisconsin gasoline prices were about eight cents higher per gallon than the previous Monday. Triple-A reported a statewide average of two dollars and ten cents per gallon of regular. That’s almost 12 cents more than one month ago, but still 29 cents cheaper than the middle of April last year. A sudden increase in the price of crude oil is blamed, connected with reports of a possible freeze in foreign oil production.
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The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources is urging drivers to be on the lookout for bear. Last week, a car struck and killed a large bear on Highway 29 near Spruce Road in Shawano County. DNR wildlife biologist Kay Brockman-Mederas says the male bear weighed 520 pounds. She says it looked like the bear was just coming into the roadway when a car clipped it on the passenger side. It happened around dusk, making it hard to see the bear in the roadway. Because bears are coming out of hibernation, Brockman-Mederas cautions drivers to be on the alert, not only for bears but for deer as well. She also advises people to take their bird feeders down and to keep garbage inside. Brockman-Mederas says no one wanted to take the bear, so the DNR will keep the head and use it for educational purposes.
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