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East Oregonian
Tuesday, January 8, 2019
Blood: Local donations can save lives around the country
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don’t have to wait for it to
be brought all the way from
Portland.
David Rodriguez, a vol-
unteer working at the blood
drive Monday, is one of the
volunteers on call 24 hours
a day to transport blood.
When Good Shepherd Med-
ical Center has an unex-
pected number of patients
coming into the emergency
room in need of blood, for
example, he might get a call
that he needs to pick some up
from Kadlec Regional Med-
ical Center in Richland and
bring it down to Hermiston.
On Monday, Rodriguez
was doing everything from
checking people in to bring-
ing over snacks to a first-time
donor who was feeling too
faint to get up from the cot.
“I’m a people person, and
I enjoy getting to go out and
meet new people and help
these folks,” he said.
He said before he started
volunteering for the Red
Cross six and a half years
ago he was a blood donor.
He felt especially grateful
for the opportunity to donate
after his father had emer-
gency surgery and needed
seven pints of blood (donors
give a pint at a time).
“It’s just always import-
ant,” he said. “People don’t
look at it that way, but it
could be your own family
member or close friend.”
Miller said she finds
many of the Red Cross’s
donors are inspired by some-
one close to them whose life
was saved by donated blood
or plasma.
In addition to its life-sav-
ing potential, Miller said
donating blood a few times
a year also has several
health benefits for the donor,
including increased cardio-
vascular health.
“It’s really good for
your body, especially men,
because they don’t have
menstrual periods and so
they don’t lose that blood,”
she said. “So it’s kind of
like an oil change for them.
It takes the old stuff out and
forces their body to make
new.”
Staff photo by Kathy Aney/
A phlebotomist collects blood from a donor Monday during a blood drive in the basement of the Hermiston Public Library
(identification number on vial obscured for donor privacy).
Groups: Opposed to rule allowing
private citizens to kill wolves
Continued from Page A1
It wasn’t immediately
clear what would happen to
the talks, although the envi-
ronmental groups said they
would “collectively and
actively” oppose the wolf
management plan proposed
by the Oregon Department
of Fish and Wildlife.
Michelle Dennehy, an
agency spokeswoman, did
not return a call and email
seeking comment. The
agency oversees the group
of ranchers, hunters and
wolf conservation advocates
formed by Gov. Kate Brown
to update the state’s man-
agement plan after an ini-
tial draft plan was rejected in
2017. The state is supposed
to update its plan every five
years to account for chang-
ing wolf population num-
bers but is four years over-
due with a revision.
The
environmen-
tal groups Oregon Wild,
Defenders of Wildlife, Cas-
cadia Wildlands and the
Center for Biological Diver-
sity said in a Jan. 4 letter to
Brown that the fish and wild-
life agency has rejected their
suggestions for managing
wolf-livestock conflict as too
expensive or two difficult.
A key sticking point for
the conservation groups is
a plan provision that would
allow the state or deputized
private citizens — likely
ranchers affected by live-
stock attacks — to kill cul-
prit wolves after two docu-
mented attacks on livestock
herds by the same wolf pack,
said Nick Cady, legal direc-
tor for Cascadia Wildlands.
The groups are particu-
larly unnerved by a provision
that would allow the depu-
tized citizens to keep wolf
pelts, said Cady, who called
the idea a “trophy hunt.”
“With a population of
wolves that’s 120 animals
statewide, that’s a ridiculous,
ridiculous proposal,” he said
in an interview.
The groups also feel the
state agency’s plan favors
hunters, who contend more
wolves mean fewer deer for
them to hunt.
Ranchers reacted to the
news with surprise and
disappointment.
Rodger Huffman, a small-
scale rancher in rural north-
eastern Oregon, said wolf
numbers have risen so dra-
matically in recent years that
it’s no longer useful to focus
on conservation. The popu-
lation now needs to be man-
aged to minimize damage to
livestock, he said.
“There’s a huge cost,
there’s a toll there,” said
Huffman, who’s negotiating
for the Oregon Cattlemen’s
Association.
“I don’t think anybody
can expect to get everything
you want, and so to pick up
your marbles and say, ‘I’m
going home because I’m not
getting my way’ is a little bit
unprofessional,” he said.
Conflict between ranch-
ers and wolves has grown
sharply in recent years as the
species makes a comeback
after being wiped out by a
bounty-hunting
program
more than 70 years ago.
Wolves were reintro-
duced to central Idaho in
the mid-1990s and in 1999,
a lone wolf wandered into
northeastern Oregon. It
was trapped and returned to
Idaho.
Two more were found
dead in Oregon in 2000.
But the first definitive proof
wolves had returned to the
Oregon came in 2007, when
a wolf was found shot to
death. The following year, a
wolf nicknamed Sophie by
conservationists gave birth
to the first litter of pups born
in Oregon in decades.
Most Oregon wolves
live in remote northeast-
ern areas where cattle, lla-
mas, sheep and goats graze
on private land and in fed-
erally managed forests and
grassland. Ranchers often
use range riders, flashing
lights, remote cameras and
fluttering devices on miles of
fence line to keep wolves at
bay — sometimes with little
success.
