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EAT, DRINK & EXPLORE
East Oregonian
Saturday, January 18, 2020
Salem has history within walking distance
By MITCH LIES
For the EO Media Group
SALEM — Out-of-
town visitors to Salem
have plenty of sight-seeing
opportunities.
Salem, according to
Travel Salem, is steeped in
history, from the Oregon
Capitol to stately homes with
storied pasts to Willamette
University, which was the
first university in the West.
Three historic properties
can be visited without leav-
ing downtown Salem: the
Bush House Museum, Deep-
wood Museum and Garden
and the Willamette Heritage
Center.
The Bush House Museum
is an elegant 1878 Italianate
mansion built by pioneer
businessman Asahel Bush
II. It is set in the 100-acre
Bush’s Pasture Park, a pub-
lic park and botanical gar-
den also named after Asahel
Bush. The museum offers
guided tours of its exhibits of
Willamette Heritage Center Photo/Exos Aerial Imaging
Capital Press Photo/Mateusz Perkowski
Visitors to the Oregon Capitol can enjoy a self-guided tour
of the state’s art collection, which recently was reinstalled
within the Capitol and features more than 150 of some of Or-
egon’s most well-regarded artists.
textiles, photos and historic
artifacts. The Bush House is
at 600 S.E. Mission St.
Located adjacent to
Bush’s Pasture Park, Deep-
wood Museum and Garden
is a gabled Queen Anne-style
structure with an enchant-
ing garden designed by the
Northwest’s first female
landscape architecture firm,
Lord and Schryver. Built in
the 1890s, the museum was
designed by noted North-
west architect W.C. Knigh-
ton. Deepwood Museum and
Garden can be found at 1116
S.E. Mission St.
The Willamette Heri-
tage Center brings to life the
The Willamette Heritage Center is imbued in Oregon histo-
ry. Located on a 5-acre campus, the 14 historic structures
include the 1889 Thomas Kay Woolen Mill, a well-preserved
Victorian-era factory that includes period equipment and
detailed exhibits, such as a woolen dye shop, a machine shop
and an original water turbine.
lives of early settlers, as well
as what was once a promi-
nent local textile industry.
Located on a 5-acre campus,
the 14 historic structures
include the 1889 Thomas
Kay Woolen Mill, a well-pre-
served Victorian-era factory
that includes period equip-
ment and detailed exhibits,
such as a woolen dye shop,
a machine shop and an orig-
inal water turbine.
The grounds also include
four pioneer-era buildings,
three related to the early
Methodist Mission that was
established in Salem by
Jason Lee. All feature period
furnishing and exhibits. The
Willamette Heritage Center
is at 1313 S.E. Mill St.
Then, of course, there is
the Oregon Capitol. Among
other sight-seeing options,
visitors to the Oregon Cap-
itol can enjoy a self-guided
tour of the state’s art col-
lection, which recently was
reinstalled within the Cap-
itol and features more than
150 of some of Oregon’s
most well-regarded artists.
Located across the Capi-
tol grounds, the Hallie Ford
Museum of Art at Willa-
mette University also offers
an excellent opportunity to
view artistic works of Pacific
Northwest and Native Ameri-
can artists, as well as a diverse
collection of traditional Euro-
pean, American and Asian
art. The Hallie Ford Museum
of Art is at 700 State St.
All of these tourism high-
lights are within easy walk-
ing distance of one another,
catering to a convenient way
to enjoy an afternoon or
more in Salem.
Land: Elk hunting is key part of conservation on Zumwalt Prairie
Continued from Page C1
By late December, hun-
dreds of hunters have been
trekking across the Zumwalt
for more than four months,
both on the conservancy’s
preserve and the surround-
ing private properties.
“It was really neat to
learn that the Nature Con-
servancy allowed people
access onto this preserve to
hunt,” said Kyle Petrocine,
who has hunted several sea-
sons on the Zumwalt. “But it
makes perfect sense: We’re
part of the system, and so
it makes sense to provide
access for humans into this
landscape.”
Historically speaking, it’s
next to impossible to sepa-
rate people from the Zum-
walt ecosystem, particularly
since the area played a spe-
cial role in Oregon’s partic-
ular history of humans and
elk.
