OHA News & Information
News & Info As It Comes Available To Keep You Informed About OHA!!
 
OHA helps transplant Columbian whitetails
Click on Picture for Story Below


OHA offers rewards to catch vandals
 Click on Picture for Story Below
 

 

OHA helps Oregon’s aspens branch out

OHA pledges $20,000 for forensics work aimed at bagging poachers

OHA returns to White River for annual project

OHA's latest grants should improve hunting opportunities for mule deer and game birds.

OHA funds hay purchases to divert elk from ranchers’ haystacks

OHA buys corn to help game birds survive harsh winter

Oregon Hunters Association contributes $3,700 for moose monitoring project in northeast Oregon

OHA Board Minutes

OHA provides $20,000 to improve public waterfowl hunting access to Malheur National Wildlife Refuge

OHA contributes $18,475 to ODFW for Deschutes Canyon bighorn sheep survival study

OHA grants $33,500 for Owyhee Pronghorn Research

OHA offers rewards to catch habitat vandals

OHA helps transplant Columbian whitetails

OHA donates funds for Hart Mountain National Antelope Refuge pronghorn study

OHA works to maintain meadow habitat on Siskiyou National Forest

OHA Provides Water for High Desert Wildlife

OHA helps Oregon’s aspens branch out

Without the brilliant yellows of quaking aspens, autumn would be a visually drabber season in Oregon. But for wildlife, the loss of these trees, which many animals rely on for food and shelter, would be devastating. Unfortunately, aspens have been declining for years throughout the West, including in Oregon. For the past decade, members of the Oregon Hunters Association have been actively working with U.S. Forest Service foresters and wildlife biologists to stem the decline and restore these beautiful and valuable native trees to health.

“Aspen groves are a unique community,” said Rod Adams of the Bend OHA chapter, who helped with a recent aspen restoration project in the Deschutes National Forest. “A lot of us hunt in aspens. They are great habitat for big game and all kinds of wildlife, and we want to protect them.”

Quaking aspens grow along streams and in wetlands and mountainous areas of central, northeast and southeast Oregon, as well as in pockets in the Cascade Mountains. Although not all the reasons for their decline are understood, a major cause has been the suppression of wildfires, which has allowed conifers to encroach into many aspen stands and crowd them out. In addition, wildfires encourage aspens to grow by burning up older trees and stimulating the emergence of new saplings. A lack of fire has choked new growth needed to maintain the groves.

Young saplings are especially vulnerable to over-browsing by deer, elk and livestock that can prevent them from reaching maturity and helping an aspen grove sustain itself, so forest managers often fence vulnerable groves to keep hungry animals out until the trees have grown tall enough to stand on their own.

For the past 10 years, volunteers from the OHA have been on the frontline of the effort to restore Oregon’s aspen groves by providing muscle power and funding to procure and build fences around groves suffering from over-browsing by big game and livestock. Over the past month, OHA members from various chapters around the state have fenced off aspen groves in the Deschutes, Ochoco and Malheur national forests. Last year, OHA volunteers helped fence a two-acre and seven-acre grove in the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest, where aspens are rare.

On the first weekend of June, members of the Bend OHA chapter fenced a two-acre grove on the north shore of Davis Lake in the Deschutes National Forest with a 7 ½-foot tall nylon fence held up with 10-foot poles. The work was challenging.

“We had eight-foot stepladders and two or three people would hold it on the side of a slope while another person would be perched on top, driving the posts in,” said Adams.

June also found members of the Salem area-based Capitol Chapter, along with the Bend, Ochoco and Redmond OHA chapters, variously helping fence aspen groves in the Malheur National Forest near Prairie City and in the Ochoco National Forest near Paulina.

“For the first few years we worked on aspens that were the least healthy and productive to make sure we didn’t lose them,” said Ryan Falk, Environmental Coordinator for the Malheur National Forest Prairie City Ranger District, who along with district wildlife biologist Andy Daniels has been coordinating these projects. “Now we’re protecting the older stands that are a little bigger and healthier.”

