Page 8C OUTSIDE East Oregonian Saturday, April 1, 2017 Bill would reward tipsters in poaching cases By MARK FREEMAN Medford Mail-Tribune The Oregon Legislature is mulling a bill that would offer increased sport-hunting opportunities for people who turn in and help pros- ecute wildlife poachers, yet hunters themselves are questioning whether it’s the right approach to curb illegal wildlife killing. House Bill 3158 would allow the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to offer, for instance, a guarantee to purchase a tough-to-get Rocky Mountain elk tag in an Eastern Oregon hunting unit for someone who helps Oregon State Police capture and convict an elk poacher in that same hunting unit. The bill is being pushed as a complement to the Turn In Poachers (TIP) program managed by the Oregon Hunters Association that pays cash rewards for similar assistance. The bill is co-sponsored by Republican Rep. Mike McLane of Powell Butte and Rep. Sal Esquival of Medford and it received its fi rst public hearing Thursday in the House Committee on Agriculture and Natural Resources. McLane, whose district includes eastern Jackson County and a sliver of northeast Medford, said he drafted the bill after learning from a hunting outfi tter friend that Utah has a similar program to help curb poaching. “For a lot of the hunters, getting a tough-to-get tag is actually more valuable than a $500 reward,” McLane said. “Poachers are cheaters,” McLane said. “They’re crim- inals. No one likes them.” However, OHA leaders, who are always looking for ways to curb poaching, say such a program could bring unintentional pitfalls. Paul Donheffner, the former director of the Oregon State Marine Board who is chair of OHA’s legislative committee, said the bill as written contains a broad defi nition of wildlife that makes meting out more tags potentially problematic, particularly in hunts with very limited tag numbers. In the case of bighorn sheep, for instance, ODFW offers only a handful of tags in this once-in-a-lifetime hunting opportunity, and “there may be reasons why you don’t want to offer” an extra tag. “The devil’s in the details,” Donheffner said. “We appreciate the effort to come up with tools to combat poaching. “We’re just not sure it’s the right tool.” McLane said he may consider amending the bill to drop the hunting tag opportu- nity and instead offer “pref- erence points,” which are part of an ODFW system to give hunters unsuccessful at drawing hard-to-get hunting tags a greater shot at future success. Donheffner said OHA leadership has always been leery of using preference points as “candy for different kinds of things and different kinds of people.” Duane Dungannon, secre- tary of the Medford-based OHA, said the association is interested in adding to the bill mandatory restitution paid to the TIP program by poachers convicted with the help of a TIP reward. Prosecutors across Oregon are inconsistent in requesting restitution to TIP, which is funded largely through restitution covering the amount of reward paid in the defendant’s particular case, Dungannon said. The OHA pays out about $13,000 a year from TIP, which allows informants to remain anonymous yet still receive payments. Capt. Jeff Samuels, who heads the Oregon State Police Fish and Wildlife Division, which partners with the OHA in TIP, said 66 informants were paid TIP money involving 62 cases in Oregon during the past two years. Sockeye salmon removed from fl ood-threatened Idaho hatchery By KEITH RIDLER Associated Press Steve Tool/EO Media Group Bowerman Ranch co-owner Wendy McCullough with just a few of her goat friends at the foot of Mt. Joseph. The goats with the most By STEVE TOOL EO Media Group A nytime you see Bowerman Ranch co-owner Wendy McCullough, you can bet that goats aren’t far from her thoughts. In the shadow of Mt. Joseph, at the end of road named for her family, the third generation to live on the ranch quietly goes about her business of raising goats. For the most part, these are not milk goats. These goats are for the dinner table. McCullough, a Wallowa County native, has raised goats on the sever- al-hundred acre ranch since 2006. It has been a circuitous route back to the ranch McCullough was raised on. After graduation from Joseph High School, McCullough left the area in 1969 to attend Oregon State University. She married and moved to Baker City, where she lived for the next 13 years before departing for the warmer climes of Arizona where she stayed six years, before making a move to Virginia for another 13 years. Still, Wallowa County was never far from her mind. McCullough’s mother, who lived on the ranch, passed away in 2004 and McCullough saw the possibility to return and keep the family business running. “I’d wanted to come back for years,” she said. “The kids were grown up and I took the chance.” McCullough quit her job in Virginia and returned to Bowerman Ranch in 2006. That’s when the work started. The ranch had fallen into