FROM PAGE ONE
TUESDAY, APRIL 20, 2021
THE OBSERVER — 5A
Before the Forest Ser-
vice started fi ghting fi res
a little more than a cen-
tury ago, wildfi res, mainly
low-intensity ground
blazes, swept through the
pine forests in this part
of Sumpter Valley on
average every seven to 15
years, Hawkins said.
These estimates are
based on studies of fi re
scars on old-growth pon-
derosas in similar areas.
Prescribed fi res are
designed to mimic those
historical blazes, which
were ignited either by
lightning or by Native
Americans.
The April 15 fi re was
the third prescribed blaze
the Wallowa-Whitman
has lit in the past 40 or so
years in the strip between
the reservoir and Highway
7, Hawkins said.
He described the fi re
as a “maintenance burn,”
one intended to reduce the
accumulation of fuel on
the ground.
Hawkins said the
fl ames will have other
benefi ts, including spur-
ring the growth of grasses
and shrubs, such as bitter-
brush, that are important
forage for deer and other
wildlife.
The area around Phil-
lips Reservoir is an
important part of the
forest, he said, being a
popular spot for hiking
and mountain biking.
The April 15 fi re also
will help protect the
Forest Service’s Union
Creek Campground,
Lewis said.
He said the prescribed
fi re burned through
parts of the campground,
reducing the fuel loads in
that highly used area (the
campground isn’t yet open
for the season).
Crews burned more
acres near the west end of
the reservoir on April 16,
Cikanek said, and workers
patrolled the area through
the weekend.
Hall and Kausler are
among the six members of
the Historic Union Com-
munity Hall Board. The
others are board presi-
dent Terra Richter, Geneva
Williams, Lori Baird and
Union County Commis-
sioner Donna Beverage.
The board’s fundraising
work is not over. The orga-
nization needs money for
the upkeep of the Catherine
Creek Community Center
and to pay off the loan.
Fundraising activities
on tap for the Friends of the
Historic Union Community
Hall include a raffl e at the
April 24 open house. Raffl e
prizes include an electric
guitar, a cord of wood, a
$100 Union Market gift cer-
tifi cate and two paintings.
The success the Friends
of the Historic Union
Community Hall has expe-
rienced in saving the old
Methodist Church complex
is a credit, Hall said, to
more than generous com-
munity support.
“We had to have divine
intervention for so many
things to fall into place,”
Hall said.
FIRE
Continued from Page 1A
Wheeler County Sheriff ’s Offi ce/Contributed Photo
Rancher David Hunt found this cow dead and mutilated Thursday, July
23, 2020, with her tongue, genitals and reproductive organs cut out —
and she was in an upright position. Investigators in Crook County are
looking into an ongoing case of “unnatural” deaths of cattle there. There
have been recent cases of bull mutilations in Harney, Wheeler and Uma-
tilla counties in Eastern Oregon.
MYSTERY
Continued from Page 1A
ranch with his two sons,
reported no predators or
birds had touched the cow.
There were no tracks,
and no blood surrounding
it. The cow’s left cheek,
tongue and three of its teats
had been cut away cleanly.
But the eyes, usually the
fi rst body part to be scav-
enged after death, were
untouched. There were no
bullet holes and a scan of
the cow by a metal detector
turned up none.
The cow was about 200
yards from the road, near
the edge of a fi eld and some
juniper trees. There were no
vehicle tracks near the dead
animal, no footprints of any
kind.
The mystery deepened a
few days later. On March 4,
Casey Thomas, manager of
the GI Ranch on Lister Road
in Paulina, reported that one
of his herd of around 5,000
appeared to have suff ered a
strange death.
Crook County detec-
tive Javier Sanchez arrived
to fi nd a deceased Black
Angus cow lying on its side.
Hair had been removed
near the stomach. All four
udders were cut off and its
left cheek, tongue and sex
organs removed. Between
the front legs an uneven
patch of hair was missing
and in the middle was a
prick mark, Sanchez wrote
in his report.
The next day, Crook
County’s Sgt. Timothy
Durheim was dispatched to
a report of a wolf kill at the
McCormack Ranch on SE
Bear Creek Road. But it was
apparent no wolf took down
this cow.
Durheim noted several
straight incisions on the
animal. One udder had been
removed and a circular cut
was made around the anus
and the reproductive organs
removed without puncturing
the gut. The left cheek, left
eye and tongue had been
removed.
