A8
NEWS
Blue Mountain Eagle
Wednesday, November 23, 2022
Bighorn in Baker ‘looking for love’ Transmission line opponents
voice concerns at hearing
By IAN CRAWFORD
and JAYSON JACOBY
Baker City Herald
Baker City residents are accus-
tomed to mule deer roaming in town,
but on Tuesday afternoon, Nov. 15,
a much diff erent wildlife visitor
showed up.
A bighorn sheep ram, typically
seen clambering on cliff s and among
craggy peaks, wandered into the west
side of Baker City.
The 4-year-old ram, from the
Burnt River Canyon herd southeast
of town, received a lot of attention on
social media, with several people get-
ting photographs or videos.
Employees from the Oregon
Department of Fish and Wildlife
searched for the ram as dusk fell
Tuesday, but they had no luck fi nd-
ing the animal.
But on Wednesday morning, Nov.
16, biologists tracked down the ram
and shot it with a tranquilizer dart
to immobilize the powerful ani-
mal, which was in a yard at 15th and
Broadway streets, about fi ve blocks
west of the railroad tracks.
Brian Ratliff , district wildlife
biologist at ODFW’s Baker City
offi ce, said he took an airplane fl ight
over town Wednesday morning to
try to get a signal from the radio
tracking collar the ram was wear-
ing. Ratliff said he quickly picked
up the signal, and about the same
time an Oregon State Police offi cer
called to say the ram was at 15th and
Broadway.
Ratliff , who has worked in Baker
City for about 16 years, said the ram
is the fi rst to wander into a city neigh-
borhood that he knows of.
“We’ve had multiple bighorn
sheep there on the hill just behind the
golf course,” Ratliff said.
He said the ram was most likely
“looking for love” when it wandered
into town, possibly lured by a domes-
ticated animal. He said this is the
peak of the bighorn breeding season.
The ram was quarantined at the
ODFW station on Hughes Lane in
Baker City while biologists waited
for results of disease tests.
Ratliff said the results, which
were all negative, arrived late Thurs-
day afternoon, Nov. 17, and on Fri-
day morning he was hooking up the
trailer to haul the ram back to the
Burnt River Canyon for release.
Ratliff said he was especially con-
cerned about the ram being infected
By ISABELLA CROWLEY
The Observer
Brian Ratliff /Contributed Photo
A bighorn ram from the Burnt River Canyon herd wandered into Baker City on
Nov. 15, 2022, and was captured the next day.
Jayson Jacoby/Baker City Herald
A bighorn sheep was spotted wandering in Baker City on Nov. 15, 2022, garner-
ing the attention of many locals.
with Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae
bacteria, which has infected sheep
in both of Baker County’s bighorn
herds over the past three years and
caused fatal pneumonia in dozens of
the animals.
Ratliff said the ram, which ODFW
fi rst trapped and collared on Dec. 2,
2021, has been exposed to the bacte-
ria based on test results. But the nasal
swab that biologists took on Wednes-
day was negative, and the sheep
showed no signs of illness.
Ratliff believes the bacteria fi rst
infected sheep in the Lookout Moun-
tain unit in eastern Baker County,
north of Interstate 84 and south of
Highway 86.
Sick and dead sheep were found
in that area starting in February 2020.
The Lookout Mountain sheep are
Rocky Mountain bighorns.
Around October 2020, sheep in
the Burnt River Canyon herd — those
are California bighorns, a somewhat
smaller subspecies — also began
dying. Ratliff believes sheep from the
Burnt River Canyon herd, which is
just south of Interstate 84, crossed the
freeway and mingled with infected
Lookout Mountain bighorns.
ODFW has not determined the
source of the bacteria that initially
infected Lookout Mountain sheep.
Ratliff estimated that all of the
lambs born in the Lookout Mountain
unit in the spring of 2020 — 65 to 70
animals — died due to the bacteria,
along with about 75 adult bighorns.
The herd, which has been Oregon’s
biggest herd of Rocky Mountain big-
horns, included about 400 sheep as
recently as 2018.