Several packs have also
established themselves in the
forests of rural southwest-
ern Oregon, near the Califor-
nia border, where they have
attacked livestock.
The species lost its endan-
gered status under Ore-
gon law in 2015 — when
the state’s population hit 81
wolves — and is no longer
federally protected in the
eastern third of the state.
As of April 2018, there
were at least 124 wolves
in Oregon. There were 12
known wolf packs and nine
more groups of two or three
wolves that are not consid-
ered packs were noted.
In 2017, two wolves were
captured by remote camera
in Mt. Hood National For-
est, a popular recreational
destination for hiking and
skiing about an hour east of
Portland.
It was the first time multi-
ple wolves were documented
in Oregon’s northern Cas-
cade Mountain range since
they returned to the state.
Hansell: Introduces firefighting legislation
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He said firefighter after
firefighter praised the work
done by farmers to assist
them in fighting the blaze.
If it wasn’t for the help
from local farmers, “we
may have had a miniature
Paradise, California situa-
tion,” Hansell said.
Hansell later returned to
Moro for a town hall where
farmers and other local res-
idents talked about how
the fire affected them and
how the response could be
improved.
He said giant wildfires
over the past few years have
made firefighting a hot topic
in Salem, but fighting fires
on farmland or rangeland
doesn’t attract the same sort
of attention.
Based on the input he
received from the town hall
and work he did with the
governor’s office, Hansell
crafted four bills to address
the issue.
Hansell said farmers
were worried about assum-
ing liability for property
damage or injuries while
fighting fires, so he cre-
ated Senate Bill 290, which
grants civil immunity to
people fighting fires in good
faith.
He added that Oregon
already has a similar law on
the books for civilians who
help people who have been
injured in car crashes.
“You may have not made
every decision correctly,” he
said. “(But) we want to pro-
tect that kind of response.”
Hansell said the fire
response was also hurt
when the fire jumped the
Deschutes River and entered
land that wasn’t protected
by any fire agencies.
Firefighting efforts are
hampered when fire agen-
cies are trying to determine
who is responsible for extin-
guishing the fire rather than
responding to it quickly, he
said.
SB 311 moves 400,000
acres of land in Sherman
and Wasco counties into
the state fire marshal’s
jurisdiction.
The other two bills in
Hansell’s package — Sen-
ate bills 291 and 292 —
allocates more resources to
air response for wildfires
and gives the governor and
fire marshal more flexibility
in fighting them.
In a session where leg-
islators will be considering
hundreds of bills, Hansell
said he can’t predict the bill
package’s prospects, but he
will make the legislation a
priority.
The 2019 legislative ses-
sion starts Jan. 22.
FREE Hernia Screening
and Seminar
Fires: Family of five loses home, car and pets
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The Reynen family for
the time being is staying
with friends at Shadeview
and relying on donations.
“We have an awesome
community,” she said. “All
three kids have new clothes
and shoes.”
But the home was too old
to carry insurance, she said,
and they need to replace
what they lost. Jesse Reynen
explained in a post on Face-
book they might eventually
place a new trailer home in
the space or rent elsewhere
in town, but they will need
household items when the
time comes.
The children go to
school, Alicia and Jesse
work, and he also is attend-
ing Blue Mountain Com-
munity College, Pendle-
ton. Alicia Reynen said she
is placing donation jars in
Pendleton businesses, the
Bank of the West opened a
donation account for them
and there is an online dona-
tion page at gofundme.com,
which has a goal of $20,000.
Penninger said the sec-
ond fire occurred Saturday
around 3:30 a.m. at 1908
S.W. Goodwin Ave., where
crews saw smoke billowing
from a home and found fire
raging within.
“It was a defensive oper-
ations for the initial 10 to 15
minutes before crews could
get inside,” he said.
That home also is a total
loss, Penninger said, and
earlier in the day was the
scene of a stabbing. How-
ever, he said, the fire inves-
tigation revealed nothing
suspicious, “just a bad set
of circumstances that were
coincidental.”
Pendleton police Chief
Stuart Roberts said offi-
cers Friday just after 4 p.m.
responded to the home on
a report of an assault. He
said the place is a local
flop house for transients
and the like, and a 20-year-
old woman staying there
accused a fellow transient,
Dominic Michael Silva, 25,
of stabbing her in the lower
leg.
Roberts said she suf-
fered a small wound that
was non-life threatening. He
said the victim claimed she
was sleeping on a bed when
Silva told her to make room
for him or he would stab
her. She did not move, Rob-
erts said, and, according to
her story, Silva pulled out a
small knife and stabbed her.
Silva took off, but
police caught him Sat-
urday at about 1:30 in a
room at the Knights Inn,
310 S.E. Dorion Ave., and
booked him into the Uma-
tilla County Jail, Pendleton,
for second-degree assault
and warrants for failure to
appear. Roberts said Silva
had a folding knife with a
4.5-inch-long blade, and
police are submitting that
for forensic testing. Roberts
also said in spite of rumors
flying about social media,
nothing connects Silva to
the house fire.
“There are so many peo-
ple coming and going from
this place at any given point
in time,” Roberts said, “it
would be difficult to put
anything together.”
Wednesday, January 30
Screening 5:00–6:00 PM | Seminar 6:00–7:00 PM
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