FROM PAGE ONE
Friday, december 31, 2021
AHEAD
mier baseball and soft-
ball facility in La Grande
Continued from Page A1
and improve local teams’
ability to practice and
faced several roadblocks
compete in the years to
related to the COVID-19
come.
pandemic and supply
The project involved
chain issues. However, the the efforts of the city, La
Liberty Theatre Board has Grande High School and
remained meticulous in
Eastern Oregon Univer-
sity, while numerous local
getting every small detail
businesses and contrac-
of the theater renovation
tors made major contri-
correct.
“So much thought goes butions. The new facility
into the design, to not just
opens the door for tourna-
ments and local tourism
have an absolutely beau-
tiful theater that we can
as the fields will serve as
all be proud of,
one of the top facil-
ities on the east side
but also one that is
of Oregon.
historically accu-
rate,” O’Toole said.
“I’m just excited
“We want patrons
to see the kids on
to walk in the the-
the field and for the
ater and really feel
grass to fully grow
Bell
like they’re stepping
in the outfield,” La
back into the 1930s
Grande Parks and
and 1940s.”
Recreation Director
Also trending up
Stu Spence said.
in Union County
“I’m excited to
is the Buffalo Peak
have fields that will
Golf Course, which
be durable for a
was named facility
number of teams to
Beverage play on.”
of the year by the
Oregon Golf Asso-
According to
ciation this past October.
Spence, the parks and
The course experienced
recreation department is
financial difficulties early
planning to bring back the
on after its construction in Moonlight Tournament,
2000 but has seen a major
an all-night adult softball
resurgence in the past year tournament. And, with
under general manager
the improved fields, the
Dana Londin and the staff. department plans to host
Beverage stated that
similar tournaments.
Buffalo Peak will be part
While many things
of the brochure to pro-
have changed in the past
mote businesses in Union
year and local facili-
ties are looking to keep
County in March of 2022.
“That’s exciting,
improving in the future,
working together to pro-
the La Grande Police
mote businesses in Union
Department is aiming
County, especially our golf to maintain a similar
course, which is a huge
standard.
draw to the region,” she
“For 2022, the La
said.
Grande Police Depart-
ment is looking forward
Improvements
to serving our community
continue
in the coming year and
A similar attraction in
we are hopeful that all
the sports world will be a
of our community mem-
bers will have a safe and
large draw for La Grande
healthy new year,” La
in 2022. The newly reno-
vated turf field at Pioneer
Grande Police Chief Gary
Park will provide a pre-
Bell said.
VISIT US ON THE WEB AT:
www.LaGrandeObserver.com
BIGHORNS
Continued from Page A1
horns in the Lookout Moun-
tain unit. A survey in late
2020 showed about 250
sheep.
Ratliff said he expected
about 225 in this year’s count,
so he was somewhat pleased
by the total of 274 animals.
About 62% of the bighorns,
however, were distributed
among several large groups
in one canyon in the south
part of the unit. Ratliff didn’t
see any lambs in that area.
He said that’s strong evi-
dence that the bacteria, which
sheep can easily spread
among themselves, is still
present in those larger groups
and likely killed all of this
year’s lambs.
“In the smaller subgroups
there’s less chance of lambs
being infected,” Ratliff said.
Biologists were initially
optimistic in 2020, with no
dead lambs found as of mid-
June. They knew, from ear-
lier testing, that lambs aren’t
infected by their mothers
prior to birth.
But later in summer 2020,
as ewes and lambs started
to congregate in larger
“nursery” groups, lambs
started to sicken and die.
Finding the ‘shedders’
The key to saving the
Lookout Mountain herd —
and the smaller herd of Cal-
ifornia bighorns, a smaller
subspecies, in the Burnt
River Canyon south of I-84
— is finding the sheep that
are chronic “shedders” of the
bacteria that causes poten-
tially fatal pneumonia, Rat-
liff said.
VACCINE
Continued from Page A1
about 1 in 5 urban Orego-
nians. Of the rural people
who haven’t gotten shots,
74% say they’ll never do
it, compared to 69% of
urban people who aren’t
vaccinated. The differ-
ence is right on the edge of
the margin of error for the
THe ObSerVer — A5
That’s the focus of a multi-
agency effort that started in
2020 and likely will continue
for several years.
This campaign relies
heavily on temporarily cap-
turing bighorns, testing them
for the bacteria, and fitting
them with GPS tracking
collars.
Chronic shedders often
don’t get sick, but they can
quickly spread the bacteria
to other sheep that lack high
levels of immunity, Ratliff
said.
