REGION
TUESDAY, JULY 26, 2022
THE OBSERVER — A3
Sage grouse conservation campaign gets fi nancial boost
Baker County receives
$100,000 from last
year’s federal
infrastructure bill
By CLAYTON FRANKE
Baker City Herald
BAKER CITY — Emmy
Tyrrell calls sage grouse the
“mountain men” of birds.
That’s because they don’t like
to be around people.
Unfortunately for the chick-
en-size birds, many of the places
they live — tracts of land dom-
inated by sagebrush, including
Eastern Oregon — are popular
with people, too.
But a Baker County program
coordinated by Tyrrell that aims
to improve conditions for sage
grouse on private lands recently
received an infl ux of dollars.
Baker County is among fi ve
Eastern Oregon counties to receive
$100,000 from last year’s federal
infrastructure bill. The others are
Crook, Harney, Malheur and Lake
counties.
The three latter counties harbor
the large majority of Oregon’s sage
grouse habitat, most of which is on
public land.
Baker County is at the northern
fringe of the sage grouse’s range in
Eastern Oregon, and the county’s
sage grouse population accounts
for less than 10% of Oregon’s
total. Much of the county’s sage
grouse habitat, unlike in those
three other counties, is on private
property.
Nick Myatt/Oregon Department of Fish and WIldlife, File
Baker County is at the northern fringe of the sage grouse’s range in Eastern Oregon,
and the county’s sage grouse population accounts for less than 10% of Oregon’s
total. Much of the county’s sage grouse habitat is on private property.
The federal dollars augment a
$6.1 million, six-year grant that
Baker County received in 2019
through the lottery-funded Oregon
Watershed Enhancement Board.
The state money is also intended
to pay for sage grouse conserva-
tion projects in the county.
Oregon projects
Among the projects planned
in Baker County are deterring
ravens, which prey on sage grouse
eggs, and building an ATV wash
station at the Virtue Flat OHV
Area east of Baker City to reduce
the spread of noxious weeds and
invasive grasses that can degrade
sage grouse habitat.
Another key part of the eff ort
is the Candidate Conservation
Agreement with Assurances.
These are agreements between
the federal government and pri-
vate landowners whose proper-
ties include sage grouse habitat,
in which the landowners agree
to take actions, such as altering
cattle grazing schedules, to ben-
efi t sage grouse. Landowners
don’t receive payments through
the agreements.
Tyrrell said the federal money
will partially pay for her position
as CCAA coordinator with the
Powder Basin Watershed Council.
She said she’s also working on
an application for another grant
through the Watershed Enhance-
ment Board after the current grant
ends in 2025.
Tyrrell’s job is to act as a
liaison between landowners and
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Ser-
vice to help start — or continue
— conservation measures and
ranching practices that benefi t
sage grouse.
To ensure that conservation
projects are consistent across
counties, CCAAs usually follow a
specifi c outline — what’s called a
“programmatic” CCAA — with a
basic formula for how the agree-
ments work. The fi sh and wildlife
service established the formula in
2015.
“These programmatic
(CCAAs) have these really fan-
tastic plans laid out and we can
tailor these plans very specifi c to
whatever the landowners’ goals
are (and) what exists on the land-
scape instead of the one size fi ts
all,” Tyrrell said.
Besides crafting these agree-
ments, Tyrrell works to recruit
new landowners into the pro-
gram. Statewide, 500,000 acres
of private land are enrolled under
CCAA agreements for sage
grouse, Tyrrell said. That includes
42,000 acres — among eight dif-
ferent property owners — in
Baker County, with a small por-
tion just across the border with
Union County.
Any property that contains
habitat accessible to the Baker
sage grouse population — which
inhabits an area northeast of Inter-
state 84 and south of the Wallowa
Mountains, as well as a few other
places in southern Baker County
— can be enrolled in the pro-
gram. Tyrrell said she’s in the pro-
cess of enrolling 9,000 more acres
divided among three properties.
