A8
OUTDOORS
Blue Mountain Eagle
Wednesday, August 3, 2022
SHOOTING THE BREEZE
Pregame prep is key
to a successful hunt
Community Health Beat
What's new at BMHD?
Two New Providers to Join BMHD Team
in August
Gillian Seton, M.D. General Surgeon; comes to us with nearly 10 years of surgery
experience. Dr. Seton will be doing screening and diagnostic colonoscopies, all
general surgeries, as well as assist in the ER.
Charlie Price, D.O. is a Family Practice Physician who recently completed his
residency through OHSU Skylakes Program in Klamath Falls. Dr. Price has an open
panel for patients of all ages for general and family medicine needs. Now
scheduling! Call 541-575-0404.
Saturday
y Same Day
Appointments
Appoi ntments
Available for sudden, non-emergent symptoms.
Dates: August 6th & 20th
September 10th & 16th
8am - 4pm
Call to schedule 541-575-0404
Dine & Walk with a Doc
Join us the second Tuesday of each month for a complementary catered meal
while you enjoy a talk on health and wellness topics from your local healthcare
providers/professionals. After we eat, we’ll take a walk around beautiful 7th
Street Complex. A new topic will be presented each month.
What Time: Dinner will begin at 5:30pm by the duck pond and a walk around
the complex will follow.
When: August 9th, September 13th
This is a FREE event and people of all ages are invited!
Locally Grown
Prenatal/Postpartum
Classes
Register now for August prenatal/postpartum
classes by visiting our website. Classes are
FREE, dinner is provided.
Dates: August 17th, 24th, 31st.
5:30pm-8:00pm
25
Babies have been
born at BMH so far
this year!
We're
e're Hiring!
Recruiter | Human Resources - (Full Time)
Staff Accountant | Finance - (Full Time)
Activities Director | Care Center - (Full Time)
Nurse Informaticist | Hospital - (Full Time)
Many other full-time, part-time & casual positions open,
visit our website for more information & to apply.
SAVE THE DATE:
Strut, Stride, Straddle & Stroll
&
Hilton Half Marathon
Saturday, September 10th, 2022
www.bluemountainhospital.org
T
he draw results are out
from overtightening.
— if you’ll be hunting
After you’ve checked
there’s no time to waste. everything out, it’s time to get
All of the great professional to the range.
athletes became great by mas-
Regardless of our skill lev-
tering the fundamentals of their els, we need to practice shoot-
respective sports. Like-
ing with the weapon
wise, hunters must
and load we plan
have their own win-
to use on our hunt.
ning pregame prepara-
Dumping four dif-
tions. Physical fi tness
ferent brands of car-
goes without saying,
tridges into your mag-
and practice is pivotal.
azine and printing a
Whether a novice or a
shotgun-like pattern
Dale Valade
veteran, some prepara-
onto a Keystone Light
beer box at 25 yards is
tion with focus on fun-
damentals will greatly increase simply not a course for success.
Once you have properly
your chances for success in the
zeroed off of a solid bench rest,
fi eld.
practice from fi eld positions as
Hiking in the hills is an
much as possible. If you plan to
activity that we as a soci-
use a bipod or tripod, practice
ety seem to fi nd the excep-
deploying it on uneven ground,
tion rather than the rule. If you
don’t regularly engage in some getting into position and tak-
sort of PT, please start doing so ing shots.
Scouting is always time
immediately. One of the recur-
well spent. Get out your binoc-
ring complaints I hear from
informal surveys of guides and ulars or spotting scope and hit
outfi tters alike is the poor phys- the hills. Learning the routines
of the animals and hotspots
ical condition of their clients.
they frequent will give you a
Being so winded as to put
leg up come opening day.
themselves in danger of med-
It’s good to have a plan for
ical emergency, too out of
breath to make their shot when extraction and, more impor-
tantly, where you will hang it to
game presents itself and being
cool out. I have heard that Rus-
too worn out to aid with fi eld
sell’s Custom Meats is once
dressing and extraction are
again taking game animals, but
chief among these complaints.
Rather than worrying about if they run out of space, you
will need a backup plan.
how to whittle 10 ounces off
Proper preparation prevents
of your hunting rifl e and gear,
poor performance, as the say-
it would go farther to lose 10
ing goes. Here’s to everyone
pounds off of your posterior.
having a satisfying and suc-
Check your gear. Now is
the time to see if the batteries in cessful hunting season!