“Again, I noted straight,
clean incisions where the
cheek had been,” Durheim
wrote in his case report.
Durheim examined the
carcass and found a punc-
ture wound between the
neck and shoulder. He found
no bite marks.
“There were no apparent
animal or human tracks
immediately surrounding
the carcass, and only min-
imal blood in the area,”
Durheim wrote. “I know
from personal experience
that if an animal is killed
or scavenged by predators,
there is typically a large
bloody messy area sur-
rounding the carcass.”
On March 6, Casey
Thomas called police back
to report fi nding another
dead cow bearing the same
strange injuries. This one
was more badly decom-
posed than the fi rst but its
left cheek was also removed
and a 2-inch patch had been
cut into the hair on its neck.
Detectives took photos of
the dead cows to Prineville
veterinarian Dr. Taylor
Karlin for her perspec-
tive. She agreed the deaths
appeared unnatural and her
opinion was included in a
search warrant request fi led
in the case to scan for cell-
phone activity near where
the cows were found.
Charges in any of the
cases could include tres-
passing and aggravated
animal abuse. With the
cattle valued at $1,250 to
$1,400 each, criminal mis-
chief might also be charged.
As a vet with an interest
in large animals, Karlin
has performed many post-
mortem examinations on
deceased livestock. When,
and if, another mutilated
cow turns up in Crook
County, Karlin has agreed
to perform an appropriate
necropsy so she can per-
sonally examine a fresh
specimen.
“I wish I had an answer,”
she said. “We’re kind of at
a loss.”
One possible explanation
is these were, in fact, nat-
ural deaths.
Podcast host Dunning’s
long-running show Skep-
toid devoted an episode to
debunking cattle mutilation
in 2015. Dunning, who read
the 28-page search warrant
request, called the recent
Crook County cases typ-
ical of numerous accounts
often attributed to aliens or
satanic rituals.
“This is almost certainly
the same kind of bird pre-
dation we’ve seen in so
many similar cases,” he
wrote to The Bulletin. “In
my opinion, there is nothing
here that suggests anything
but normal and expected
bird predation had occurred,
and ... no justifi cation for
a search warrant to seek
out an apocryphal human
responsible for the wounds.”
Dunning said he’s
learned there’s actually
a short window of time
between when the animal
dies and when its body is
scavenged when it’s obvious
what killed the animal.
“Most particularly birds,
and also some insects,
will always go fi rst for the
exposed soft tissue: eyes,
tongue, lips and mouth area,
genitals. The animal is dead
with zero blood pressure
so there is never signifi cant
bleeding from post mortem
wounds. The body is in
the process of drying and
decaying, so skin pulls tight
from around the excised
area, giving the impression
of a perfect surgical cut.”
Karlin is awaiting the
results of liver and blood
samples she’s sent away for
lab testing. Police have sent
hair samples to the state
crime lab on the chance they
don’t belong to the bovine.
Last year, the FBI in
Oregon started receiving
questions about cattle
mutilations in Central
and Eastern Oregon,
according to Beth Anne
Steele, spokesperson for
the FBI Portland offi ce.
But despite sporadic
media inquiries, the offi ce
does not have a current
role in the cattle mutila-
tion investigations, Steele
wrote to The Bulletin.
prescribed fi re, some using
drip torches to ignite grass,
while others patrolled
to make sure the fl ames
stayed within the desig-
nated areas.
Lewis said a prescribed
fi re, in addition to killing
saplings, also can creep up
the trunks of mature pon-
derosas, pruning some of
the lower limbs and, as he
puts it, “raising the ladder”
of the fuels.
Forest offi cials fear
crown fi res not only
because those blazes can
spread rapidly, but because
they also can kill a mature
tree.
The prescribed fi re, by
contrast, mainly stayed on
or close to the ground.
Prescribed fi res occa-
sionally scorch the nee-
dles of mature pines,
turning the green needles
to red, said Steve Haw-
kins, deputy fi re staff fuels
program manager for the
Wallowa-Whitman.
A prescribed fi re in
October 2007 that included
some of the same ground
burned on April 15 left
many ponderosas with
that rusty-red appearance.
Some people who drove
past the trees on Highway
7 complained to the Wal-
lowa-Whitman, wondering
why the agency tasked
with protecting trees would
have purposely killed them
with fi re.