disuse and the grass was eye-high. She had heard that goats were good at clearing land. A love affair started when she rented goats to eat down the grass. “They did a marvelous job, and I rented them for two more months,” she said. “I was in love with the goats, and I thought, ‘This is my calling.’” The goats stayed for the winter, and McCullough bought six of the them and the seller threw in an seventh for free. She was in. McCullough started raising goats for meat, laughing that she’s too lazy for milking. The goats are mainly Boers and Boers crossed with Texmasters, which are 85 percent Myotonic, or fainting goats. The fainting helps build muscle, which translates into meat, which is USDA inspected and gaining a regional following through both retail stores and Saturday market sales. McCullough’s partner in the venture is fellow goat raiser Nancy Noble. “It’s grass fed, low fat, high protein and low cholesterol,” she said. “It’s yummy!” She also raises some Boer/La Mancha goats to provide milk for her other venture, Sally B. Farms, which features handmade goat milk soap. That entity is McCullough’s own venture. The ranch still belongs to the Bowerman Family Trust. At the moment, McCullough has 25 adult goats, along with some young kids. “Once in awhile, if one of the market goats has an unusual personality, I’ll hang a name on it while it’s here,” she said. McCullough is currently in the midst of kidding season, which has its diffi culties. “Kidding is fun, but there’s a lot of stress involved between cold weather and water freezing,” she said. McCullough also said that she wouldn’t have made it though the fi rst season if not for her friend Debbie Gilbert, who showed her the ropes. “It didn’t matter when I called her. If I had a question or needed help at the barn she was always there for me,” McCullough said. The most challenging part, though, is the amount of time involved in their care. “You have to feed them twice a day, trim feet, give shots, stuff like that. It’s time consuming.” At the same time, McCullough also fi nds her chosen profession rewarding. “I just love these goats. I’m putting out a good product.” DOJO: Part of the training deals with mental, spiritual strength Continued from 1C aggressor’s arm and disable them.” Stephens also teaches his students not to harm the opponent right away. “Don’t cut them,” he says, placing a wooden sword on his opponent’s arm, but applying no pressure. “If they move, they choose whether they get cut or not.” Stephens said he began studying martial arts after reading a few books about the subject. His students say they were drawn in by the desire to try something new. “I mainly started out of curiosity,” said Perez, a purple belt student who has been training for nearly three years. “I had a lot of perceptions about martial arts, things I saw on TV or in fi lms. This turned out to be much different.” Stephens said his training occasionally comes in handy for his job as a fi refi ghter. “In my line of work, we have to be very gentle most of the time,” he said. “But there are times when you have violent people — the cops might call us. I might go in, push on some things. It’s easier to handcuff them if they’re focused on something else.” As Stephens demonstrates different techniques to his students, he points out there’s really only one principle to remember. “The grandmaster says there’s only one technique — and that’s to change,” Stephens said. He relies often on compromising the opponent’s eyesight, and disrupting their balance. Each class is unique, and the next class may look completely different than this one. Although the class teaches people how to fi ght, Stephens said the warrior should be at peace inside. “There should be no fi ghting in your heart,” he said. “Things unfold, hopefully the way they’re supposed to, and hopefully in your favor.” But it’s still about combat. “We learn how to use weapons in the fi rst class,” he said, as his students fi ght using swords. “Humans have been using weapons for thou- sands of years. It’s all combat. You’re trying to break them down.” Stephens said he doesn’t currently teach any military professionals, and is not a veteran himself, but mental training can be as important as physical for those who may have to infl ict physical harm on others for their jobs. Part of the Bujinkan training, he said, is to deal with the realities of hurting other people. “It helps balance the mind with things you have to do in the physical world,” he said. “Soldiers train mentally from a young age to accept the fact that to protect land, to protect themselves, they may have to kill and be OK with that. It delves into spiritual access.” The spiritual aspect of the class is not religious, although Stephens said Bujinkan incorporates both Shinto and Buddhist principles. “Bujinkan itself doesn’t push anyone’s religion,” he said. “But they expect everyone to have some spiri- tual pursuit.” An hour into class, Stephens and his