What are some of your pre-
your rangefi nder need replaced.
game preparations? Write to
Check to see if the action
us at shootingthebreezebme@
screws on your rifl e and cor-
gmail.com and check us out on
responding scope mounts and
Facebook!
rings have remained torqued
Dale Valade is a local coun-
to specifi cations. Spec on gun
try gent with a love for the out-
screws is NOT the same as the
doors, handloading, hunting
lug nuts on your Ford F-150;
and shooting.
please don’t strip them out
Grant to fund testing
of new wolf deterrents
By GEORGE PLAVEN
Capital Press
WASHINGTON — The
U.S. Department of Agricul-
ture has awarded a $100,000
grant to the nonprofi t Western
Landowners Alliance to test
new non-lethal tools ranchers
can use to protect their livestock
from wolves.
Funding comes from the
Natural Resources Conserva-
tion Service through its Con-
servation Innovation Grants
program, which supports the
development of new manage-
ment strategies to improve nat-
ural resource conservation on
private lands.
The alliance will work with
four ranchers and three county
wolf committees in Oregon,
evaluating diff erent approaches
to minimize wolf-livestock con-
fl icts — including range riders,
high-tech cameras and com-
posting dead animal carcasses.
“My goal, or my biggest
hope, is that this project is going
to help working lands remain
viable,” said Ellie Gage, who is
administering the NRCS grant.
“The deck is already stacked
against these producers.”
Gage and her husband,
Mark, ranch in Central Oregon,
where they run a small herd of
cattle near Prineville and Pow-
ell Butte. She is also chair-
woman of the Crook County
wolf committee.
For the last several years,
Gage said she has been
involved in the alliance, partic-
ipating in the group’s Women in
Ranching program. In May, she
was asked to do outreach for the
NRCS grant proposal, recruit-
ing partners interested in study-
ing non-lethal deterrents.
“The response was really
overwhelming,” she said.
Four livestock producers
signed up — two in Wallowa
County, one in Baker County
and one in southwest Oregon.
Wolf committees in Wal-
lowa, Baker and Grant counties
agreed to collaborate, as well as
Prairie City in Grant County,
which has a site for compost-
ing roadkill and dead livestock.
The grant was awarded July
15, and will reimburse ranch-
ers for half their costs as they
implement non-lethal methods
aimed at keeping wolves away
from sheep and cattle.
Gage said two producers
will experiment with high-fre-
quency radio ear tags on their
cattle. The idea is that will
allow range riders to locate
herds more quickly and effi -
ciently in large pastures, low-
ering costs and maintaining a
more consistent human pres-
ence among herds to scare off
wolves.
“Some of these allotments
might be several thousand
acres,” Gage said. “If you can
spend less time looking for
your cows, and locate them
quickly with the help of ear
tags, then you can get to them
... more effi ciently.”
Another piece of tech-
nology that Gage said she is
excited to try is a new game
camera being developed with
artifi cial intelligence that can
be programmed to identify
specifi c animals and notify
producers.
“There is a huge need for
the producer to have real-time
information on where the pred-
ators are, and when they are
there,” she said. “They can go
and incorporate their non-le-
thal tools and human pres-
ence when they need to be
there. Hopefully, it will make
non-lethal tools that much more
eff ective.”
In Prairie City, Gage said
composting dead livestock may
prove to be an eff ective tech-
nique for ridding ranches of
carcasses that might otherwise
attract wolves.
“If we can minimize those
attractants, everybody wins,”
she said.
The NRCS grant is meant to
build on similar livestock-pred-
ator confl ict prevention work
the alliance is undertaking in
other states, including Washing-
ton, Idaho, Montana, California,
New Mexico and Arizona.
By proving which tools
are most eff ective in diff erent
areas and terrain, Gage said it
could lead to a more perma-
nent source of funding to assist
ranchers.
“The end goal of this proj-
ect is to provide durable fund-
ing for producers who are fac-
ing the challenges of sharing
working lands with wildlife,”
she said. “The work that they’re
putting into preventing confl ict
with their livestock is not sus-
tainable fi nancially.”