This was the 10th year of aspen projects on the Prairie City Ranger District using volunteers from OHA and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. In that time, they have fenced about 30 aspen groves, ranging from a few struggling trees to stands of nearly 30 acres.

Both the Malheur National Forest and the Ochoco National Forest, which hosted its second OHA aspen-fencing project in early June, use buck-and-pole fences to keep big game and livestock out of the groves. The fences last about 10 years before they deteriorate, which is about how long it takes aspen to grow big enough to withstand browsing – about two inches in diameter and eight feet tall. “Then we can give them back to the big game,” said Falk, who estimates that will happen in a year or two for some of the earliest projects on his district.

“The hard part about restoring aspens is protecting them from big game animals that really want to get in there,” said Wayne Branum, a wildlife technician and OHA member who oversaw the Davis Lake project in the Deschutes National Forest. “We’ve fenced several aspen groves on the Crescent Ranger District now, and it’s working.”

 

OHA pledges $20,000 for forensics work aimed at bagging poachers

The Oregon Hunters Association has pledged up to $20,000 toward a proposed partnership with Idaho Fish and Game to perform DNA work for Oregon State Police for a period of two years at a cost of $25,000 – a big savings for Oregon compared to the estimated cost of $300,000 to start OSP’s own program.

OHA pledges:

  • OHA State, up to $10,000 to complete the program funding
  • Capitol Chapter, $2,000
  • Klamath Chapter, $1,500
  • Ochoco Chapter, $1,500
  • Rogue Valley Chapter, $1,500
  • Josephine County Chapter, $1,000
  • Hoodview Chapter, $500
  • Lincoln County Chapter, $500
  • Pioneer Chapter, $500
  • Columbia County Chapter, $500
  • Yamhill County Chapter; $500

Other groups:

  • Oregon FNAWS, $2,500
  • Mule Deer Foundation, $1,500
  • Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, $1,500
  • Oregon Bow Hunters, $500
  • Traditional Archers of Oregon, $500
  • SCI Santiam Chapter, $500
  • Benton Bowmen, Inc., $200

 

OHA returns to White River for annual project

Volunteers from the Oregon Hunters Association’s Hoodview and Portland chapters repaired about a mile of fence on the White River Wildlife Area on June 21.

For the past ten years, OHA members have traveled to the wildlife area for a weekend in June to assist wildlife area staff in repairing fences that are used to control and manage the movements of local herds of deer and elk.

The 40,877-acre White River Wildlife Area is located on the east slope of the Cascade Mountains near Wamic. It was purchased by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife in the 1950s and provides habitat for a variety of wildlife including deer, elk and wild turkey.

About 35 OHA members participated in the workday. Wildlife area senior technician Aimee Bell put the group to work replacing posts and rock-filled cribs on about a mile of a 50-mile, 10- foot-high big game drift fence that is used to prevent deer and elk from wandering onto nearby agricultural lands.

“The fence was built in the 1950s and the structures rot over time and need to be repaired and replaced on a regular basis,” said Bell.

In the course of the fence repair, the volunteers replaced about 20 structures and built a new gate through the fence to give visitors easier access from the road into the wildlife area. The volunteers put in a total of 272 person-hours over the course of a nine-hour day.

OHA’s help is greatly appreciated by wildlife area staff. “This is the only time we are able to get so much repair work done on the fences,” said Bell. “Without the OHA group it would take us two weeks to get the same amount of work accomplished.”

OHA's latest grants should improve hunting opportunities for mule deer and game birds.

OHA approves project funding aimed at improving habitat and hunting in the Columbia Basin 

            The Oregon Hunters Association has recently awarded two grants totaling $27,400 for wildlife research and habitat improvement projects.

            The Morrow Soil and Water Conservation District will use a $25,000 grant to improve upland bird and mule deer habitat primarily on private agricultural lands in Morrow, Umatilla and Gilliam counties.

