Help ban elk ranching in Oregon

The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife is considering changes to its elk ranching policy in our state. I am a hunter in Oregon and I am against elk ranching. The ranches threaten the health and integrity of our wild elk and deer, and hunters pay almost all the costs of regulating the elk ranches!

It would be best if ODFW would ban elk ranching altogether, but falling short of that, the commission should consider the following safeguards:

Retire elk ranching permits as the permit holders quit or go out of business.

Ban the practice of selling “shooter” bulls to out of state canned hunting operations.

Require that the elk ranchers provide double fencing to reduce the risks of escape and disease transmission.

Require that elk ranches carry appropriate bonding and insurance to cover the cost of escapes and disease eradication.


ODFW is accepting comments on this issue through Feb 8. Send an email to Odfw.commission@state.or.us to have your voice heard on this issue.

Timber industry-linked hunters support WOPR

This week the Mail Tribune ran an Op-Ed from timber industry linked sportsmen, Steve Mealey and John Lowe, calling out the sportsmen coalition that opposed the WOPR. Mealey is a retired forester and went on to work for forest products company Boise Cascade. Lowe is also a retired forester and has a really interesting presentation on the State of Oregon Web site, that quotes Teddy Roosevelt, "A forest which contributes nothing to the wealth, progress or safety of the country is of no interest to the government."

I have no business calling these guys out. Mealey is a badass. His bio says he was a grizzly bear researcher, comes from Oregon homesteader lineage and has probably spent more time in the woods than I'll ever do in my life. And these guys have a good point -- the anti-WOPR coalition never got a blessing from the Oregon Hunters Association. It didn't speak for everbody. But I can call out the Mail Tribune. They made them out to be unbiased hunters and that's just not the case. To quote Lowe's presentation again: Anyone who claims to be unbiased is fooling themselves or fooling you.

Lowe and Mealey have been at this way longer, and have more experience than I do -- but I think it needs to be clear where people's loyalties are. I'm opposed to the WOPR because I value biodiversity and healthy ecosystems. On the other hand, Lowe and Mealey have made their livings through managed forestry and that was not made clear in the Op-Ed.

One point of contention: The authors raise the spectre of declining elk and deer populations and blame it on the NW Forest Plan. That's bullshit. It's the old argument that ungulates love clear cuts. The browse available in a regenerated clear cut is better forage for a short period of time. But as soon as those stands turn into ultra dense, monocultured doug fir, they are biological wastelands for the next 50 years. And anecdotally speaking -- how much elk shit have you seen in a clear cut? Now how much do you see in a remote, old growth wilderness? I mean, the damn things are practically humping me in the backcountry so I gotta say a healthy old growth system wins out over clear cuts every time.

Plastic fades Oregon hunting and fishing licenses

Attention Oregon hunters and anglers, don't put your 2008 fishing or hunting licenses in those plastic sleeves you get with the license. According to ODFW, the plastic will fade the new paper, which is supposed to be tear and water resistant.

“We are asking people to do something different with their new licenses. Please, don’t put them in plastic license holders or laminate them,” said DeAnna Erickson, ODFW License Services manager. She suggests carrying the license holder in your wallet as you would a receipt or using a paper or Tyvek license holder. Tyvek license holders will be available at ODFW offices beginning in mid-February.

Southern Oregon hunters get a shot at Aleutian Canada Geese

According to a story in the Curry Pilot from last week: For the second year, ODFW has worked out an agreement with three farms near the New River in northern Curry County to allow hunters to go onto their pasture land to hunt the geese in hopes the pressure will scatter the birds and lessen the damage they cause. The special South Coast Zone goose hunt runs Feb. 23 to March 10. Hunters can contact the Gold Beach ODFW office for maps and to reserve a hunting spot (541) 247-7605).

Trapping on the rise in Oregon

According to a couple of news outlets, including Portland Indy Media, trapping is on the rise in Oregon due to higher fur prices. There is a lot of uproar about it on the internet, as you might imagine. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it myself. I don't have any problem hunting any non-endangered furbearing animal, but I'm not so sure about killing animals non-selectively or over long periods of time (up to 48 hours), as is the case with trapping.

For more background, pro and against see the ODFW trapping backgrounder and TrapFreeOregon.org.

Thoughts on trapping anybody?

Hunters and Anglers oppose BLM WOPR in Oregon

This is a press release from a coalition of hunting and angling groups in Oregon, opposing the BLM's Western Oregon Plan Revision:

The Bureau of Land Management plan to roll back habitat protections on 2.6 million acres in western Oregon is a threat to the state’s legacy of hunting and fishing, according to a report released today by Oregon sportsmen’s groups.