But almost all of those
trees survived, Hawkins
said — the needle damage
was superfi cial, not fatal.
Pandemic prevented
prescribed burning
throughout 2020
The April 15 fi re was
something of a milestone,
said Kendall Cikanek,
CENTER
Continued from Page 1A
“I still cannot believe it,”
Kausler said.
The complex has a new
place in the Union com-
munity, one that guests can
discover Saturday, April 24,
during an open house from
4-8 p.m.
Those attending will
learn of how the Catherine
Creek Community Cen-
ter’s old Methodist Church
building is now a chapel
available to all denomina-
tions for religious services,
weddings, funerals and
more. The building, con-
structed in 1905, served as
a Union Methodist Church
until 2019 when it closed
because of declining mem-
bership. The Oregon-Idaho
Annual Conference of the
United Methodist Church
assumed ownership of the
building plus its fellow-
ship hall and parsonage
building.
LaVon Hall said she and
others feared the worst if
the the Friends of the His-
toric Union Community
Hall had not purchased the
building complex.
“We were worried that
if someone else bought it,
it might be be made into a
bed-and-breakfast or torn
down so that the bricks (of
the old church building)
could be sold,” said Hall,
a member of the Historic
Union Community Hall
Board.
This would have been
tragic in Hall’s eyes
because the building com-
plex is such an integral
part of Union’s history. It
has been the site of mile-
stone moments for commu-
nity members, including
weddings, baptisms, cel-
ebrations of anniversaries
and birthdays, plus Sunday
school sessions and plenty
of youth gatherings.
Jayson Jacoby/Baker City Herald
Members of the La Grande Hot Shots fi refi ghting crew use drip torches
to ignite dry grass for a prescribed burn Thursday, April 15, 2021, north
of Phillips Reservoir. The torches contain a mix of diesel and gasoline.
ranger for the Whitman
District, which includes the
Phillips Reservoir area.
“It’s exciting to get
back to spring burning,”
Cikanek said.
Spring typically brings
the ideal conditions for pre-
scribed burning — fuels
aren’t so dry that a fi re is
likely to burn out of con-
trol, but not so damp that
fl ames won’t move.
But in 2020, with the
pandemic just beginning
and rampant uncertainty,
the Wallowa-Whitman can-
celed its spring prescribed
burning schedule.
“That was a risk we
didn’t want to take,”
Cikanek said.
In addition to ques-
tions about the likelihood
of spreading the virus
Had the complex been
torn down, the old church’s
bell, which can easily be
rung in its tower by pulling
a second-fl oor rope that
comes through a ceiling,
would have been lost.
“A lot of people want
to know if the bell still
rings. They tell stories of
sneaking up and ringing it,”
Hall said.
The old church’s inte-
rior wooden architecture
and dozens of stained glass
windows also could have
been destroyed. The stained
glass windows include sev-
eral behind the altar area
that have not been seen in
six decades. The windows
have been hidden since
1954 when the fellowship
hall, which is connected to
the back of the altar, was
built, Hall said.
The fellowship hall, as
part of the Catherine Creek
Community Center, will be
available to rent for events
such as wedding receptions,
baby showers and other cel-
ebrations. The fellowship
hall also will be a site for
Union County Food Bank
distribution and other com-
munity activities.
The parsonage, a one-
story home built around
1930, is serving as a rental.
Hall said income from
the rental, which is being
leased six months at a time,
will help pay off a loan the
nonprofi t took to raise a
portion of the $25,000 to
purchase the complex.
The Friends of the His-
toric Union Community
Hall was created as a non-
profi t in February 2020
and was able to raise the
$25,000 for the purchase of
the buildings in a year. Hall
said the nonprofi t’s fund-
raising was boosted by help
from an anonymous donor.
She said the eff ort to
save the property “is an
example of a community
working together.”
among fi re crews, Cikanek
said forest offi cials wanted
to avoid creating smoke,
which could exacerbate
health problems for people
affl icted with the respira-
tory illness.
Conditions on April 15
were close to ideal, he said.
With steady winds
blowing from the northeast
and north, smoke was gen-
erally pushed away from
Baker Valley, although
smoke settled into the
Sumpter Valley on the eve-
ning of April 15 and Friday
morning, April 16.
Frequent fi res reduce
fuel on the ground
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