            North-central Oregon has long been a favorite destination for pheasant and other upland bird hunting. Bird populations have declined in the region over the years due, in part, to more intensive farming techniques that make less habitat available. Habitat technician Dennis Newman has been working with landowners in those three counties to help them develop and implement habitat projects such as planting forbs, shrubs and trees to provide food, cover and nesting sites and water development projects such as wildlife guzzlers, spring development and fencing riparian areas. As of April 2008, 65 landowners had inquired about developing projects on their lands and 11 contracts for projects had been signed.

            Says Newman, “There has been a tremendous amount of interest in project involvement from landowners.”

            Currently, there are about 124,000 acres of private lands open to public hunting in Morrow and Gilliam counties through the ODFW Upland Cooperative Access Program and the Access and Habitat Program.

            The A&H Program and Oregon Wildlife Heritage Foundation have also contributed funds to the project.

            OHA has also provided a  $2,400 grant to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife for the purchase of dart guns for a study within the White River Wildlife Area to determine the summer range of a herd of about 4,000 black-tailed deer and their migration routes. The Mid-Columbia Chapter of OHA has also contributed $950 to the project.

            The 40,877-acre White River Wildlife Area, located near Tygh Valley in north-central Oregon, is managed by ODFW. It provides important deer winter range as well as a variety of big game and upland bird hunting opportunities.

            The study involves using the dart guns to tranquilize six mature bucks and fitting them with radio collars so their seasonal movements can be tracked.

            Currently, these animals are not typically available to hunters because their whereabouts during hunting seasons are not known. Determining the herd’s migration routes and patterns will help ODFW better manage deer tag numbers in the White River Wildlife Management Unit and assess the potential for creating a new late season White River buck hunt.

            OHA’s statewide organization and local chapters regularly contribute funding for a variety of projects that benefit wildlife and hunting opportunities. Other recent donations include $3,700 for a moose population survey in northeast Oregon, $18,475 for a bighorn sheep survival study in the lower Deschutes River canyon, $20,000 to improve waterfowl hunting access to Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and $33,500 for pronghorn migration research in southeast Oregon.

OHA funds hay purchases to divert elk from ranchers’ haystacks

            The Oregon Hunters Association has come to the rescue of several Grant County ranchers whose haystacks were being devoured by hundreds of hungry elk that were driven from their winter ranges by heavy snow and cold temperatures. To help those affected ranchers, three OHA chapters have donated $5,900 to purchase hay for use as a diversionary food source for the animals. The funds include $2,000 from the Grant County OHA chapter, $2,100 from the Salem-area Capitol Chapter and $1,800 from the Portland Chapter.

            “Ranchers can tolerate elk for  awhile, but if they start eating all their hay they start calling for kill permits, and we don’t want that,” said Don Schaller, OHA Northwest Director-at-Large who helped organize the fundraising effort.

            According to Ryan Torland, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife district wildlife biologist based in John Day, about 300 elk began moving down onto four ranchers’ haystacks in mid-January. That many elk can do a considerable amount of damage including knocking down fences, toppling haystacks and eating as much as two tons of hay per day. And because last summer’s drought conditions resulted in a decrease in the hay cut, with some ranchers reporting up to a 40 percent decrease, there is much less tolerance for hay depredations by elk than usual.

            “We did some manual hazing, set up hazing cannons around the haystacks and started an emergency hunt, but none of those methods worked,” said Torland.

            ODFW then purchased 25 tons of hay and set up diversionary feeding stations several miles away from the affected ranches. As that hay has been devoured, the OHA funding has allowed ODFW to continue the effort, which recently purchased another 22 tons.

            Torland emphasized that the diversionary feeding will continue until weather and snow conditions permit the elk to resume their natural diet but is not intended to become a permanent, ongoing program.

OHA buys corn to help game birds survive harsh winter

            Game birds in Union, Baker, Umatilla and Wallowa counties will find getting through a tough winter a little easier thanks to $1,700 donated by five chapters of the Oregon Hunters Association to purchase corn for private landowners to feed the beleaguered birds. OHA Chapters contributing funds include the Yamhill, Josephine, Lincoln, Klamath and Portland chapters.

