Business
AgLife
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Thursday, February 3, 2022
The Observer & Baker City Herald
Young
ranchers
receive
scholarships
Devin Schreiber, Alisha
Melville earn award
from Wallowa County
Stockgrowers
By BILL BRADSHAW
Wallowa County Chieftain
ENTERPRISE — Two $1,400
scholarships were awarded last
month by the Wallowa County Stock-
growers to youths in the process of
building their own cattle herds.
Devin Schreiber, who attends
Joseph Charter School, and Alisha
Melville, who attends Enterprise
High School, each received a scholar-
ship, according to Stockgrowers Vice
President Deanna DeMelo.
The scholarships are to purchase
bred heifers to either begin or add to
the youths’ herds.
DeMelo said each student also
received $350 from the Wallowa
County Haygrowers to help feed the
animals during their first year.
The scholarships were presented
during the annual dinner put on
by the Stockgrowers and the Wal-
lowa County Agricultural Resource
Foundation. The foundation regu-
larly awards scholarships to youths in
agriculture-related college classes.
Last year, DeMelo said, the group
awarded two scholarships, although
she did not have the recipients’
names or the amounts.
She said nearly 100 people
attended the dinner, enjoying prime
rib and a dessert auction. The
COVID-19 pandemic appeared to
have cut attendance at the annual
function, she said.
“There were probably a few less
people than usual,” DeMelo said.
“We had a lot of pies to get rid of.
There’s usually a couple more tables
there.”
John Williams of the Stock-
growers said that over the course of
the evening they raised more than
$8,000 to go toward scholarships.
Davi Parker/Contributed Photo
Davi Parker of Wallowa takes her kids and goats on a backpacking trip in the high mountains. She said the family’s does and the wethers (castrated males) go camp-
ing with them during milking season. She makes soap from the milk for her Spilt Milk Soaps business.{div id=”highlighter--hover-tools” style=”display: none;”} {/
In a lather
Wallowa County’s Davi
Parker produces, sells
goat milk soap from home
By BILL BRADSHAW
from her own goats for six years. She
started selling soap, bath and body items,
lotions and shave bars — all from goat
milk — about three years ago. She also
makes some men’s beard-care products,
including beard balm and oil.
“Those, obviously, don’t have goat
milk,” she said.
Wallowa County Chieftain
The process
WALLOWA — Davi Parker doesn’t
cry over spilled milk; she makes soap out
of it — as long as it’s from her goats.
In fact, some of her products look
tasty, but her soap is strictly to clean the
body.
“I do have some soaps that look like
delicious cupcakes, but they certainly
wouldn’t taste delicious,” the Wallowa
owner of Spilt Milk Soaps said. “Goat
milk is amazing stuff, whether it is used
topically or internally; just don’t eat goat
milk soap.”
Parker has been making the soap
The soap is made using a combination
of oils and lye, Parker said.
“I use ‘full milk’ for all of my soaps,”
she said. “This means all of the liquid
used to dissolve lye is full goat milk not
diluted with water. I have a couple bars
that are the exception — one uses half
seawater we gathered from the ocean, and
the other uses half beer.”
To make the soap, the dissolved lye
is added to the oils and blended until
emulsified.
Davi Parker/Contributed Photo
See, Soap/Page B2
Davi Parker poses with her wether Gruff. She makes soap
from the milk her doe goats produce at her Wallowa home.
Salmon: No longer the Columbia’s king
Nonnative shad
the most common
fish found on
Bonneville Dam’s
fish ladders
By ELI FRANCOVICH
Columbia Insight
HOOD RIVER — In
1957, the steel gates of The
Dalles Dam, upstream from
Hood River, closed and one
of North America’s largest
waterfalls was inundated
with water.
With that, an important
Indigenous cultural gath-
ering place was flooded and
an unforeseen ecological
cascade triggered.
Now, 77 years later,
often the most common
fish found flopping up Bon-
neville Dam’s fish ladders
are nonnative shad, a sil-
very member of the her-
ring family and the unlikely
beneficiary of the flooding
of Celilo Falls.
“The shad are, even
though they run out to
the ocean and come back,
they are not great swim-
mers like salmon are,” said
John Epifanio, lead author
of a newly published report
examining the proliferation
of shad in the Columbia
River system.
