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Winter storm shuts down Tribal
offi ces for 2.5 days — pg. 9
february 15, 2014
Tribe helps in
delisting of Oregon
chub as endangered
Dean Rhodes
Smoke Signals editor
T
Photo by Michelle Alaimo
Delphian School student Lochlan Scharpf reads “The Incredibles” to Nicholas Thayer, a Mawich
class member, in the Tribal Library on Thursday, Feb. . Delphian students volunteer once a
week to read to students from the early Childhood education classes as part of the Start Making
A Reader Today program.
Delphian students make great readers to pre-schoolers
By Ron Karten
Smoke Signals staff writer
A
s many as 16 Delphian School students
are reading to 47 children enrolled in
the Tribal Education Department’s
pre-school classes.
As their required community project,
mostly senior and junior students, but also
including some from middle and elementary
grades, chose to be readers in the Tribe’s
SMART (Start Making A Reader Today)
reading program.
“This seemed very fulfi lling,” said senior
Jessup Jong, a South Korean native aspiring
to study political science in college. He is the
See READERS
continued on page 8
ribal efforts have helped get the Oregon
chub, an inconspicuous silvery speckled
minnow that inhabits the backwaters of
the Willamette Valley, removed from the Endan-
gered Species List.
State and federal officials announced on
Thursday, Feb. 6, the Oregon chub will soon
become the fi rst fi sh removed from the federal
government’s list of endangered species.
Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife biolo-
gist Paul Scheerer said “the success is a remark-
able story of cooperation between landowners,
non-profi t organizations and state and federal
agencies that got behind the effort decades ago to
ensure the species would not become extinct.”
In addition to the state Fish and Wildlife
Department, Scheerer acknowledged efforts by
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Forest Service,
Oregon State Parks, the state Department of
Transportation, the Confederated Tribes of
Grand Ronde, municipalities, private landown-
ers, watershed councils, the McKenzie River
Trust and others.
Oregon chub are small fl oodplain minnows
that live in sloughs, swamps, beaver ponds and
tributaries. These habitats were greatly reduced
by the construction of Willamette River fl ood
control dams, channelization of the river for
navigation, draining of wetlands for agriculture
and development, and are prime habitats for
nonnative game fi sh, such as bass and bluegill,
which prey on the chub.
The chub was listed as endangered in 1993
when only eight populations totaling fewer than
1,000 fi sh were known to exist. It was promoted
to threatened status in 2010. Twenty-one years
after the initial listing, there are more than 80
populations and more than 150,000 fi sh known
to exist.
See CHUB
continued on page 10
General Council briefed on TeRO
New offi ce will help Tribal members fi nd jobs
By Dean Rhodes
Smoke Signals editor
T
ribal Employment Rights
Offi ce Director Greg Azure
briefed the general member-
ship on the early stages of imple-
menting the Tribe’s Employment
Rights Ordinance at the Feb. 2
General Council meeting held in
See MEETING
continued on page 11
Tribal employment Rights Offi ce Director Greg Azure, right, and
Tribal Career Development program Manager David DeHart listen
to a question from a Tribal member during their presentation about
enforcement of the new Tribal employment Rights Ordinance at the
Feb. 2 General Council meeting held in Grand Ronde.
Photo by Dean Rhodes