“For most Oregon hunters and anglers, our public land is the only hunting and fishing estate we will ever own,” said Mike Beagle of Eagle Point. “The Bureau of Land Management proposal lacks the balance needed to support Oregon’s priceless outdoor heritage.”

The report comes from Trout Unlimited, Oregon Chapter of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association, Oregon Division Izaak Walton League of America, Oregon Council Federation of Fly Fishers, Northwest Steelheaders, Berkley Conservation Institute and Native Fish Society.

The groups released a report critical of the Bureau of Land Management’s Western Oregon Plan Revisions, or WOPR. The WOPR ramps up development on 2.6 million acres of public forests managed by the BLM. Scattered throughout western Oregon, the land includes watersheds critical for salmon, steelhead and trout as well as forests that are habitat for Oregon’s prized big game species such as Roosevelt elk, blacktail deer and black bear.

The report highlights several specific areas of concern:

Reduced protections for spawning streams. The BLM plan would significantly reduce the current “no-logging” buffer on fish-bearing streams, allowing logging within 25 feet of the bank.

The BLM’s proposal would reduce critically important “Late Successional Reserves” or old growth forests by more than 40 percent. Oregon’s most popular big-game species count on mature forests for a certain degree of security, cover and winter forage.
The agency’s proposal to build 1,000 miles of new roads would open up areas that have traditionally been valuable for hike-in hunting and secure habitat.
The BLM proposes making several areas high-intensity ATV playgrounds. Sportsmen and wildlife will be crowded out of valuable habitat if those lands are handed over to motorized traffic.

The report urges the BLM to go back to the drawing board, and make wildlife habitat and fisheries a higher priority.

“Hunters and anglers know how important habitat is for the future of our favorite activities,” said Brian Maguire, of Portland. “Oregon sportsmen need to be heard loud and clear. Tell the BLM to keep habitat protections on the books, so we have fish in the rivers and game in the woods. Our kids deserve it.”

“I understand the need for logging, because I come from that world,” said Bob Gerding of Philomath near Corvallis. “We do timber thinning on our land all the time, because it’s sound management. But the kind of large-scale clearcutting the BLM is proposing now is bad for everyone.”

More than 750,000 people hunted and fished in Oregon in 2006, generating nearly $900 million for Oregon’s economy, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

You can check out the full report on Trout Unlimited's Web site.

Hunters cited for CWD infringements in Oregon

According to the Eastern Oregonian: Recently, Oregon State Police cited six Oregon hunters who brought harvested deer and elk into the state from Montana, a state that has experienced a documented case of CWD. Citations were also issued to hunters who harvested and brought back game from the states of Colorado and New Mexico.





Here is a definition of CWD from the ODFW site: A transmissible spongiform encephalopathy that has been documented in deer, elk or moose in the following states: Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Montana, Illinois, New Mexico, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, New York, West Virginia and the Canadian Provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. It has not been detected in deer or elk in Oregon.

Call for hunters to drop the NRA

If you're a hunter and you support the NRA, it might pay to read this great article from the Washington Post. From the article:

If the threat to honest citizens' right to own firearms ever dipped below the radar, so too would the association's political might. That's why the NRA leadership will never tolerate the give-and-take that makes up real problem-solving. It would be bad for business.

Former NRA lobbyist Richard Feldman takes on his old organization for corruption and overplaying the specter of gun-control to rile up its base and bilk $35 from hardworking hunters trying to protect their sport. But it's pretty clear after the Jim Zumbo fiasco that the black-rifle base that the NRA caters to doesn't have anything to do with hunting and actually looks at us as "Fudds". So maybe its time to cancel those memberships.

Cabela's real estate arm betrays hunters?

Thanks to Tony Heckard at BHA for passing this on: According to a column in New West, Cabela's is getting itself in trouble in Montana for promoting the privatization of hunting land through its real estate marketing arm, Cabela's Trophy Properties LLC.

From the column: Cabela's doesn't actually buy and sell land. Instead, it licenses its brand to local real estate brokers and allows them to market prime hunting and fishing properties under the banner of Cabela's Trophy Properties. The brokers pay Cabela's for the license, probably with a license fee and a slice of the commission on property sales... Licensing your name to realtors who use it to market property definitely makes you part of the real estate biz--and not just any real estate biz, but the worst kind.

The article goes into depth explaining how Cabela's exacerbated the problem in Montana. But it's not just the Rocky Mountain states that need to worry about this public access issue. Cabela's is marketing prime wildlife habitat here in Oregon and it could drive the loss of public hunting access on private land in other states.

Here are a few of Oregon's properties listed under Cabela's Trophy Properties:

About 600 acres in the Ochoco Creek Valley southeast of Prineville, OR is going for $16.6 million.