Few, if any, lambs survived in
2021, but Ratliff said one group of
sheep seems to have fared better in
2022.
The Burnt River Canyon herd
is much smaller, with about 75 to
85 sheep, and biologists counted 14
lambs in the area this spring. That
compares with a pre-infection aver-
age of 25 to 30 lambs per year.
Ratliff said he replaced the ram’s
radio collar with a GPS version that
makes it easier for biologists to track
its movements remotely. The radio
collar signals have a limited range.
LA GRANDE — Opponents of
the proposed Boardman to Heming-
way transmission line had another
opportunity to speak their minds
about the controversial project.
The hearing, Wednesday, Nov.
16, at Eastern Oregon University
in La Grande, was one of the early
steps in the Oregon Public Utility
Commission’s quasi-judicial pro-
cess to either grant or deny Idaho
Power’s petition for a certifi cate of
public necessity. The Boise-based
power company is a major funder
of the proposed B2H transmission
line.
Public Utility Commissioners
Mark Thompson and Letha Taw-
ney traveled to La Grande for the
public hearing. Commissioner
Megan Decker attended virtually.
“We felt like the commissioners
listened,” Jim Kreider, co-chair of
the Union County-based Stop B2H
Coalition, said.
Around 40 residents fi lled seats
in the David E. Gilbert Event Cen-
ter to listen to the public com-
ment hearing, and nearly 20 people
shared their concerns. Many resi-
dents spoke out against the trans-
mission line and looked to the com-
missioners as a last hope to stop
B2H. Overlapping concerns raised
by residents at the meeting fell into
three categories — issues with the
process, the impact on Oregon as a
whole and the impact at the local
level.
Residents who had issues with
the process cited the lack of an
updated budget from Idaho Power
on the transmission line and the
failure to include the alternate route
proposed by the Bureau of Land
Management.
Broader concerns include envi-
ronmental and ecological destruc-
tion along the transmission line.
Individuals also brought up the
possible damage to the Oregon
Trail ruts and the impacts that
would have on tourism.
At a more local level, people
were concerned with the poten-
tial for wildfi res caused by power
lines and high noise levels emitted
by the lines. Residents also voiced
safety concerns about trucks using
local roads to access towers if the
transmission line is approved.
Another major local concern was
the impact on Morgan Lake if that
route is used.
Fuji Kreider, a member of the
Stop B2H Coalition, said many
residents felt left out of the pro-
cess and trapped in a cycle of gov-
ernmental bodies making decisions
without considering public input.
“We’re in a vicious cycle,” she
said.
The commissioners were not
able to answer questions at the
hearing — rather their goal was
simply to listen to opinions and
gather information.
“There are things we heard
tonight that we will make sure our
staff looks into,” Thompson said.
The proposed transmission line
would connect a new station near
Boardman to an existing substation
in southwest Idaho near Melba. In
September, Oregon’s Energy Facil-
ity Siting Council approved a site
certifi cate for the B2H line. The
permit authorizes construction of
the 290-mile, 500-kilovolt line
across the Eastern Oregon coun-
ties of Morrow, Umatilla, Union,
Baker, and Malheur. Federal agen-
cies already granted permission for
the line to cross land they manage.
As part of the petition process,
Idaho Power must provide evi-
dence of need and justifi cation to
construct the line. The certifi cate
details the purpose and route of the
transmission line. It also provides
a cost estimate and other relevant
information.
It is up to the Public Util-
ity Commission to determine the
necessity, safety, practicability and
justifi cation in the public interest
for the proposed transmission line,
according to Oregon law.
If granted, the certifi cate would
demonstrate that the transmission
line is a public use and necessary
for public convenience. The cer-
tifi cate would not condemn any
land directly, but would be used by
Idaho Power in court proceeding to
use land along the path of the trans-
mission line.
In addition to the application
from Idaho Power, the Public Util-
ity Commission will consider com-
ments from members of the public
and independent evidence gathered
by commission staff .
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