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TUESDAY • April 20, 2021 • $1.50
Good day to our valued subscriber Allen Brogoitti of La Grande
Oregon catt le
mutilations
perplex
detectives
Harney, Wheeler and
Umatilla counties have
had recent cases of
bull mutilations
By GARRETT ANDREWS
The Bulletin
BEND — The udders appeared
to have been removed with pre-
cision — straight, even cuts, as if
made by a sharp object.
The reproductive systems had
been cut out cleanly as well, and
without disturbing other organs.
There was no indication of
predator activity and, perhaps
strangest of all, scavenging ani-
mals appeared to have hardly
touched these six cow carcasses
found in a seven-day span this
year on ranchland in rural Crook
County.
Detectives with the Crook
County Sheriff ’s Offi ce, long-
time ranchers and a Prineville
veterinarian who reviewed evi-
dence from an ongoing case say
they’re stumped by the “unnat-
ural” deaths.
But the mutilated cattle might
be more ordinary than they seem,
according to Brian Dunning, a
Bend-based podcaster committed
to defl ating wild claims.
“This reads like a very typical
case,” he said.
Crook County Sheriff John
Gautney said his offi ce has no
leads but cautioned there’s “no
reason to panic.”
“We’ve had cases like this over
the years,” Gautney said. “They
seem to come in groups and then
go away. We are not speculating
on how these are happening, as
we try to keep an open mind and
look at all possibilities.”
Mutilated cattle have been
reported in the American West
since at least the 1960s. There
have been multiple recent cases
of bull mutilations in Harney,
Wheeler and Umatilla coun-
ties in Eastern Oregon. But now,
beef cattle have turned up dead
in the remote ranchlands out-
side Prineville bearing signs
common to the cattle mutilation
phenomenon.
The current string of cases
began Feb. 27, when Crook
County Sheriff ’s Offi ce deputy
Scott Durr was dispatched to sus-
picious circumstances at the 96
Ranch on Southeast Van Lake
Road. Owner Rickey Shannon
said one of his herd had been dis-
covered dead two days earlier
with an odd cut down its spine.
Shannon, who lives on the
Jayson Jacoby/Baker City Herald
Nick Schramm of the La Grande Hot Shots fi refi ghting crew keeps an eye on a prescribed fi re burning Thursday, April 15, 2021, along the road leading to the boat ramp on Phillips
Reservoir near Mason Dam in Baker County.
Friendly flames
Forest Service resumes prescribed burning at Phillips Reservoir
By JAYSON JACOBY
Baker City Herald
Jayson Jacoby/Baker City Herald
Alex McDonald, left, and Nick Schramm, both mem-
bers of the La Grande Hot Shots fi refi ghting crew, talk
tactics during a prescribed fi re near Phillips Reservoir
on Thursday, April 15, 2021.
PHILLIPS RESERVOIR — They wound
their way between the pines like wraiths,
dripping dollops of fi re with each stride.
Smoke and the blurring eff ect of rising
waves of heat combined to obscure the
fi gures.
But their bright yellow shirts, made of
fi re-resistant cloth, were visible as they
bobbed along, rather like nightfl ies fl itting
among the ponderosas and the sage and the
occasional clump of bitterbrush.
The fi refi ghters were on the north side of
Phillips Reservoir on the blue-sky morning
of Thursday, April 15, with multiple goals to
accomplish with their fl aming torches and
their fl at-bladed tools designed to scrape
away the forest duff to mineral soil.
One reason they’re here, while a few
scraps of snow still shelter in the north-
facing gullies, was to reduce the chances
they’ll have to come back on a scorching day
in July or August.
A day when the fl ames can’t be wielded
like a tool, when they won’t be an ally. A day
when every ember is a dangerous enemy.
Experts in the nuances of the forest, and
its relationship with fl ames, call it a pre-
scribed fi re.
It is an apt term.
The second-growth ponderosa forests that
grow between the reservoir and Highway
7 from Mason Dam west up the Sumpter
Valley aren’t sick. The fi re that’s prescribed
in this case serves more as a tonic, a supple-
ment of sorts to keep the forest healthy.
Trevor Lewis eschewed the cliche of
fi ghting fi re with fi re, but he conceded that’s
a signifi cant part of the purpose of the April
15 fi re, which covered about 535 acres.
Lewis, an assistant fi re management
offi cer for the Burnt-Powder Fire Zone on
the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest who
served as fi re boss for the operation, said the
fl ames will remove accumulations of dry,
dead grass and the layers of desiccated pine
needles that could fuel a summer wildfi re.
He said he also hopes the fi re will kill the
seedling pines that have sprouted between
the mature trees. Those fl edgling pines can
serve as “ladder fuels,” Lewis said — in
eff ect, a combustible ladder that fl ames can
climb from the ground to reach the trunks,
and potentially even the crowns, of the tallest
ponderosas.
“We want to get rid of the majority
of those young saplings,” Lewis said the
morning of April 15 as groups of fi refi ghters
dispersed from the road leading to the boat
ramp near Mason Dam.
A total of 61 people worked on the
See, Fire/Page 5A
Open house set for new community center
See, Mystery/Page 5A
Event will celebrate the
history and future of the
Union United Methodist
Church buildings
By DICK MASON
The Observer
UNION — Sounds that could
pass for echoes of the past, elegant
architectural features of yesteryear
and hidden history.
The old Methodist Church
building complex in Union has
all this plus something it did not
appear to have until two months
ago — a promising future.
INDEX
Classified ...............4B
Comics ....................7B
Crossword .............4B
Dear Abby .............8B
The former Union United Meth-
odist Church building complex,
now named the Catherine Creek
Community Center, no longer is in
peril after a new local nonprofi t, the
Friends of the Historic Union Com-
munity Hall, purchased it from the
Oregon-Idaho Annual Conference
of the United Methodist Church.
The nonprofi t raised $25,000 to
make the purchase, which was
fi nalized Feb. 24.
The magnitude of what has
transpired remains hard for people
such as Cherie Kausler, a member
of the Historic Union Community
Hall Board, to grasp.
See, Center/Page 5A
WEATHER
Home ......................1B
Horoscope .............4B
Lottery ....................3A
Obituaries ..............3A
THURSDAY
Opinion ..................4A
State ........................6A
Sudoku ...................7B
Weather .................8B
LIBRARY MEMBERSHIPS
Alex Wittwer/The Observer
LaVon Hall, a member of the Historic Union Community Hall Board, examines a
copy of a painting of the Last Supper on Saturday, April 17, 2021, in the chapel
of what is now part of the Catherine Creek Community Center, Union.
Full forecast on the back of B section
Tonight
Wednesday
30 LOW
66/38
Clear
Mostly sunny
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541-963-3161
Issue 42
2 sections, 14 pages
La Grande, Oregon
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