Some years shad, which
were introduced to the
West Coast in the 1880s,
make up more than 90%
of recorded upstream
migrants, according to
Rick Bowmer/The Associated Press, File
In this June 27, 2012, file photo, a sockeye salmon, left, swims past a chinook salmon, center front, and
shad, above, at the fish counting window at the Bonneville Dam near Cascade Locks.
an Independent Scientific
Advisory Board report to
the Northwest Power and
Conservation Council pub-
lished in November 2021.
What impact these
fish are having on native
ocean-going species like
salmon and steelhead still
isn’t clear.
While the report doesn’t
offer any definitive answers,
it does show how ecological
disruptions, whether from
hydroelectric development
or climate change, can hurt
one species while benefiting
another.
The former horse-
shoe-shaped Celilo Falls is
a prime example.
Before the dam began
operating, the falls dropped
40 feet. Migrating steelhead
and salmon battled up and
over the falls during their
yearly migration.
But, for the nonnative
shad the falls proved to be
an unnavigable obstacle.
Now that the falls are
submerged that’s no longer
the case.
‘We’re salmon people,
not shad people’
Prior to 1960, there were
fewer than 20,000 adult
shad per year at Bonneville
Dam, which is downstream
of Celilo Falls.
After The Dalles Dam
was built, that number rose
to 1 million a year, and shad
numbers have increased on
average 5% each year.
That means the shad
population is nearly dou-
bling every decade, said
Epifanio.
In addition to the
removal of the physical
barrier, the hydroelectric
system has also slowed the
downstream flow of water,
which has raised overall
water temperature. It’s pos-
sible shad, which can sur-
vive a wider range of tem-
peratures than salmon, have
capitalized on that fact, too.
“There have been a lot
of changes. It just seems to
have favored these guys and
they’ve taken advantage,”
said Epifanio.
Regardless of the
cause, shad numbers have
increased.
What’s more, they’re
making it farther upstream
and into the Snake River
above Lower Granite Dam,
said Jay Hesse, director of
biological services for the
Nez Perce Tribe’s Depart-
ment of Fisheries Resources
Management. The tribe was
not involved in the study.
“Their abundance is
increasing to really notable
levels,” he said. “And their
distribution at those higher
levels is also expanding.”
That’s concerned Nez
Perce biologists who worry
shad may hurt their already
struggling steelhead and
salmon populations.
The report doesn’t
establish any direct link
between the shad increase
and the salmon and steel-
head decrease. However,
it does offer a few theories
on how shad may nega-
tively impact salmon.
For example, higher-
than-normal shad numbers
may be supporting a larger
avian predator popula-
tion and shad may be com-
peting for food sources and
nursery habitat.
Such a large-scale
change in the Columbia
Basin’s migratory fish
population is alarming
ecologically.
And for people and cul-
tures that venerate salmon,
steelhead and lamprey, it
also highlights the loss of
a way of life, said Anthony
Capetillo, aquatic invasive
species biologist for the Nez
Perce tribe.
“We’re a salmon people,
not a shad people,” he said.
What’s the problem?
It couldn’t be more dif-
ferent on the East Coast,
where shad are a valuable
and sought-after sport and
commercial fish.
Although bonier and
oilier than salmon, shad are
tasty. Ironically, shad pop-
ulations on the East Coast
are in decline.
Developing a commer-
cial and recreational fishery
in the West may be one way
managers can control the
proliferation of shad, said
Stuart Ellis, harvest man-
agement biologist for the
Columbia River Inter-Tribal
Fish Commission.
While still not a popular
species for anglers, shad
fishing has grown in popu-
larity in recent years.
“It’s a huge amount of
protein, perfectly good pro-
tein,” Ellis said. “There is
no reason not to catch these
fish — we don’t need them
in the system.”
The Wild Fish Conser-
vancy is also examining
experimental trapping
methods that could trap
shad while not accidentally
trapping salmon, steelhead
or other unintended species.
Epifanio and other
researchers involved in
the study hope their report
prompts further investi-
gation, particularly into
how, or if, shad are hurting
native species.
“At the very least, we
just need to continue to
monitor what these pop-
ulations are doing in the
basin,” he said. “We hope
that we don’t just mon-
itor. We want to have some
solutions.”