OREGON
A6 — THE OBSERVER
SATURDAY, JULY 31, 2021
BOOTLEG FIRE | FIREFIGHTING PRACTICES
Brown: Oregon must modernize
Governor’s remarks
occur during tour of
the Bootleg Fire
By JOE SIESS
Klamath Falls Herald and News
BLY — Gov. Kate
Brown visited the
nation’s largest wildfi re
on Wednesday, July 28,
fl ying past 413,000 acres
of burned forest in a heli-
copter, then speaking with
fi re offi cials in Bly.
After seeing the devas-
tation, Brown said the state
has to rethink how it fi ghts
wildfi res in an era of hotter,
larger blazes — and mit-
igate dangers before they
spark.
“There is absolutely no
question that we need to
modernize our fi refi ghting
practices,” she said.
Brown acknowledged
the diffi culty that Klamath
County communities, and
the broader region, are
facing in a summer com-
pounded by COVID-19,
drought and now wildfi re.
“My heart goes out to
the people of the Klamath
Basin,” the governor said.
“This is a really challenging
summer. We know this is
going to be an incredibly
challenging fi re season,
and obviously we’ve got the
challenges around drought.”
Brown said the state is
Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife/Contributed Photo
Arden Barnes/Klamath Falls Herald and News
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown visits the Bly Fire Camp at the Bootleg Fire in
Klamath County, Wednesday, June 28, 2021. Brown’s visit included a
fl yover of the wildfi re and a discussion with fi re offi cials.
committed to assisting dis-
placed families as quickly
as possible, and said federal
assistance is on the way.
“This is an all-hands-
on-deck moment,” she
said, promising to call Rep.
DeFazio, D-Springfi eld,
chairman of the House
Committee on Transporta-
tion and Infrastructure, who
is leading alongside Sen.
Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon, a
delegation pushing for Fed-
eral Emergency Manage-
ment Agency readiness.
Brown said there are
other ways for the state to
prove its readiness.
“We must do more of
the preventative mitiga-
tion work (such as) the thin-
ning and the prescriptive
burning,” she said from fi re
camp in Bly. “The goal is
to eliminate biomass fuel
off the forest fl oors so that
you either prevent fi res or,
if there are fi res, it is not as
damaging.”
Brown said stopping
wildfi res before they start
is smarter policy, but crews
also need the manpower
and funds necessary to fi ght
them when they get out of
hand. Brown said mega-
fi res are threatening Oregon
communities, damaging to
the environment, dangerous
for fi refi ghters and expen-
sive for taxpayers.
“The challenge is these
fi res are substantially
hotter. They are faster;
they are simply much more
ferocious than in decades
past,” she said. “So we
have to make sure that
we have both the people
power and the equipment
to tackle them.”
Survey: Conservatives far more
likely to decline COVID-19 vaccine
By SUZANNE ROIG
The Bulletin
SALEM — Vaccination
rates drop signifi cantly out-
side of the Portland metro
area, according to results of
a Oregon Values and Beliefs
Center survey.
The online survey of
Oregon residents showed
the three counties making
up the Portland area had a
77% vaccination rate. In
the survey, 42% of those
surveyed said they had
not received a COVID-19
vaccine.
The survey results
mirror those from
December 2020 that gauged
how likely someone would
be to get the vaccine when
it became available. The
results were published at
the same time Oregon Gov.
Kate Brown announced the
state would follow Cen-
ters for Disease Control and
Prevention indoor-mask
guidelines.
People who identifi ed as
socially conservative were
four times as likely to say
they would not receive the
vaccine than those who said
they were liberal. Nearly
all those surveyed who said
they were college educated
reported having received
at least one dose of the
COVID-19 vaccine.
“In Oregon, as in most
other states, vaccination has
become a politically polar-
Mary Altaff er/The Associated Press
A health care worker fi lls a syringe with the Pfi zer COVID-19 vaccine,
Thursday, July 22, 2021, at a clinic in New York. The number of Amer-
icans getting a COVID-19 vaccine has been rising in recent days as vi-
rus cases once again surge and offi cials raise dire warnings about the
consequences of remaining unvaccinated.
ized issue,” said Amaury
Vogel, Oregon Values and
Beliefs Center associate
executive director. “Polit-
ical ideology, when it comes
to social issues, is a strong
predictor of whether or
not a person has received
at least one dose of a
COVID-19 vaccine.”
