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CapitalPress.com
September 4, 2015
S. Oregon wildfire scares away cattle
Ranchers believe
livestock OK, plan
for recovery of
grazing land
Rex Fuller, a rancher
in the Tiller, Oregon,
area , lost corrals and
fence lines in August in
the Stouts Creek Fire in
Southern Oregon. The
fire was finally contained
at about 25,500 acres,
but not before the ranch
structures along with
some pasture land, hay
ground and young and
mature Douglas fir trees
were burned.
By CRAIG REED
For The Capital Press
ROSEBURG, Ore. —
When the Stouts Creek Fire
in Southern Oregon flared up
in early August, several dozen
mother cows with their calves
scattered ahead of the advanc-
ing flames and smoke.
About a month later, the
25,500-acre fire was finally
corralled and contained, but the
livestock were still on the loose.
Ranchers Rex Fuller of Til-
ler, Ore., and Charlotte Stauch
of Drew, Ore., said they were
missing about 15 pairs each,
but were hopeful they were safe
because none of the firefighting
crews in the area had reported
finding any burned animals.
“I really haven’t had time to
go look for them, and if I did
find them and brought them
back, there would be no grass,”
said Fuller who has ranched
in the Tiller area for 33 years.
“I’m not too concerned about
them right now.”
“I’m sure those animals
were just trying to move away
from the smoke and activity,”
said Stauch, who has lived on
her family’s Drew area ranch
for all of her 61 years.
“It’s terrifying every time
this happens,” she said of fire.
“There’s always upheaval in
people’s lives. Fortunately it
didn’t take any lives.”
Stauch said she wasn’t too
concerned about her cattle
because they are used to com-
ing home in the fall when the
weather turns colder and wet
and hunters increase the activ-
ity in the woods.
Besides scattering some
livestock and forcing other
livestock to be loaded up and
hauled several miles west to
Courtesy of Mike Sullivan
greener pastures, the Stouts fire
burned several miles of fence
line, a couple corrals, some
bridges, a few hundred acres
of pasture and hay fields and
several thousand acres of both
young and mature Douglas fir
timber.
Both Fuller and Stauch said
they will have to feed hay from
their winter supplies to keep
their cattle fed until the fall rains
arrive and green grass shoots up
through the black soil.
Woody Lane, a forage and
livestock nutrition specialist in
Roseburg, Ore., said fire has
been used as a tool in manag-
ing hillside pastures for several
decades, but ranchers plan and
budget for those controlled
burns a year or two in advance.
He explained that fire is like
a reset button, sanitizing the
ground to give new seedings of
ryegrass and subclover an equal
chance to grow against weeds
and other less nutritious forage.
Lane said if a rancher de-
cides to reseed a burned area, it
would be best to do it before the
fall rains and while the ground
still has some summer warmth.
“It’s best to germinate in
warm ground,” he said “Be-
tween now and mid-October
would be the best time to get
seed in the ground.
“It just depends on the eco-
nomics of the ranch,” he added
of the expense of reseeding.
Lane said if the burned pas-
ture isn’t reseeded, then when
the rain does fall, low yield and
low quality grasses and other
unwanted species would be
more prevalent.
“A wildfire like this forces
you to make a choice,” he said.
“You either let it come up on
its own and get what you may
not want or you put improved
seed on the ground. The lat-
ter is an expense you may not
have been prepared for.”
Fuller said he’d like to re-
seed his burned ground with
ryegrass. He said he was un-
decided on whether he would
use a tractor on his moderately
sloping hillsides or seed by air-
plane.
“We’ve got a burn we have
to take care of,” the rancher
said “We’ll make the best of it.
I’m sure it is going to look a lot
better next spring than it does
right now.”
Fuller and Stauch said
there’ll also be the expense of
buying fencing and corral ma-
terials and then the labor to re-
build those structures.
“Fire just causes a lot of ex-
tra stuff you don’t need,” Fuller
said. “Now you have to deal
with the mess. I think the land
will recuperate fairly quickly,
but there’s other stuff you have
to rebuild. It’ll take time.
“You always think this is
not going to happen to you, and
then when it does, it’s pretty
painful.”