students sit down on the mat for a break. Stephens pours hot tea out of a small stone teapot, and the students take out notebooks while the sensei tells stories about his training experi- ences, or other knowledge he’s gleaned over the years. “The tea break is to transmit the oral traditions of the art,” Stephens said. Stephens said training in the martial arts has helped him be more relaxed in other aspects of his life. “As a younger man, I had issues with ... most of the time I was calm, but I would have fi ts of rage,” he said. “This beat it out of me.” Stephens added that in real life, attacks may not be physical, but emotional or ideological. Training, he said, has helped him remain calm in the face of those problems. “I think on a spiritual level it helps you grow as a person,” he said. “It doesn’t bother me anymore.” –—— Contact Jayati Ramakrishnan at 541-564- 4534 or jramakrishnan@ eastoregonian.com BOISE, Idaho — About 4,000 endangered Snake River sockeye salmon have been evacuated from a fl ood-threatened hatchery in southwestern Idaho. The Idaho Department of Fish and Game on Thursday loaded the fi sh at the Eagle Fish Hatchery west of Boise into four trucks for transportation to the Springfi eld Fish Hatchery in eastern Idaho. The 4,000 fi sh are broodstock that produce future generations of sockeye. Offi cials say the primary fear was that fl oodwater would reach the hatchery’s electrical pumps that keep oxygen- ated water circulating. “I’m relieved,” said Dan Baker, Fish and Game’s Eagle Fish Hatchery manager. “I know they’re in a safe environment over there and we can focus on some critical buildings here.” Snake River sockeye teetered on the brink of extinction in the early 1990s. They’ve been the focus of an intense recovery program centered at the Eagle Fish Hatchery after being listed for federal protection in 1991. The Boise River is expected to remain high for two months as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers releases water from upstream dams to make room for snowmelt in the mountains. Sandbags have been protecting the Eagle Fish Hatchery, but Baker said there are weak spots in the bank, and moving the fi sh to a different facility seemed prudent. The evacuated include 1-year-olds, 2-year-olds and 3-year-old fi sh. The two older age classes have special tags so they can be individually identifi ed to track the genetics of the population. The Eagle Fish Hatchery has a lab to make sure its sockeye have genetic diversity so future generations can eventually sustain a wild population in Idaho, the ultimate goal. Adult fi sh returning from the ocean travel 900 miles up the Columbia, “I know they’re in a safe environment over there and we can focus on some critical buildings here.” — Dan Baker, hatchery manager Snake and Salmon rivers to high-elevation Sawtooth basin lakes in central Idaho. The hope is that the hatchery-raised fi sh and the returning fi sh will spawn. As a safety net to the Eagle Fish Hatchery, another 4,000 sockeye salmon are used as brood- stock at NOAA Fisheries’ Manchester Research Station in Port Orchard, Washington, Baker said. Eggs produced by that hatchery and Eagle Fish are sent to the Springfi eld Fish Hatchery to be raised into young fi sh that are released into the wild. Fish and Game expects to release about 735,000 young sockeye into Idaho’s Redfi sh Lake Creek in about a month. Gary Byrne, who oversees Idaho Fish and Game’s hatcheries, said moving the broodstock will not interfere with arti- fi cial spawning in the fall. He said the broodstock will likely be back at the Eagle Fish Hatchery by then, and if not, they can be artifi cially spawned at the eastern Idaho facility. The goal of a self-sustaining wild population took a hit in 2015 when warm water in the Columbia River Basin killed 99 percent of returning adult fi sh, with only 55 completing the journey. A trap at a Snake River dam captured another 35 sockeye salmon. Of the 90 total fi sh, fi ve were released to spawn naturally and 85 went to the Eagle Fish Hatchery for artifi cial spawning. The fi sh rebounded in 2016 when 567 sockeye returned to the Sawtooth Valley. BRIEFLY Oregon man not cited for picking up bear cub SALEM (AP) — State authorities say a man who found a 3-month-old black bear along an Oregon hiking trail and took it to a wildlife rehabilitation center has been warned but not cited. KGW-TV reports Corey Hancock says he found the cub not moving and barely breathing Monday. He then took it to Turtle Ridge Wildlife Rehab, where the bear has been nursed back to health. Wildlife offi cials say it’s illegal to take wildlife out of their habitat, but Oregon State Police said Wednesday that Hancock won’t be punished. Sgt. James Halsey says the decision was made after authorities determined Hancock believed he was helping the bear cub without knowing the mother bear may have been nearby. The cub is now in the custody of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.