Spilyay Tymoo, Warm Springs, Oregon
April 27, 2016
Academy looks to partner with NASA program
Show case event
possible in June
An outreach program at
the National Aeronautics
and Space Administration,
NASA, encourages under-
represented youth to pursue
education and careers in sci-
ence, technology, engineer-
ing and math.
The program reaches out
to students in rural areas,
Native American students,
and others who are under-
represented in the fields.
The Warm Springs k-8
Academy, and other partners
met this week with a NASA
team that explained benefits
the program has to offer.
The goal, said Juan-Carlos
Chavez, is to provide the
school with the kind of pro-
gram that best fits the school’s
existing curriculum. Chavez
is the associate director of the
Washington NASA Space
Grant Consortium.
Another goal of the pro-
gram, he said, is to provide
resources to meet the STEM
(Science, Technology, Engi-
neering and Math) education
needs of the particular
school.
The program begins in the
middle school grades, then
follows the students though
high school, college, and on
to a career.
Performing Arts Center
to host film, poet in May
the Madras Performing
Arts Center on May 6 will
feature the film A Place to
Stand, followed by an ap-
pearance and question-and-
answer period with Jimmy
Santiago Baca.
A Place to Stand is the
authorized story of Jimmy
Santiago Baca's transforma-
tion from an illiterate convict
to an award-winning poet
and novelist.
The film follows Baca's
path though abandonment,
drug-dealing, and a DEA bust
gone awry, ultimately leading
to a 5-year narcotics sentence
at Arizona State Prison, one
of the most violent prisons
in the country. Baca survived
prison by exploring deep
within himself, discovering
poetry at his soul's core.
Jimmy's best-selling mem-
oir has been called “elegant
and gripping” (Los Angeles
Times), and “an astonishing
narrative that affirms the tri-
umph of the human spirit”
(Arizona Daily Star).
The Friday, May 6 show-
ing begins at 7 p.m. Admis-
sion is $10 at the door.
Counseling begins Survivors
of Suicide Talking Circle
Warm Springs Com-
munity Counseling is be-
ginning a Survivors of
Suicide Talking Circle.
The first meeting will
be on Monday, May 2,
and every Monday there-
after (except on May 30)
through June 27.
The meetings will be
from 9 to 10:30 a.m. at
the Counseling Center.
If you have lost some-
one to suicide, or may
have attempted, you are
not alone. The Counsel-
ing Center invites you to
attend the SOS - Survi-
vors of Suicide support
group. For more informa-
tion contact Annie
Kalama or Kelly Anthony
at the center, 541-553-
3205.
Report details crisis of
suicide in Indian Country
Indian Country has
seen a dramatic increase
in suicide rates in the last
15 years, according to
data released last week.
The suicide rate
among American Indians
and Alaska Natives has
always been abnormally
high. But a study from
the National Center for
Health Statistics shows
how acute the crisis has
become since 1999.
According to the re-
port, the suicide rate
among American Indian
and Alaska Native
women that year was 4.6
per 100,000 people. In
2014, it jumped to 8.7 per
100,000 people.
That represented an
89 percent increase, the
largest increase among all
racial and ethnic groups
in the United States.
American Indian and
Alaska Native men re-
main afflicted at even
higher rates, the report
said. In 2014, their sui-
cide rate was 27.4 per
100,000, up from 19.8 in
1999.
That represented a
rate increase of 38 per-
cent in those years.
Despite the alarming
rates, the center warns
that the problem may be
even worse than the data
indicates.
“Deaths for the
American Indian or
Alaska Native population
may be underreported by
30 percent,” the report
stated. That would be the
highest underreported
rate among all racial and
ethnic groups.
Overall, the suicide
rate in the nation was
13.0 per 100,000 people
in 2014. That's an in-
crease of 24 percent
from the rate of 10.5 per
100,000 in 1999.
Tribes across the na-
tion have declared emer-
gencies in response to
suicides, particularly
among youth. The
Yurok Tribe in northern
California saw seven
young people in one
community take their
lives during a recent 18-
month period.