Weather helps E. Idaho avoid wildfire outbreak
By JOHN O’CONNELL
Capital Press
IDAHO FALLS, Idaho — Frequent
showers have helped Eastern Idaho avoid
major wildfires amid a 2015 fire season
that’s been among the most severe in
recent memory elsewhere in Idaho and
throughout the Northwest.
Just over 300 acres have burned in
Eastern Idaho this season, compared with
the region’s 20-year average of 77 fires
scorching 67,000 acres, said Bureau of
Land Management fire information offi-
cer Jesse Bender.
“We’ve had an incredibly below-av-
erage fire season in East Idaho,” Bender
said, adding that every fire in the region
has been suppressed during the first day.
“That has been a bit of a blessing. Be-
cause we haven’t been very busy, we’ve
been able to support all of these folks
who have been super busy.”
Bender said Eastern Idaho fire crews
have been free to assist with fighting
fires in Canada, Alaska, California, Or-
egon, Washington, the Boise area and
Northern Idaho.
Though 36 Eastern Idaho fires have
been reported this season, Bender said only
two grew to a notable size. On April 20, the
Bischoff Fire burned 100 acres of private
land near Montpelier. On June 29, the Indi-
an Creek fire burned 147 acres of rangeland
and sage grouse habitat near Dubois.
“It’s mostly been the weather patterns.
We’ve been getting thunderstorms and
lightning, but it seems like every time we
do, it comes with rain,” Bender said.
In Northern Idaho, by contrast, fire
crews have been so swamped, they say
they’ve had a hard time even keeping up
with naming their blazes.
When a lightning-caused fire was
first reported within a nondescript, for-
ested ridge about 20 miles east of Coeur
d’Alene on Aug. 20 after 2 a.m., crews
couldn’t delay updating lists of infor-
mation on the region’s active fires, ex-
plained Kjell Truesdell, fire warden with
the Cataldo Forest Protective District.
So personnel quickly dubbed it the Not
Creative Fire. Not Creative spread to
135 acres of Idaho Department of Public
Lands property and has been contained,
Truesdell said.
“It’s going back to 1926 since we’ve
had this kind of a dry spell in this partic-
ular area,” Truesdell said. “It’s definitely
been a busy year.”
Statewide, 422 fires have burned
363,000 acres this season.
Several large fires remained uncon-
tained as of Aug. 28 in Northern Idaho.
The Parker Ridge Fire, burning 6,252
acres 20 miles northwest of Bonners Fer-
ry, was 27 percent contained. The Clark
Fork Complex, burning 12,405 acres near
Clark Fork, was 25 percent contained.
The Tower Fire Complex, visible from
Priest Lake and burning 13,854 acres of
Washington and Idaho, was 10 percent
contained. The Grizzly Complex, burning
12,137 acres between Enaville and Mur-
ray, was completely uncontained.
Wolf suspected in attack on cattle dogs
OSU ag college hiring for
multiple positions by fall 2016
By KATHLEEN ELLYN
EO Media Group
By ERIC MORTENSON
Capital Press
Online:
Flush with a splash of mon-
ey from the Legislature after
multiple lean years, Oregon
State University’s College of
Agricultural Sciences plans to
hire up to 40 people by the fall
of 2016.
First on the list are an Ex-
tension dairy specialist to work
in the mid-Willamette Valley
and a livestock and rangeland
specialist to work in Morrow
and Umatilla counties.
The two are among 19 fac-
ulty positions that will be filled
by 2016; some positions are
new and some involve replace-
ment hires. Up to 21 full- or
part-time support staff positions
will be filled as well.
The hiring is due to the Or-
egon Legislature approving a
$14 million budget increase
for the College of Agricultural
Sciences for the 2015-17 bien-
nium. The funding increased
the college’s budget to $118
million, according to OSU.
Dean Dan Arp said being
The College of Agricultural Sciences job listings are at
https : //jobs.oregonstate.edu/applicants/jsp/shared/search/
SearchResults_css.jsp
able to hire faculty is a welcome
change from the past few years.
The college will undoubtedly be
competing against other schools
for the best talent, he said.
Both positions are assistant
professorships within the col-
lege’s Department of Animal
and Rangeland Sciences.