            “We’ve had a real bad winter and I was getting calls from people who wanted to help them,” said La Grande resident Jim Ward, an OHA member, who along with the La Grande OHA Chapter, have been helping supply local farmers with corn to feed game birds on their properties for the past seven years.

            Due to this winter’s especially harsh conditions, Ward had been observing flocks of wild turkeys in the Elgin area that were not doing well, looking cold and haggard and huddled under trees trying to keep out of the wind.

            “I e-mailed all the OHA chapters in the state and five responded with enough donations to buy seven tons of corn,” said Ward.

            The corn was distributed to selected landowners who had flocks of birds moving onto their properties in search of food and shelter in north Union County, the Meacham area and several locations in Baker and Wallowa counties.

Oregon Hunters Association contributes $3,700 
for moose monitoring project in northeast Oregon
 

  Seven local chapters of the Oregon Hunters Association contributed $3,700 to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife towards the cost of capturing four moose cows in northeast Oregon during the week of January 14 and fitting them with radio tracking collars for a monitoring project.

            Moose have been wandering into northeast Oregon from Washington and Idaho in recent years and appear to have established a small permanent population, primarily within the Umatilla National Forest and Wenaha Wildlife Management Unit. The ODFW monitoring project is intended to learn more about the moose, including their distribution and population size.

            “The Oregon Hunters Association’s interest is two-fold,” said OHA president Fred Craig. “First, it is very exciting to have moose move into our state and the chance to go out and see one. Secondly, there is the potential that one day we can have opportunities to hunt moose here in Oregon.”

            OHA chapters contributing to the moose-monitoring project include $1,200 from the Josephine County Chapter, $500 from the Yamhill County Chapter, $500 from the Lincoln County Chapter, $500 from the Pioneer Chapter, $250 from the Columbia Chapter, $500 from the Rogue Valley Chapter and $250 from the Baker County Chapter.

 

OHA provides $20,000 to improve public waterfowl hunting access to Malheur National Wildlife Refuge

A road that was washed out in the Harney County floods in the mid-1980s that provided access to one of the best waterfowl hunting areas within the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge is slated for repair with some help from a $20,000 grant from the Oregon Hunters Association. East Saddle Butte Road, off State Highway 78, once provided excellent public access to about 18,000 acres of high-quality waterfowl hunting habitat at Malheur Lake. Hunters could drive the road along the railroad tracks to a parking area and launch a canoe or boat into the marsh. But the road was put out of commission during the heavy flooding of 1984 and 1985. In addition to the OHA grant, the railroad’s owner, Genesee and Wyoming Railroad, is allowing the group to take gravel from the adjacent railroad bed to create the new all-weather access road. An additional grant is still being sought to provide the rest of the funds needed to complete the project. Total cost for the project is $60,500.

OHA contributes $18,475 to ODFW for Deschutes Canyon bighorn sheep survival study

An $18,475 grant from the Oregon Hunters Association will be used by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to help fund a five-year project to research factors that affect the survival of bighorn sheep in the lower Deschutes River canyon. Funding includes $11,900 from the state organization, $2,975 from the Capitol Chapter of OHA, $2,000 from the Portland Chapter, $1,000 from the Emerald Valley Chapter and $600 from the Redmond Chapter. This study is a continuation of several past research projects investigating bighorn sheep survival on Steens Mountain, Hart Mountain National Antelope Refuge and in the Leslie Gulch area of southeast Oregon. Beginning in early December, ODFW will capture 35 bighorn sheep in the lower canyon and fit them with radio collars so their movements can be tracked. As animals die over time, they will be located and the cause of death determined. This will help researchers to identify mortality trends and any specific causes or patterns. For example, other bighorn sheep survival studies have found that predation by mountains lions is an important factor and Kohl notes that the lower Deschutes River Canyon has a growing population of the big cats. About 300 to 400 bighorn sheep are estimated to currently roam the lower Deschutes River canyon.