The Oglala Sioux
Tribe of South Dakota
made headlines last year
after disclosing that at
least 20 young people
committed suicide in the
span of 11 months.
More than 250 at-
tempts were reported
during that same time.
Meeting with Chavez this
week were academy principal
Ken Parshall, middle school
science teacher Paul Harris,
and Warm Springs Ventures
business development and
marketing manager Aurolyn
Stwyer. Representatives from
SOAR, the group encourag-
ing unmanned aerial systems
development in Oregon, were
also on hand; along with Jon
Waterhouse, Indigenous
People’s Scholar with the Insti-
tute for Environmental Health.
Mr. Chavez gave an over-
view of the resources that the
Washington NASA Space
Grant Consortium has to of-
fer. They have materials and
experts that can help the
school generate more inter-
est among the students in
STEM education.
The best way to get the
program off the ground, he
said, is for the group to host
a show case event for the
middle school grades at the
academy.
The show case gives the
students a chance to have
hands-on experience in the
field of rocketry. This can
begin with an archery station,
then a station where the stu-
dents can build their own
rockets. And the event in-
volves the experts launching
a demonstration rocket for
the students.
The event has proven
popular, and successful in
generating student interest in
these fields of science. Prin-
cipal Parshall and the NASA
team agreed that a tentative
target date for a show case
event at the middle school
would be June 9, at the end
of the school year.
There may be other ben-
efits to the partnership. The
NASA program could help
with the grant process for
projects involving the tribes’
UAS program, said Aurolyn
Stwyer.
Page 9
Community notes...
The Diabetes Preven-
tion Program will start a
series of Diabetes Pre-
vention Lifestyle Bal-
ance classes in May.
These are for anyone 18
or older who has been
diagnosed with pre-dia-
betes.
Screenings can be
done at the Diabetes Pre-
vention Program office at
1142 War m Springs
Street on campus. The
deadline to get signed up
is May 10. For more in-
formation, contact Joy
Ramirez at 541-553-
5513.
The Twenty-Sixth An-
nual Honor Seniors
Day will be held May 13
at Agency Longhouse. If
you want to volunteer to
help out in some way, con-
tact the Senior Program at
553-3313.
The Twenty-First An-
nual Na-Ha-Shnee Na-
tive American Health
Science Institute is a 13-
day summer program de-
signed to encourage Na-
tive students to pursue
health science degrees and
health-related careers.
It’s open to students
currently in ninth, tenth or
eleventh grades. Applica-
tions are available online:
Google WSU Native
American Health Sciences
to find it. The deadline is
coming up on April 25.
The American Red
Cross will have a blood
drive at the United Meth-
odist Church in Madras
on Wednesday, May 18
from noon to 5. To
schedule an appointment
call 1-800-RED CROSS
or online at:
redcrossblood.org
Zoo’s first condor chick making it big in Calif.
Kun-Wak-Shun
made first nest found
in Pinnacles National
Park this year
S he Oregon Zoo Jonsson
Center for Wildlife Conser-
vation joined the effort to
save California condors in
2003.
Since that time, the cen-
ter has raised and prepped
for release more than 40
wild-bound condors.
The center’s first chick,
hatched in 2004, was namd
Kun-Wak-Shun. This is
Wasco for Thunder and
Lightning.
In 2004, the zoo had
asked Wasco Chief Nelson
Wallulatum to name the bird.
The request was in rec-
ognition of the cultural sig-
nificance that the condor, or
Thunderbird, holds in tradi-
tional Wasco culture.
At a ceremony at the zoo,
atwai Chief Wallulatum gave
the bird the name Kun-Wak-
Shun.
This year—12 years after
hatching—Kun-Wak-Shun is
the host of the first condor
nest spotted in Central Cali-
fornia this spring.
During the last week of
February, Kun-Wak-Shun,
also known as No. 340, went
momentarily missing.
“He fell off our radar,
which is how we know when
a condor has gone into a
cave to nest,” said wildlife
biologist Alacia Welch, who
leads the Condor Recovery
Program
Crew
in
California’s Pinnacles Na-
tional Park.
