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February 2024
Rural Report
ODFW Chinook Harvest Ban
Roseburg OR –
State fish and wildlife
officials said that harvesting adult and jack wild
spring Chinook salmon on the North and the
mainstem Umpqua rivers will be prohibited
starting in February 2024.
Citing historically low population numbers in
2023 for adult wild spring Chinook on the South
Umpqua and numbers reportedly well below
average in the North Umpqua River, the Oregon
Department of Fish and Wildlife said low
forecasts expected for 2024 have triggered the
harvest prohibition on wild Chinook salmon.
“The best way to address these issues and
reverse the fortunes of salmon and steelhead
in the Umpqua is through targeted habitat and
flow restoration to cool our rivers,” said Greg
Huchko, District Fish Biologist.
Factors contributing to the low numbers
include access to habitat, degraded habitat,
and predation from such non-native species
as smallmouth bass, state fish and wildlife
officials said. Multiple agencies are partnering
with ODFW to address the fish passage issue
for spring Chinook in the upper South Umpqua
River, ODFW officials said.
State officials have said that the restrictions,
which will go into effect starting on February
1, 2024, and continue through June 30, 2024,
follow the conservation sliding scale in ODFW’s
Coastal Multi-Species Conservation and
Management Plan, which was adopted in 2014
by the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission
and developed by multiple stakeholders within
the Umpqua Basin.
According to ODFW officials, the ‘sliding
scale’ makes adjustments to wild fish harvest
opportunities based on the North and South
Umpqua River population numbers.
due to low population numbers
Story by Scooter Brown
ODFW Collecting Steelhead Snouts
Locations around Umpqua Basin
Roseburg OR – Winter steelhead anglers are asked
to return snouts from hatchery steelhead harvested
in the Umpqua River basin. ODFW will scan the
snouts for coded wire tags in the first of a multi-year
research project to improve winter steelhead fishing
in the South Umpqua River.
Anglers can deposit snouts in collection barrels
at various boat ramps around Douglas County.
Bags and tags with date and location of harvest are
in the barrels. The barrels are set up around popular
fishing spots on the North Umpqua, South Umpqua
and mainstem Umpqua Rivers. These locations
include Scott Creek, Sawyer’s Place, Elkton,
Osprey and James Woods boat launches and the
ODFW office in Roseburg. The barrels also have
little paper tags and pencils. The tags and pencils
are for anglers to mark down when they caught
it, an approximate size of the fish, their name and
their contact information. Entries are submitted
into a into a monthly drawing for a gift card to
Sportsman’s Warehouse.
Fish were coded wire tagged in February 2018
and released in March and April from the Rock
Creek and Cole Rivers hatcheries in Canyonville.
Any of those fish returning this steelhead angling
season are considered “one salt fish” after spending
one year in the ocean. This citizen science project
collects information on the winter steelhead fishery
including number of fish harvested, whether
they are wild or hatchery, and fishing effort. This
information will be used in conjunction with the
coded wire tag data to better manage the hatchery
fishery.
Story by Scooter Brown
ODFW STEP biologist Evan Leonetti said the
agency will use the data collected from anglers and
coded wire tags to adjust hatchery release timing to
improve future hatchery winter steelhead fishing,
particularly in the South Umpqua River.
“Getting the data from the coded wire tags
will help us determine which releases have better
returns for anglers. These fish were all in the four
to five-inch range when released in Canyonville,”
Leonetti said. They take the juvenile steelhead
from the hatchery, implant the tag into their snout,
then release the fish from their acclamation site in
Canyonville. Those fish migrate out to the ocean,
grow up and return in one to three years.
Leonetti is also asking for volunteers to
interview winter steelhead anglers on the North
and South Umpqua rivers. Volunteers can work
a very flexible schedule and will be stationed at
boat ramps throughout the two basins. Leonetti
is looking for people with flexible schedules,
that enjoy talking with anglers. He is also asking
volunteers to assist with the collection of snouts.
Volunteers must provide their own transportation
and may be working alone or with a partner. The
project runs the length of the winter steelhead
season, ending about mid-April.
Anyone over the age of 18 who is interested
in volunteering should call Leonetti at 541-
464-2175 or email evan.leonetti@state.or.us or
anyone interested in volunteering to handle fish,
in Canyonville, contact Levi Simmons at 541-
464-2157.
Veterans Corner
Deported Veteran returns after 17 years
Hector Lopez has been on the front lines in the battle
to get all Deported Veterans returned for many years.
He helped run an office in downtown Tijuana to
locate and help the vets who were stuggling to stay alive.
He was finally able to secure a humanitarian pass to help
his ailing mother in Madera. Not exactly a full return of
his US citizenship, yet but it was a crack in the wall of bs
and he is now home.
Victor Hinojosa, who lives in Rosarito Mexico, a
founder of supporter of returning the Veterans, drove
Hector and his wife home. He is still going through all
the paper work to be sure he can get Hector all the help
he needs at the local VA.
All the returning Veterans face the same PTSD prob-
lems as somebody who was a POW.
Bring Deported Veterans Home!
