sen
OrColl
E
75
.568
v. 9
no. 25
December
9,
Spilyay Ty mo
P.O. Box 870
Warm Springs, OR 97761
Acquisition Dopt.Serials
Knifiht Library
1299 University ot Oregon
Eugene OR 97403 1205
U.S. Postage
PRSRTSTD
Warm Springs, OR 97761
December- 9, 2004 Vol. 29, No, 25
Coyote News, est. 1976
50 cents
Reservation bighorn
By Brian Mortenscn
Spilyay Tymoo
The 30 California bighorn sheep
making their home in the Mutton
Mountains of the Warm Springs Res
ervation got some company Saturday.
Through a joint effort between
three 'state agencies and one private
organization, the Confederated Tribes
of Warm Springs received 15 out of
110 sheep rounded up from several
locations around Oregon. The tribes
sheep came from the lower John Day
River canyon.
The sheep Warm Springs Fish and
Wildlife received were lifted by helicop
ter into the Eagle Creek canyon area
of the Mutton Mountains, about 12
miles south of Maupin and about a mile
inside reservation land near the com
munity of Dant on the Deschutes
River.
They join a group of sheep that
were introduced to reservation land in
January 2002, at Antoken Creek, about
two air miles south of where the sheep
were delivered Saturday. That group
has since expanded to 30 sheep, with
five lambs produced in 2002, seven in
2003 and six this year.
Coordinated by Fish and Wildlife
manager Terry Luther, a group of 15
people, including employees of the
tribes and volunteers, both tribal mem
bers and residents of Dant, helped in
bringing the sheep from the lower John
Day River area to their final destina
tion in the Mutton Mountains.
"I think things went really well,"
Luther said. "I think the members re
ally enjoyed it. It was nice to have them
there. I think it provides some owner
ship to have them (involved in) the
whole project. And you couldn't have
had a better day."
In fact, the capture, transport, and
release of the sheep to Warm Springs
happened on a clear day with tempera
tures around 40 degrees the entire day.
All but one of the sheep destined for
the Mutton Mountains were captured
in the morning Saturday; the delivery
was complete by about 4 p.m., just be
fore sundown. The other sheep deliv
ered to the reservation had been cap
tured late Friday afternoon.
The sheep were taken from the
lower John Day River area because the
herd there has successfully grown in
numbers to the point it can afford to
effectively share with areas where herds
do not exist, or to help solidify existing
herds where plenty of suitable terrain,
forage and water are sufficient to cre
ate habitat for the sheep.
Lights parade,
tree-lighting
on Tuesday
The First Annual Warm
Springs Light Parade will happen
Tuesday evening, Dec. 14.
Following the parade will be a
hot-dog and marshmallow roast,
and then the Nineteenth Annual
Warm Springs Christmas Tree
Lighting.
The parade will include lighted
vehicles only. For safety reasons,
as the parade will be at night, no
walkers are allowed.
Parade lineup is from 5 to 6
p.m. at the Education Building.
The parade starts at 6 p.m.
There will be a hot dog and
marshmallows roast starting at
6:30 at Elmer Quinn Park.
Then from 7:30 to 8 p.m. will
be the tree-lighting and caroling
on the Community Center front
lawa
For more information call the
Warm Springs Recreation De
partment at 553-3243.
UP
r V"" ;
p.
ft i
tt iiniup;itv nf Orenon Library
y RpCpivpd on: 1
m Spilyay tymoo.
i, W..B i. . . U-MJJ. .-in. I lu ll i.. ill
Terry Luther, left, and Dr. Leon Pielstick, Burns, give a California mountain sheep a boost into the wild after
loosing it from its binds after it was flown into Eagle Creek Canyon Saturday afternoon.
The five-day (Nov. 30 to Dec. 4)
round-up yielded 1 10 sheep, which were
transported via livestock trailers to lo
cations in Idaho, Wyoming, and North
Dakota, as well as to Steens Mountain
in Harney County and to the Mutton
Mountains.
"We have sheep in most of the gen
eral areas where we have good habitat,
and now it's just a matter of expanding
some of those herd ranges where we
already have sheep," said Rod Klus,
Assistant District Wildlife Biologist with
the Oregon Department of Fish and
Wildlife (ODFW) in Hines and one of
the men in charge of the round-up.
"There aren't really too many new ar
eas where we're looking at putting wild
sheep right now."
The round-up was a perpetuation of
Sanders joins state education board
By Brian Mortensen
Spilyay Tymoo
Jeff Sanders has participated in
school boards, both locally and at the
state level, for years, to represent the
minority voice. By his recent election
to the Oregon School Boards Associa
tion (OSBA), as its secretarytreasurer,
he said he hopes to have even greater
influence.
Sanders, a Warm Springs tribal mem
ber and a member of the Jefferson
County 509-J School Board, will serve
as secretarytreasurer of the OSBA
for a year, then become the board's
vice-president for a year, roll into the
position of president-elect for a year,
and then become OSBA president.
As secretarytreasurer, Sanders will
monitor the OSBA's finances and pre
pare reports to the executive board and
its membership, made up of elected
school board members from around
the state.
Sanders served in at-large positions
for two previous terms before running
for the secretarytreasurer position.