The Willamette Valley
dairy position hasn’t been
filled for several years, Arp
said. The fact that it’s one of
the first to be filled with the
additional funding coincides
with the rebuild of the dairy
program on campus.
In 2012, the dairy was
shut down after cow manure
leaked into a nearby creek.
The program was fined nearly
$7,000 and was forced to sell
its herd of 120 animals while
making repairs.
The dairy is back up and
running, however, and among
other things sells milk to the
fermentation center on campus,
which makes cheese.
The dairy search committee
is headed by Troy Downing,
an Extension dairy specialist
based in Tillamook County on
the Oregon Coast. Downing
said he’s “thrilled” to see OSU
add someone to work with dair-
ies in Marion, Polk and other
Willamette Valley counties.
Other OSU staff work with
dairies as part of their duties,
but due to attrition, Downing
said he is the only full-time
dairy specialist.
“The dairy industry has
been served with very few
people,” he said. “Really
what’s been missing is some-
one to focus energy on the
substantial dairy industry in
the Willamette Valley.”
TROY, Ore. — Two herding
dogs belonging to Buck Mat-
thews of the Anchor Bar Ranch
near remote Troy, Ore., were at-
tacked Aug. 26 as they worked
cattle. Oregon Department of
Fish and Wildlife officials say it
was probably a wolf.
Matthews and his ranch
hand, Josh Markeson, were
heading out to round up 300
cows trapped between fires on
nearby Eden Bench when they
found the two dogs.
A 10-year-old border col-
lie-kelpie named Scooter and
2-year-old border collie named
Tom were injured in the attack.
“Scooter could hardly stand
up and was in shock,” said
Buck’s wife, Chelsea. “Tom
was limping and moving slow.”
Neighboring rancher Collin
Cunningham took the dogs to
the veterinarian nearly 60 miles
away in Enterprise, so the men
could continue rounding up cat-
tle.
Wallowa County Sheriff’s
Deputy Fred Steen met them
at the Double Arrow Veteri-
nary Clinic in Enterprise and
The National Dairy Producers Organization, Inc.
The Producer’s Voice
took the report.
“The vet report is that they
were attacked by a very large
canine, bigger than a coyote,”
said Chelsea Matthews. “At this
point Oregon Department of
Fish and Wildlife is calling it a
‘probable’ wolf attack.”
Scooter took the brunt of the
attack and was “roughed up top
to bottom,” said Double Arrow
veterinarian technician Darcy
Moncrief. The dog suffered
a long puncture wound to his
shoulders that required stitches,
and now sports three drainage
tubes.
Young Tom had injuries to
his face and elsewhere on his
body and was sore.
Neither Tom nor Scooter,
when they’re well, will go back
to looking for cows on Eden
Bench in any case, as Buck has
decided there is too much risk
of their paws getting burned.
Chelsea Matthews said
they’ve twice seen a wolf with-
in a half-mile of their home
place since the attack.
“(Rancher friend) Todd
Nash and Buck saw the wolf the
morning of the attack when they
went up on the home place (on
Grouse Flats) to gather cows for
shipment,” Chelsea Matthews
said. “My sister-in-law, Mona,
and I saw him up on Bartlett
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Bench about a half-mile from
our house when we went to
meet the semis that were haul-
ing out the cattle. He’s black
and big.”
The wolf is most likely a
survivor of the Wenaha pack,
displaced by the fires. ODFW
East Region Manager Bruce
Eddy said the Wenaha Pack had
most likely escaped the fire.
“My guess is they are so in-
credibly mobile they can get out
of the way of fire,” he said.
Many of the wolves in the
area are black, State Wolf Pro-
gram Coordinator Russ Morgan
said.
“But we could have a wolf
from anywhere. We just don’t
have enough data on the Wena-
ha area wolves to know them. ...
They’re the least visible pack,”
he said. “That wolf could be a
wolf traveling through or even a
Washington wolf.”
The Matthewses have evac-
uated cows from the home
place and continue to search for
the cows that had been grazing
on Eden Bench when the fire
swept through the area.
“Most of the home cows
have been shipped,” said Chel-
sea Matthews. “We’ve found
70 head out of the 300 out on
Eden Bench. Buck is still find-
ing them.”