By the early 1900s, white
settlers had hunted elk to the
brink of extinction across
Oregon. It got so dire, the
state banned elk hunting for
decades.
Then in 1912, the state’s
first game warden hatched a
wild plan: He would trans-
plant 15 elk from Wyoming
to Northeastern Oregon.
Huge crowds turned out in
each town to watch the car-
avan make its journey by
train, wagon and sleigh to a
fenced meadow north of the
Zumwalt. The elk became
celebrities, as their offspring
were sent to help reseed the
rest of Oregon.
In the ensuing decades,
elk migrated across the
Zumwalt in modest num-
bers. Small herds would
arrive in spring to munch
the new grass and leave in
winter, when snow covered
the prairie.
However, beginning in
the early 2000s, the popu-
lation began to grow from
hundreds to thousands, hit-
ting a peak of 3,890 elk in
2015.
Local biologists and
observers attribute the pop-
ulation boom to a mix of
factors: growing hunting
and predation pressure in
neighboring national for-
ests, a number of landown-
ers who tore down fences
and planted forage to turn
their land into elk hunting
preserves, and a run of mild
winters that made forage
available year-round on the
prairie.
“Elk are naturally a prai-
rie animal, so once they
made it out here and there
was no more [hunting and
predation] pressure, they
found it to their liking,” said
Chad Dotson, who oversees
the Nature Conservancy’s
elk management programs
on the Zumwalt. “The hunt-
ing pressure was much
lower because it was private
property, and the population
soared.”
During mating season,
giant herds would move
across the land like great
brown waves. And they
started to linger on the prai-
rie year-round, leaving their
William L. Finley Photo Collection/Oregon Historical Society
In 1912, Oregon transplanted 15 elk from Wyoming in an effort to repopulate the state. After shipping the animals via train
to Enterprise, the caravan headed north across the Zumwalt towards the final destination in Billy Meadows.
OPB Photo/Brandon Swanson
OPB Photo/Nick Fisher
Rancher Clint Krebs points out marks left by elk hooves that
will kill delicate spring prairie grass.
Hunters Kyle Petrocine and Aaron Maxwell scan the ravines
at the edge of the Zumwalt Prairie. As hunting season pro-
gresses, the elk tend to leave the prairie and take shelter in
these canyons and neighboring forests.
mark everywhere they went. that ranchers want to reserve
Next,
the
Zumwalt — not because elk don’t
“It was devastating to the for their livestock, and the ranchers asked the Ore- belong, but because in this
aspen,” Dotson said. “They big herds had the tendency gon Department of Fish and modern world, elk aren’t the
eat all the small ones, and to tear down fences. So as Wildlife to start hunting only player. Ranchers also
they rub their antlers on the the elk population grew, so seasons to reduce the popu- get a say.
big ones. And aspen is just did the outcry from ranch lation and pressure the herds
“Management objectives
off the prairie. But for it to are not the carrying capac-
like candy to an elk. They owners.
love it.”
“They were damaging a work, most of the dozens ity of the land necessarily,”
To protect the last aspen lot of our soils,” Krebs said, of landowners — including said Pat Matthews, wildlife
and shrub stands on the prai- pointing to patches of dark the Nature Conservancy — biologist for ODFW’s Wal-
rie, which provide essential brown dirt cleaving several would need to allow hunt- lowa District. “That’s partly
habitat for birds, pollinators prairie grass bunches. “If ers onto their properties, to taken into consideration, of
and mammals, the Nature you look here, all of these avoid creating new, smaller course. But more realisti-
cally, people decide this is
Conservancy started build- black spots, that’s caused refuges.
ing dozens of large,
basically what we
protective fences.
can tolerate. And it
“IT WAS DEVASTATING TO THE ASPEN.