North Douglas Herald
Oregon Gray Wolves moving West and South
There are now about 200 gray wolves in Oregon
Story by Scooter Brown
The breeding male of the Chesnimnus Pack is caught on camera during the winter survey on U.S. Forest Service
land in northern Wallowa County in December 2018. (Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife )
State biologists say Oregon’s gray wolf
population may have reached its ecological
limit in the eastern third of the state and that
packs will probably spread out to the west and
south in greater numbers. Those comments,
made at a meeting of the state Fish and Wildlife
Commission, came as Colorado released
five wolves trapped from Oregon as part of a
historic reintroduction program.
Roblyn Brown, the Oregon Department
of Fish and Wildlife’s wolf coordinator, told
ranchers and conservationists in December
2023, that about 200 gray wolves in nearly 25
packs call Oregon home. She said their numbers
have leveled off in recent years because most
wolves live in northeast Oregon, an area that’s
becoming crowded for the species. Wolves first
recolonized their native habitat there in 2009
after hunting and harassment eradicated them
from Oregon for 50 years.
The wildlife agency counted 178 wolves
in the state in 2022, up from 175 in 2021 and
173 in 2020, though officials say that’s an
undercount. Their numbers have plateaued
in recent years after spiking for a decade.
Wolves packs have taken root in central and
southwestern Oregon, including a pack in
Jackson County that has become notorious for
preying on cattle.
“We’re going to start seeing a lot more
wolves over the next few years in other areas of
Oregon,” Brown said.
But conservationists are concerned that
the agency is killing more wolves as packs
prey more and more on livestock. Illegal
kills also continue to plague wolf packs. The
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is offering a
$26,500 reward for information leading to
convictions for two separate wolf slayings in
November, including one in Jackson County.
Wolf hunting is illegal in Oregon, and the
Jackson County wolf was protected under the
federal Endangered Species Act, like all others
in central and western Oregon.
In a recent Fish and Wildlife Commission
meeting, Brown reported that a sustained wolf
population is “a big accomplishment.” She
went on to say that almost 90% of adult wolves
survived year-to-year in Oregon, a much higher
rate than Western states, including Idaho and
Montana, where authorized mass wolf hunts
are common. Both states have much higher
numbers of wolves than Oregon.
Derek Broman, the agency’s game
program manager, said that some environmental
challenges expected to plague Oregon wolves
haven’t been issues after all. Conservationists
had been concerned about a lack of genetic
diversity among different wolf packs, which
could make wolves more susceptible to canine
diseases and disruptions in their environment.
“Some of those conservation threats are
not what they were five years ago,” Broman
said.
John Williams of the Oregon Cattlemen’s
Association said that trust is growing between
ranchers and wildlife managers thanks to a
more efficient process of investigating kills of
livestock. This is a source of concern for a small
group of ranchers who have lost cattle, sheep
and goats. The agency is also streamlining its
process for approving the killing of predatory
wolves, he said.
“We’re encouraged by the direction,” he
told the commission.
The Oregon Legislature this year also
released $1 million more to compensate
ranchers for livestock losses, more than in any
year since lawmakers created the state program
in 2011, according to Capital Press.
After hearing from wildlife officials,
ranchers, hunters and conservationists, the
commission decided not to reform the state’s
wolf management plan, a hard-fought set of
rules and regulations that took four years to
hammer out due to disagreements about state-
approved wolf kills and attacks on livestock,
of which are both on the rise. Investigators
confirmed that wolves killed 76 privately-
owned livestock last year, compared to 16 in
2019.
ODFW has authorized the killing of 16 wolves
so far this year, according to the Western
Environmental Law Center, a conservation
advocacy group. That’s up from an average
of less than four wolves each year from 2019
to 2022. The agency killed six gray wolves
in six weeks this summer, to the anger of
conservationists. Sristi Kamal, deputy director
of the Western Environmental Law Center,
said the wildlife agency is over-relying on legal
wolf killings to protect livestock.
“They are now choosing very heavily to
engage in lethal,” she said.
Holly Tuers-Lance, a state wolf biologist,
said that preying on livestock is a learned skill
for some wolves and that two-thirds of wolf
packs in Oregon aren’t known to do so.
According to the agency’s data, just
eight livestock producers experienced half of
all known livestock predictions. She said that
data helps wolf managers be deliberate about
where to reduce conflict between wolves and
communities.
ODFW claims they only authorize the
killing of a wolf when a rancher documents no
less than two incidents of livestock predation
within nine months, and only after other
methods have failed to deter wolves, such as
building fencing, enlisting livestock dogs or
guarding cattle.
Additionally, wolves are off-limits for
lethal removal in most of the state because
packs outside eastern Oregon are protected by
the federal Endangered Species Act.
Tuers-Lance said the federal law prevents
the agency from additional efforts to protect
livestock from the Rogue wolf pack in southern
Oregon, which has preyed on livestock more
than 60 times from 2016 to 2022. She said
experiments with non-lethal deterrents and
new technology haven’t worked, and ranchers
are spending “unsustainable amounts of time
trying to prevent conflict.”