OHA grants $33,500 for Owyhee Pronghorn Research

The Oregon Hunters Association has awarded $33,500 to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to help fund a study to track the movements and behavior of pronghorn in the Owyhee area in southeastern Oregon. The grant includes $30,00 from the state organization, $1,000 from the Klamath OHA Chapter, $1,000 from the Josephine County Chapter and $1,500 from the Lake County Chapter. The funds are being used to purchase 10 Global Positioning System units and towards the cost of capturing the antelope. The study is slated to begin in December and will involve capturing 65 pronghorn in the Owyhee Wildlife Management Unit and fitting them with radio collars so the ODFW researchers can track their movements. The study will be conducted over a two and a half year period. Pronghorn, also called pronghorn antelope, are unique to North America and roam the grasslands and other open areas of the western U.S., Mexico and Canada. Capable of speeds up to 40 miles per hour, they are the fastest land animals in North America. Oregon’s pronghorn population is estimated at 25,000 to 27,000. According to Don Whittaker, who manages ODFW’s pronghorn program, pronghorn are among Oregon’s most desirable big game animals. However, because they travel large distances in remote parts of the state, not a great deal is known about their movements and population dynamics, which make managing the herds more difficult.
OHA in ACTION
     

OHA works to maintain meadow habitat on Siskiyou National Forest

For the past ten years, members of the Josephine County Chapter of the Oregon Hunters Association have been partnering with the U.S. Forest Service, Siskiyou National Forest to maintain a unique wildlife habitat known as Dasher Meadow in the Illinois River watershed.

A former homestead, 20-acre Dasher Meadow is one of the few meadow habitats on the Siskiyou National Forests Wild Rivers Ranger district, according to district supervisory wildlife biologist David Austin.

The meadow provides habitat for deer, elk, quail and for a whole slew of non-game species, said Austin.

To maintain this important wildlife habitat, the meadow needs ongoing management, since over time Douglas firs encroach into the meadow and would eventually convert it to forest. The firs also have a tendency to invade nearby black oak stands, which also provide a unique type of wildlife habitat.

What OHA has been doing is going in and cutting out the conifers that have been encroaching on the meadows and black oak forest, said Austin.

The chapters most recent Dasher Meadow work project took place on April 7. Nine members worked about seven hours and completed the slash cutting and piling, and pruned some apple trees that are in the meadow, said Josephine County OHA Chapter president Brett Loper. The only thing left to be completed is the burning of the piles by the Forest Service.

The Forest Service also burns the meadow periodically to keep down the conifer seedlings and non-native vegetation. The meadow was last burned in 2002 and will be burned again next year.

The Josephine County OHA Chapter works with the Siskiyou National Forest on other wildlife habitat projects, including a prescribed burn last fall to improve habitat on 35-acre Horse Creek Meadow.

                       


OHA Provides Water for High Desert Wildlife

            The Oregon Hunters Association has completed a wildlife guzzler  project in the Potato Hills area of Harney County. This project joins the West Sagehen Guzzler built in 2006 to add much-needed water for wildlife in arid reaches of the Silvies Unit.

            Each guzzler complex holds 3,600 gallons of water and will allow big game to remain dispersed during dry periods and increase utilization of arid habitats. This dispersal will aid in keeping big game animals off of valuable agricultural crops on private lands.

            The two-guzzler project was funded in part by Statewide OHA ($5,500) and the Harney County Chapter of OHA ($4,600). These funds were used primarily for the water tanks and materials for building catchment aprons. The total cost of the two guzzlers was $29,500. Volunteer labor from Harney County OHA members greatly decreased the cost of construction, and provided local hunters an opportunity to "give something back to the resource."

            The Potato Hills Guzzler was completed on May 11, 2007 by a crew of 21 workers who built two aprons and an exclosure fence. The two water tanks had been installed by a BLM crew earlier, so plumbing attachment was all that was needed. The projects were completed with the cooperation of Burns District BLM, ODFW, RMEF, and Bums Paiute wildlife personnel.


 


 


 
 Top