But it’s not just
is an experiment. If
aspen and shrubs that
it doesn’t work, we’re
THEY EAT ALL THE SMALL ONES, AND
elk eat. They also
going to have to
munch prairie grass,
come up with some
THEY RUB THEIR ANTLERS ON THE BIG
which puts them in
other way of trying
ONES. AND ASPEN IS JUST LIKE CANDY TO to achieve that goal.”
direct conflict with
another denizen of
Just as elk don’t
AN ELK. THEY LOVE IT.”
the prairie: cows.
pay attention to
Chad Dotson, who oversees the Nature Conservancy’s
The Nature Con-
property lines, this
elk management programs on the Zumwalt
servancy has long
field experiment has
collaborated
with
revealed that peo-
ple aren’t so easily
neighboring ranch-
ers, leasing preserve land by elk hoofprints when
“It’s important for the fenced in either. So perhaps
for cattle and conducting the ground is really soft in Nature Conservancy to it should be no surprise that
research to confirm that March and April, before any cooperate with our neigh- the few Zumwalt landown-
well-managed grazing is livestock ever shows up on bors,” Dotson said. “They’re ers who oppose the hunt-
compatible with a healthy the Zumwalt. And that grass stewards of the land, just ing program are themselves
hunters; they simply oppose
like we are.”
grassland, particularly when will die.”
ODFW now offers nearly the level of hunting happen-
the cattle are rotated often.
So a group of ranchers
“We have a program with banded together with the 1,000 cow elk tags on the ing on the Nature Conser-
the TNC where they allow Nature Conservancy and Zumwalt, in seasons run- vancy’s land.
“If you take (25,000)-
my cattle to graze on their another local nonprofit, Wal- ning August through Jan-
land for a period of time,” lowa Resources, to try haz- uary. The Nature Con- 30,000 acres, put 700-1,000
said Clint Krebs, a neigh- ing the elk off the prairie. servancy accepts about hunters on it, how long are
boring ranch owner. “That Staff would approach them one-third of those hunters the elk going to be there?”
gives me the ability to rest a by foot, horse and vehicle in on its preserve.
said Bruce Hampton, a
pasture of mine that I might order to herd them toward
The state agency’s long- hunter himself who spent
have to graze otherwise.”
the neighboring forests. But term plan is to reduce the years making his Zum-
Elk, of course, are more it turned out elk herd about spring elk population on walt property more wild-
than happy to eat the grass as well as cats.
the Zumwalt to 700 animals life friendly. “There should
be some utilization, but not
full-out slaughter.”
Critics say the large
numbers of hunters lead to
instances of trespassing,
poaching and dead animals
that hunters either fail to
track or abandon, as well as
elk being run into and tear-
ing down barbed wire fenc-
ing. But their primary fear
is that the volume of hunt-
ers over such long chunks
of time lasting into the
calf-gestation periods could
decimate the herd.
“They need time to put
on fat and meat, so that
they can survive these harsh
winters that the Zumwalt
Prairie has,” said landowner
Tammy Jackson. “And when
they’re pressured continu-
ously, that doesn’t happen.”
So far, ODFW’s spring
population counts remain
in the 2,000s — well above
the averages in the 20th
century — and Matthews
contends there’s no cur-
rent risk of the herd drop-
ping below targeted levels.
But in response to critics’
concerns, the Nature Con-
servancy has agreed to cap
how many hunters it allows
on its preserve. And it’s
worked to replace barbed
wire fences with wild-
life-friendly fences that
young elk can cross.
“They have worked with
us really well,” Jackson said.
“I know they’re in a tough
spot. I do feel like they are
pressured to increase the
hunting on their property,
which I found really sur-
prising that a Nature Con-
servancy group that’s sup-
posed to be protecting and
preserving the animals in
nature would be allowing
the hunting. But I under-
stand that they are under a
lot of pressure from neigh-
bors to do that.”
The Nature Conservancy
is trying to find a balance
that works for all its neigh-
bors — and for the environ-
mental health of the Zum-
walt Prairie as a whole.
“Overall, the elk num-
bers have decreased on the
upland prairie,” Dotson
said. “It’s definitely still a
work in progress, but our
aspen stands are doing bet-
ter. They’re coming back.”
One sign the program is
succeeding in dispersing
the elk is that neighbors and
hunters say they no longer
see the giant herds that they
saw during the peak.
Hunting season is the
only time the public has
almost free rein to explore
the entire Zumwalt Preserve
— and that engagement is a
goal in itself for the Nature
Conservancy — but Petro-
cine hiked from dawn until
dusk the day OPB went out
with him and only managed
to see four bulls.
“I was hoping there’d be
some cows in that group,”
he said, looking through
his binoculars at four elk
across a ravine at the edge
of the prairie. “But antlers
on all four of them. We can
just look and admire the
bulls, but we’re looking for
a cow.”