{"id":52402,"date":"2020-07-31T20:50:16","date_gmt":"2020-08-01T02:50:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-residents-are-finding-mysterious-seed-packets-in-their-mailboxes\/"},"modified":"2020-08-01T02:50:16","modified_gmt":"2020-08-01T02:50:16","slug":"colorado-residents-are-finding-mysterious-seed-packets-in-their-mailboxes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-residents-are-finding-mysterious-seed-packets-in-their-mailboxes\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado residents are finding mysterious seed packets in their mailboxes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=d73abecb-eb81-479f-805f-95aed5737f22&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" alt=\"A packet of unsolicited seeds received by a Westminster resident.\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">A packet of unsolicited seeds received by a Westminster resident.<\/span><span class=\"credit\">Courtesy of Johanna Zablocki\/CPR Radio<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>Mysterious packages of seeds allegedly sent from China are appearing in people\u2019s mailboxes unsolicited.<\/p>\n<p>They\u2019re coming in all different shapes and sizes and are delivered under the guise of jewelry.<\/p>\n<p>The Colorado Department of Agriculture is warning residents not to plant, throw away or open the seeds. Cheryl Smith, a specialist for the department, said allowing the seeds to grow could be harmful to local ecosystems.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey could be an invasive species here in the United States,\u201d Smith said. \u201cIf they were to grow and survive, then they could also attract pests that we are not familiar with and don\u2019t have already. Which could then attack other agriculture crops that we do have.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Westminster resident Johanna Zablocki received an unsolicited package last week. Inside the package was a small aluminum pouch with Chinese markings on it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was strange, but we\u2019ve been ordering so much stuff off of Amazon or other websites since COVID hit,\u201d Zablocki said. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t something that was entirely out of the unusual, but it was unusual enough that we put them aside to deal with later.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Zablocki said she called state officials Monday after seeing other people on Facebook with similar stories.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI spoke to a gentleman there who said I was the 13th person to call them today about receiving a mysterious packet of seeds in the mail,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>The Colorado Department of Agriculture will collect unsolicited seeds and send them to USDA Animal Plant Health and Inspection Services. Residents with mysterious packets are being told to hold on to the original packet and mailing label.<\/p>\n<p>Agriculture departments in other states \u2013 including Washington, Louisiana and Kansas \u2013 have reported similar events.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u2018They could be an invasive species\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":52403,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-52402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52402\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52402"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=52402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}