As of Thursday, July
29, the Oregon Health
Authority reported that
14,067 adult residents have
been fully or partially vac-
cinated in Union County
and Wallowa County, or
about 53%, according to the
OHA data.
“Oregonians who remain
unvaccinated share the
same reasons as being the
most infl uential in their
decision not to get vacci-
nated: long- and short-term
side eff ects and the con-
cerns that the vaccine was
developed too quickly,”
Vogel said.
The survey conducted
July 9-14 of 1,464 residents
has a margin of error for the
full sample ranging from
plus or minus 1.5% to plus
or minus 2.6%, depending
on the response category for
any given question.
The Oregon Values and
Voices project, a nonpar-
tisan charitable organiza-
tion, has partnered with
Pamplin Media Group,
EO Media Group and the
Oregon Values and Beliefs
Center. EO Media Group
owns newspapers in Oregon
and Washington state,
including The Observer.
A trail camera in January 2016 caught this image of two adult wolves from the Walla Walla Pack in
northern Umatilla County. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife has issued permits allowing a
Baker County resident to kill up to four wolves from the Lookout Mountain Pack.
State authorizes wolf kill
Baker County rancher allowed to kill up to four wolves
Baker City Herald
BAKER CITY — The
Oregon Department of
Fish and Wildlife issued a
permit Thursday, July 29,
allowing a Baker County
ranching couple, or their
designated agents, to kill
up to four wolves from the
Lookout Mountain Pack.
The pack, which con-
sists of an estimated nine
wolves, has attacked cattle
four times in the past two
weeks, killing two and
injuring two others. The
pack has been determined
to be chronically depre-
dating and presents a sig-
nifi cant risk to livestock in
the area, according to an
ODFW press release.
The permit allows the
livestock producers or their
agents to kill up to four
uncollared wolves in a des-
ignated area, a mix of pri-
vate land and public land
where they have a grazing
permit, where wolves are
determined to be a sig-
nifi cant risk to livestock.
The permit expires Aug.
21 or when livestock are
removed from the area,
whichever comes fi rst.
ODFW staff may kill
wolves included in the
permit to assist the pro-
ducer. The permit does
not allow killing of the
pack’s breeding pair, both
of which have tracking
collars.
Under the Wolf Plan
rules, livestock producers
must be using and docu-
ment nonlethal methods
appropriate to the situa-
tion before lethal control
can be considered. Also,
there can be no identifi ed
circumstances on the prop-
erty, such as bone piles or
carcasses, that could be
attracting wolves.
ODFW found no attrac-
tants during its investi-
gations of depredations.
The producers have been
implementing nonle-
thal measures for years.
Since January 2021 these
measures included night
checking of calving cows,
use of rag box, placing
calving cows near house
and barns in small 30-acre
pastures, hazing wolves
out of the calving areas,
burying dead calves and
cows and frequent commu-
nication with ODFW on
the wolves’ location.
Since cattle were placed
in the large rangeland pas-
tures, the livestock pro-
ducers have checked them
frequently, placed cows in
specifi c pastures based on
wolf activity, and recorded
and communicated wolf
presence to ODFW and
neighboring producers.
Since the depredations
started on July 14, pro-
ducers have increased their
human presence, hazed
wolves using fi rearms,
removed injured livestock
from pastures, and shifted
cattle to pastures with less
forage available to try to
prevent further confl ict.
The Lookout Moun-
tain wolves were fi rst doc-
umented in 2019 and were
documented as a breeding
pair for the fi rst time in
2020, meaning they had
two pups that survived
through the end of the year.
Four wolves including two
pups were documented at
the end of 2020 and seven
2021 pups were observed
in May. Currently both
adult breeders have func-
tioning radio collars.
Lethal action is autho-
rized with the goal of put-
ting an end to the chronic
depredation, but livestock
producers also are required
to continue to use nonle-
thal measures.
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