Wildlife officials are investigating the death of a wolf in Wallowa County, in Northeast Oregon.

The body of OR-42, believed to be the breeding female of the Chesnimnus Pack, was recovered May 8, according to Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife spokeswoman Michelle Dennehy. The finding was not announced until May 23. The wolf was wearing a GPS tracking collar; ODFW went looking for it after receiving a “mortality signal” from the device, Dennehy said.

A forensic examination did not pinpoint a cause of death, but ODFW said foul play, such as poaching, is not suspected “at this time.”

The case remains under investigation, however, and additional lab tests are being conducted by Oregon State University.

The Chesnimnus Pack has two subadult wolves that are wearing ODFW tracking collars.

EUGENE, Ore. (AP) — In a rare move, Oregon State Parks will auction off a 38-acre piece of property between Eugene and Corvallis with a stand of tall Douglas fir trees.

Once a wayside, or rest stop, along Highway 99 West near Monroe, the woodland will go up for sale this summer, according to State Parks spokesman Chris Havel. The agency more often trades land and rarely sells it outright.

“Right now, the market is such that we could really get some good out of it for the rest of the park system by putting it out for sale,” he said.

High levels of iron and nitrates in the ground­water at the site polluted the drinking water, and the septic systems at the wayside failed 10 years ago, the state said. State Parks then had the building torn down. Officials decided in 2012 to dispose of the land. They first offered it to other state agencies but found none interested.

So the agency is taking the uncommon step of offering the land for sale to the public through an auction, Havel said. State Parks will take bids this summer.

The land is worth an estimated $356,000, according to a January appraisal.

Since 2001, State Parks has disposed of 3,600 acres, with the last auction in 2008 when the agency sold a parcel at the Oregon State Fairgrounds in Salem. Havel said money from such sales goes into a fund used to buy land.

In the past 16 years, State Parks’ overall holdings have gone up from 93,000 acres to 108,000 acres.

Most of the land at the wayside, nearly 31 acres, is in Lane County and is zoned by the county for park and recreation use. The rest of the land, about 7 acres, is in Benton County and zoned for exclusive farm use.

Given that the property is outside any urban growth boundary and has restrictive zoning, it’s unclear what the land could be used for.

Harvesting the timber on the land is an option for the buyer, Havel said.

“That’s where most of the value is in the property,” he said. “It’s in those trees.”

The trees vary from a few dozen feet tall to 175 feet high, and the stand includes maple and ponderosa pines along with the Douglas fir.

The state bought the land in 1926 from William and Mae Washburne and long called it the Washburne Wayside, Havel said.

Motorists frequented the wayside more often before Interstate 5 became the main artery for longer trips.

“It was after I-5 went in and modern rest areas went in that use at that park started to drop pretty sharp,” Havel said.

NAMPA, Idaho — Researchers in the Treasure Valley area of Idaho and Oregon are trying to develop a reliable seed line for stevia, a plant that is 200 to 300 times sweeter than sugar.

Once that happens, the plant could be an attractive option for the region’s farmers.

But the plant likely won’t be grown commercially here until researchers learn how to reliably produce the small shrub from seed.

Stevia is used as a natural sweetener in drinks and food.

Unlike potatoes, corn and other crops that farmers have bred for hundreds of years, stevia has only been researched for about 50 years, said Cheryl Parris, research and development manager at S&W Seed Co.

Because of that, there is currently too much genetic diversity in stevia to grow it from seed, so it’s being grown from clones, or rooted cuttings, that are produced in a greenhouse and then transplanted into the field.

The labor and expense involved in growing stevia that way at 40,000 plants an acre makes it too expensive to be an attractive alternative to commercial farmers in the U.S., Parris said.

The company’s stevia research is centered in Nampa. Parris is trying to develop a reliable seed line that farmers can plant.

She said this is an ideal region for growing stevia. The company has received a lot of inquiries from farmers interested in growing stevia seed.

“There is a lot of variability in the plants because there is so much that hasn’t been bred out yet,” she said. “It will become more ideal as we develop a seed line. It’s still really an emerging market in the United States because of the cost at this point.”

The wide genetic diversity in stevia means the progeny is usually not as good as the parents, said Clint Shock, director of Oregon State University’s research station in Ontario.

“How to efficiently propagate stevia by seed hasn’t been solved,” said Shock, who has researched the plant for more than a decade. “In order for it to be competitive in the U.S., you need to be able to cross reliably and efficiently from seed. That is the Achilles heel of growing stevia in the United States.”

Most of the world’s stevia is grown in nations with much lower labor costs, Shock said.

“The competitive advantage now is for places that have super cheap labor,” he said.

Parris and Shock are also trying to breed out the sometimes bitter aftertaste associated with stevia.

“We’re trying to develop a plant that tastes better, doesn’t have a bitter aftertaste and can be used more as an additive to food products,” Parris said.