Some condors released in
Pinnacles are outfitted with
solar-powered GPS wing
tags that allow the crew to
track their whereabouts, and
Kun-Wak-Shun is one of
them.
Since noticing his signal
drop and tracking down his
nest in the park’s majestic
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Photo courtesy of the U.S. National Park Service.
Kun-Wak-Shun, hatched in 2004, displays enormous
wingspan in this ‘camera trap’ photo taken at
California’s Pinnacles National Park in 2014. The bird
has been treated for lead-poisoning 12 times since his
2005 wild release. He and his mate, condor No. 236
(seen in background at right), were among the first wild
condor pairs to nest this spring, and could soon be
raising a chick.
Lewis and Clark
saw the large birds
as they traveled
along the Colum-
bia River, and
condors were a
common motif for
the designs of
Oregon’s Wasco
people...
rock formations, the crew has
now confirmed two other
eggs nestled in caves and
crevices in Central California.
Biologists with Ventana Wild-
life Society found another
five nests along the Big Sur
coast.
Though he is a prolific fa-
ther and considered Pin-
nacles’ most dominant male,
Kun-Wak-Shun has led a tax-
ing life since leaving the
Jonsson Center about a de-
cade ago.
As with nearly every free-
flying condor, he’s been
treated for lead poisoning
multiple times—12 to be ex-
act. He also lost his first
mate, No. 444, to the starva-
tion-inducing effects of lead.
But Kun-Wak-Shun has
grit. Following his treatments,
Jobs at Indian Head Casino
Indian Head Casino
human resources has
advertised the following
positions:
he paired with another female
condor—San Diego Zoo-
hatched female No. 236, who
was released in 2002 at Big
Sur, about a 40-mile flight
from Pinnacles. The duo has
been bonded now for two
years.
Breeding programs like
the Jonsson Center’s are
largely to thank for success
stories like Kun-Wak-Shun.
The influx of zoo-bred
birds has pushed the number
of free-flying condors to
more than 10 times what it
was in 1987, when conserva-
tionists caught up the last 22
wild condors in a last-ditch ef-
fort to save the species.
“For the first time since the
recovery program started, we
have more condors flying in
the wild than we do in cap-
tivity,” said Kelly Sorenson,
executive director of the
Ventana Wildlife Society in
Central California. “But that
doesn’t mean we don’t need
the help of zoos any more.”
Lead poisoning remains
the leading cause of death in
free-flying condors, according
to Sorenson—specifically,
lead-based ammunition.
Although lead has been
widely eliminated from paint,
gasoline and water pipes, it
remains the metal of choice
for ammunition manufactur-
ers. Like eagles and other
scavengers, condors can in-
gest the toxin when they eat
the remains of an animal
that’s been shot with lead
ammunition.
“Anyone who shoots an
animal with lead ammunition
can accidentally poison scav-
enging animals,” said Leland
Brown, non-lead hunting edu-
cation coordinator at the Or-
egon Zoo. “Shown the unin-
tended consequences of us-
ing lead, many have started
to switch to non-lead ammu-
nition.”
As with all species’ captive
breeding and release efforts,
the goal is for California con-
dors to become a self-sustain-
ing population that someday
re-inhabits its full historical
range—a range that included
Oregon.
Lewis and Clark saw the
large birds as they traveled
along the Columbia River,
and condors were a common
motif for the designs of
Oregon’s Wasco people, who
lived along the Columbia be-
tween The Dalles and Cas-
cade Locks.
“We would like to see Cali-
fornia condors return to the
full extent of their historical
range,” said Dr. David
Shepherdson, Oregon Zoo
deputy conservation director.
“But until the problem of
lead poisoning is resolved,
condors will never fully re-
cover in the wild.”
Welch says she expects to
see No. 340 and No. 236’s
new chick pop from the egg
later this week or this week-
end.
The Oregon Zoo’s condor
recovery efforts take place at
the Jonsson Center for Wild-
life Conservation, located in
rural Clackamas County on
Metro-owned open land. The
remoteness of the facility
minimizes the exposure of
young condors to people, in-
creasing the chances for cap-
tive-hatched birds to survive
and breed in the wild.
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