What makes the agreements
enticing for ranchers is that they
won’t be burdened with additional
conservation requirements or land
use restrictions should the sage
grouse ever be listed as threatened
or endangered under the federal
Endangered Species Act.
Number of birds
A 2020 report from the U.S.
Geological Survey found that sage
grouse populations across their
range, which covers 11 western
states, had decreased by 80% since
1965 and by 40% since 2002.
According to the Oregon
Department of Fish and Wildlife’s
2021 sage grouse report, the esti-
mated population of the birds in
Baker County (and a small part
of southern Union County) in
the spring of that year was 704, a
42.6% increase from the estimate
of 494 birds in the spring of 2020.
The report states that sage
grouse populations in the county
have risen since 2014, including an
average annual increase of 1.7%
in the number of male grouse at
“leks” — the open areas where
the birds gather each spring and
where the males perform the spe-
cies’ elaborate courting ritual,
which includes infl ating air sacs in
their breasts and fanning their tail
feathers.
However, between 2005 and
2021, among leks that were sur-
veyed in both years, the number of
males present declined by 81%.
Declining populations —which
are tied to the loss of sagebrush
habitat from housing, oil and nat-
ural gas exploration, mining
and other developments — have
prompted environmental groups to
petition the federal government to
protect sage grouse.
The bird became a candi-
date for an ESA listing in 2010,
prompting a movement from land-
owners to enroll in CCAAs or
similar agreements in Oregon and
elsewhere.
Tribes provide update on fi sh hatchery
Work started prior
to flooding in
spring 2020
Premium Books Available
at these locations
By ANTONIO ARREDONDO
East Oregonian
MILTON-FREEWATER
— Native fi sh are coming
back to the Walla Walla
River.
The Confederated Tribes
of the Umatilla Indian Res-
ervation on Wednesday,
July 13, shared additional
information about its fi sh
hatchery on the South Fork
of the Walla Walla River.
The hatchery, 9 miles
southwest of Milton-Free-
water, was originally com-
pleted in 1996 as an adult
fi sh facility. Built with the
intention to add on to the
original project, that fi nally
came to fruition in July
2021.
During the past two
years, CTUIR has added
incubation facilities, early
rearing and grow-out
buildings, and research
and feed storage rooms. It
also includes a new visitor
center where those coming
can see the fi sh.
“It took a lot of pains-
taking time to work through
(permitting) issues, funding
issues, and contractual
issues,” CTUIR artifi cial
production supervisor Jon
Lovrak said.
Construction began on
the hatchery in January
2020 but was quickly halted
due to extreme fl ooding one
month later. That fl ooding
that was a blessing in dis-
guise: The original plan
was not prepared for fl oods
of that nature.
“If the fl ood would have
come later, we would’ve had
to start over,” Lovrak said.
Jon Lovrak/Contributed Photo
The Walla Walla Hatchery sits next to the South Fork Walla Walla River 9 miles southwest of Milton-
Freewater. The Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation recently completed a host of
upgrades to the facilities, which are open to the public on weekdays from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
After the building was
completed more than a
year later, it was time
for fi sh to come in. The
facility is programmed to
produce 500,000 spring
chinook salmon, but in its
fi rst year received only
165,000 partially reared
fi sh, which were released
in April. Lovrak said the
hatchery will be closer
to capacity in 2022 with
485,000 fi sh, all of which
have been reared from the
egg stage.
Approximately 80%
of the fi sh are released in
the South Fork and Walla
Walla rivers, with the
remaining fi sh released in
the Touchet River. Lovrak
said reintegrating chinook
into the ecosystem will be
a great help not only to the
tribe but the entire area.
“The ecosystem will
thrive better with salmon
back in it,” Lovrak said.
For those interested in
touring the hatchery, vis-
iting hours at the new vis-
itor center are from 8 a.m.
to 4 p.m. Monday through
Friday.
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