"I had enough name recognition
herd grows by 1 5
,4 .-.'u
L -
ft' :.
-r7 a,
M ' -
a program in place since the California
bighorns were reintroduced to Oregon
at Hart Mountain in 1954.
"All the sheep in Oregon are from
transplants, since they were completely
removed from the state at one time,"
Klus said. "And so all the sheep have
been reintroduced. It started at Hart
Mountain and then Steens Mountain,
and then we started moving sheep into
new areas. The sheep program is some
thing we're pretty proud of."
The sheep have proven to be rather
adaptable to the places they've been
reintroduced, to the point that they will
typically stay in the general area they
are planted, with very little migration.
Such is the case with the sheep brought
to the reservation in 2002.
"(Eagle Canyon) is a spot we thought
'V
Jeff Sanders
from my at-large positions, and people
knew me," he said.
j He was elected at the OSBA's an
nual convention in Portland Nov. 13.
A member of the 509-J School Dis
trict Board for 15 years, Sanders re
turns to a state OSBA position after a
two-year absence.
His position on the OSBA execu
tive board places him on the Western
Regional board of the National School
Boards Association.
The Oregon School Boards Asso
ciation is a non-profit organization that
h
-
V it
g MnrtonnSniluiil
When the doctor gave the
silent "go" sign, the
blindfolds were removed
from each sheep and they
were let go, like the start
of a race...
those other sheep might end up in
when they put them in there the
first time, and they chose to basi
cally stay right where they were
loaded out of the truck, which is
good," Klus said. "They know what
they like, and if they're happy
where they're at, it's good for
them."
See BIGHORNS on page 13
offers support to school board mem
bers by providing such services as
lobbying, financial planning, conduct
ing workshops and conducting
searches for principals and superin
tendents. The OSBA convenes once a year,
but its executive board meets each
month in locations around the state.
Next month, he will attend a
workshop in Washington, D.C. that
will provide instruction on working
with lobbyists and elected officials.
Sanders said the biggest reason
he sought an executive position on
the OSBA was to provide not only
Native American but also minority
representation.
"I want to make (Native Ameri
can) issues be heard at the state and
national level," he said. "Hopefully,
I've got enough friends inside the
system who want to hear me, so we
can get the message to be heard out
there."
Sanders, 66, is the compliance of
ficer and program review officer for
the Confederated Tribes. He has
been a tribal employee for 45 years.
Lamprey
maybe
protected
(AP) - The U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service has agreed to review whether
four species of lamprey found on the
West Coast should be protected by the
Endangered Species Act.
Under the settlement of a lawsuit
filed earlier this year in U.S. District
Court in Portland, the agency agreed
to make an initial decision by Dec. 20
on whether a yearlong review should
be done on the status of Pacific lam
prey, river lamprey, western brook lam
prey and kern brook lamprey.
The lamprey is an important spe
cies to the Confederated Tribes. "This
is our sacred food," said Tribal Coun
cilwoman Bernice Mitchell. "We will
never let it go."
A coalition of 11 conservation
groups petitioned in January 2003 to
list the four species as threatened or
endangered. At the time they said they
hoped to increase pressure to improve
fisheries habitat and the ecological
health of watersheds harmed by dams,
logging, agriculture and development.
Fish and Wildlife responded that the
agency saw no reason to grant emer
gency protection for any of the spe
cies, and would not have the time or
money to begin formal consideration
until a new budget year. As they have
with many species, including the north
ern spotted owl, environmentalists then
sued to force consideration.
Lamprey are jawless fish that re
semble eels. Pacific lamprey, the most
widespread of the four species, grow
to 30 inches and were once an impor
tant source of food for American In
dians, as well as seals and sea lions.
Young salmon feed on young lamprey
in fresh water.
The name comes from the Latin for
rock-sucking, which refers to the
lamprey's habitat of attaching to rocks
with its mouth while swimming up
stream. The young spend four to six years
buried in silt or mud on river bottoms,
filter feeding on microscopic vegeta
tion, before migrating to the ocean,
where they fatten up for the spawning
run - scavenging, eating smaller fish
and sometimes attaching themselves to
salmon and marine mammals.
Pacific lamprey and river lamprey
inhabit large to medium-sized rivers
from Alaska to Mexico. The Western
brook lamprey inhabits small tributar
ies from the Sacramento River to Brit
ish Columbia. The Kern brook lamprey
is found in California's San Joaquin
River Basin.
Indian tribes in the Columbia Basin
have been working to restore lamprey
populations with funding help from the
Bonneville Power Administration, but
tribal harvests at Willamette Falls in
Oregon have declined steadily.
Olney Patt Jr., executive director of
the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish
Commission, said, "What we know is
that this fish is in decline. We have an
opportunity now to work as collabora
tors rather than adversaries with fed
eral and state agencies."
Coloring contest
has great prizes
The Spilyay holiday coloring contest
has some great prizes for young people.
First prizes are a remote-control truck
(for boys), and a 5-foot tall stuffed bear
(for girls). There are other great prizes
as well - pizza, ice cream and Wran
gler jeans. The last day to enter the con
test is next Friday, Dec. 17; so don't
forget to drop off your drawing at the
Spilyay office. The contest is for kids
ages 12 and under. See pages 8 and 9.