ODFW News: A & H Program protects and enhances ...

[Pete]

For Immediate Release Friday, March 3, 2006

A & H Program protects and enhances big game winter range

SALEM - Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife's Access and Habitat Program today announced a series of projects it funds to improve winter range for big game species.

Winter range is a crucial factor in the health and survival of Oregon's big game herds. The availability of good winter range - where elk, deer, pronghorn and bighorn sheep can find shelter and adequate food - means all the difference between strong populations or a herd weakened by starvation and at increased risk for disease and predation.

Poor habitat conditions from past management practices, disturbance of animals on winter range by people and motor vehicles and the loss of winter range from development can all spell trouble for big game animals when winter arrives.

The Access and Habitat Program, created by the Oregon Legislature in 1993 and funded by a $2 surcharge on hunting licenses, funds programs where individual and corporate landowners, conservation organizations and others work to improve wildlife habitat and hunter access throughout the state.

In southwest Oregon, factors affecting elk and deer winter range include encroaching human development that removes land from the habitat base and years of fire suppression, which has allowed big game forage to become overgrown and decadent.

The A&H Program has funded a number of projects designed to cut-back dense stands of ceanothus, an important big game forage shrub, allowing it to grow back to a more robust and nutritious state.
A&H winter range enhancement projects in southwest Oregon in 2005 included a $31,450 grant to cut ceanothus on 134 acres of timberlands owned by the Swanson Group, Inc. and a $34,834 grant for a similar project on 133 acres of Forest Capital timberlands. In 2004, the A&H Program contributed $12,000 for another brush cutting project within the Jackson Access and Cooperative Travel Management Area in Jackson County.

The Blue Mountains region of northeast Oregon also is an important area for A&H Program big game winter range habitat enhancement projects. Although many winter ranges in this area are in good shape and remote enough that wintering animals are not disturbed by people, there remains a need for direct management.

For example, the A&H Program provided a $5,000 grant to conduct a burn on the Lostine Wildlife Area in 2005 to remove conifers that were encroaching on winter range habitat.

"That area is used by bighorn sheep as well as deer," said Pat Matthews, ODFW's assistant district wildlife biologist in Enterprise. "The bighorns won't go in there if the conifers grow to a certain height and density because they don't feel safe."

One of the major big game winter range habitat projects that the A&H Program helps fund is the Oregon Hunters Association's Murderers Creek Winter Range Shrub Planting Project in Grant County. Going into its seventh year, more than 250 volunteers spend a weekend in late March or early April planting a variety of native shrubs to provide forage for deer and elk. The group has planted more than 650,000 shrubs. Last year the A&H Program provided a $12,000 grant to purchase shrubs for the project.

Other recent winter range improvement projects funded by the A&H Program include noxious weed control and juniper removal on the Foster Ranch in Baker County, cooperative noxious weed control projects in Harney County, and a multi-year juniper control project on the Scanlan Ranch in Klamath County. In addition, the A&H Program supports a number of travel management areas that help control motor vehicle traffic in winter range, reducing the amount of energy-wasting disturbance deer and elk experience.

These kinds of projects, supported by A&H Program grants, will help ensure Oregon's big game populations continue to have high-quality habitat in which to spend their winters.
For information about the A&H Program call program coordinator Nick Myatt, 503-947-6087 or visit the Web site at www.dfw.state.or.us/AH/