Ewes that are chronic
shedders are especially prob-
lematic because they mingle
with other ewes, and lambs,
more often than rams, which
are either solitary or with
other rams much of the year.
Lambs are especially vul-
nerable, as the nearly whole-
sale loss of the youngest
animals the past two years
attests.
Last fall, ODFW, with
financial aid from the Con-
federated Tribes of the Uma-
tilla Indian Reservation,
as well as the Oregon and
national chapters of the Foun-
dation for North American
Wild Sheep, captured 25
bighorns from the Lookout
Mountain herd. Although all
25 of those sheep had anti-
bodies in their blood showing
they had been infected with
the bacteria, just four of the
25 were shedding bacteria at
that time, Ratliff said.
Biologists fitted all those
sheep with tracking collars
so they can be captured again
and retested.
So far this fall, ODFW has
captured, tested and collared
14 more sheep from Lookout
Mountain.
None was a chronic
shedder, Ratliff said,
although test results from
two of the bighorns were
inconclusive, so it’s not clear
whether they are shedders or
not. One of the 14, a ewe, was
a chronic shedder identified
in 2020, but was not shedding
this fall.
Sheep that are trapped
twice and are chronically
shedding both times will be
euthanized, Ratliff said.
So far, ODFW hasn’t euth-
anized any bighorns from
Lookout Mountain since
none has twice been identi-
fied as a chronic shedder.
Ratliff said it’s possible
that the herd could recover
from the outbreak by virtue
of the chronic shedders
dying naturally. Over time,
more sheep are likely to gain
immunity from a previous
exposure to the bacteria, as
well.
On the other hand, just a
few chronic shedders could
potentially keep the bacteria
circulating within the herd,
and decimating each year’s
crop of lambs.
“We’ve just got to figure
out who it is,” Ratliff said.
To maintain the herd pop-
ulation requires a minimum
of 20 lambs per 100 ewes, he
said.
The average ratio for the
Lookout Mountain herd is
38 lambs per 100 ewes, and
the number has ranged from
a high of 67 per 100 to a low
of 24.
Ratliff said he expects to
see a typical crop of lambs
born in the Lookout Moun-
tain herd late in the coming
spring.
During the aerial survey
this month, he said he
didn’t see any evidence of
sick sheep — bighorns that
develop pneumonia from the
bacteria typically cough and
stumble. And based on 2020
and 2021, it doesn’t appear
that the bacteria is affecting
the reproductive capacity of
the herd.
Ratliff said biologists
don’t know how the Lookout
Mountain herd was initially
infected with the bacteria.
urban-rural analysis, so it’s
not entirely clear how sig-
nificant the result is.
“It will be vital to con-
tinue finding ways to per-
suade, entice, and encourage
residents everywhere, par-
ticularly rural Oregonians,
to get vaccinated,” the
researchers wrote.
The most reliable indi-
cator of whether someone
has received a shot, per
Clark’s analysis, is their level
of education — more so even
than their income or loca-
tion. The higher a survey
respondent’s education level,
the more likely they were to
say they’ve been vaccinated,
Clark found.
A regular course of shots
substantially reduces the risk
of severe illness and death,
research shows. Booster
shots, meanwhile, reduce
the risk of infection overall,
which is why Oregon health
officials have asked 1 mil-
lion more Oregonians to
get boosted by the end of
January.
As of Dec. 23, 1 in 4 Ore-
gonians — about 1.1 mil-
lion people — had received
boosters, according to
Oregon Health Authority
data. Just over 71% have
received at least one shot.
COSTLY CAMPAIGN
BAKER CITY — Trapping, testing and
attaching GPS collars to bighorn
sheep in some of Baker County’s
most rugged country is a time-con-
suming, and expensive, endeavor.
Brian Ratliff, wildlife biologist at the
Oregon Department of Fish and
Wildlife’s Baker City office, said the
agency has benefited from financial
assistance from the Confederated
Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Res-
ervation, as well as technical assis-
tance from the Tribes’ biologists.
The Tribes have contributed $32,000
from their own budget, and also
received a federal grant
for $183,000.
Ratliff said the Oregon chapter of
the Foundation for North American
Wild Sheep contributed $10,000,
and the foundation’s national office
allocated $50,000 for a three-state
bighorn sheep project that includes
Washington and Idaho.
The Bureau of Land Management,
which oversees much of the land
that both the Lookout Mountain
and Burnt River Canyon bighorn
herds use, recently contributed
$20,000.
And ODFW has spent more than
$125,000 so far on the campaign,
Ratliff said.
— Jayson Jacoby, Baker City Herald
‘We’ve just got to
figure out who it is’
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