Or you could pick up the Inshallah Ranch for $12 million. "Tremendous potential for an appreciation of value on this acquisition exists, as demand for quality big game hunting ranches continues to accelerate," the Cabela's site says.

Is it time to start sending back the catalogues?

New way to drag blacktail and elk out of the Oregon bush

Here's a video that's pretty much an ad for the people behind HawkeyeBilt, a personal tow-behind trailer unit for deer and elk carcasses in Oregon's backcountry. Getting a big ungulate down miles from a road is one of my worst nightmares.

Lazy Oregon hunters blow chukar hunting with ATV abuse

According to Pat Wray of High Country News, there are right and wrong situations for ATVs. Right usage scenarios included search and rescue for his son, and helping to tow his elk carcass out of the Wallowas on established trails. But Wray says too many hunters rely on ATV use, and he lists separate experiences where chuckar hunting and habitat were impacted on the Owyhee River and Malhuer River valleys.



From the article: Hunters using ATVs were busting through the desert, creating their own trails so they didn’t have to walk while they hunted some of the best chukar ground in North America. And it was flat! What incredible laziness!

Oregon Hunters Association publishes Chukar tips

Veteran chukar junkie and Oregon hunting celeb Gary Lewis published a funny sidebar in Oregon Hunter this month about 10 things not to do on a chukar hunt. Here is the abbreviated list of how to do it right:
1. Bring a topo map, GPS and compass.
2. Hunt into the wind (for your dogs to catch the scent).
3. Keep your yap shut -- no yelling at dogs or buddies.
4. Buy No. 6 shells rated at 1,300 fps.
5. Assume more birds are in the covey than the ones that first flushed.



From the article: If there is one great “everyman’s hunt” left in Oregon, where a hunter can walk his own (public) ground for miles, it’s the pursuit of the Himalayan import called the chukar. All it takes is a shotgun, a bird dog, and a pair of boots.

Bubbas: Pick up your trash or we lose timber land hunting access and shoot each other in the face

Shane Ullrich at the Sweet Home News says he’s seen the garbage and vandalism on the timber lands that cause these companies to lock down access to hunting. Ullrich says the game animals flee public lands for the protected private land, which is bad enough, but he also notes that it bottlenecks hunters onto public lands and there is more opportunity for a nasty accident. “A lot of lead will be coming and going,” Ullrich writes.

I have to ask, because I hunt some timber lands near the Smith River drainage, why the hell would you haul an entire range and stove out into the woods to shoot holes in it? Beer cans, sure -- you’re a piece of shit, but I get it: Drink beer, throw it in the dirt and shoot the gun. But the oven? Why? Why?

Alaskan Brown bear hunting and Robert Ruark

You've seen the photos, now the tale of the tape on the recent Alaskan Brown Bear hunt: My dad shot a good representative male bear -- 8'6" (about 700lbs -- a total guess, based entirely on trying to drag the damn thing). He made a 500 yard stalk on a beach, steadied his rifle across a wobbly Swarvoski scope, and shot high at about 100 yards away. As the bear was turning to run, he refocused and dropped it cold with a shot that broke its neck and shoulder, and kicked it over backwards. Coming off of a double bypass just four months previous, the old man pulled it off without a hitch.

We stayed aboard The Bear, a fifty foot boat operated by Alaska Master Guide Brad Dennison of Alaska Coastal Outfitters. Brad ran the boat and guided my dad’s friend Nick most of the trip. Chet Benson of Bearfoot Adventures was our guide when my dad shot the bear. I've sworn not to tell where we hunted specifically, but I can say that we hunted the ABC Island area: Admiralty, Baranof and Chicagof.

I have day-to-day notes on the 10-day hunt that I plan to try to tie into a story I'm going to pitch to magazines at some point in the near future.

For most of the trip, I was reading Robert Ruark's Horn of the Hunter, a book about his safari in Africa. A lot of Ruark's observations seemed to apply to this trip as well. Selected excerpts below:

Every man has to brace a lion at least once in his life, and whether the lion is a woman or a boss or the prospect of death by disease makes no difference.

This one's for you Chester: According to what you may have seen or read, the basic idea of a professional hunter is roughly this: He stands about six foot five, sports a full beard, and is drunk (off his client's liquor) most of the time. He always makes a play for the client's beautiful wife or sister and always scores. He shoots lions with pistols and wrestles snakes and buffalo for fun. When he is not out on safari he hangs around bars in Nairobi, ogling the girls and thumbing the big cartridges he wears in the loops of his jacket. He does all the shooting for the client, while the client sits comfortably in the shooting car. He is always taciturn with a me-Tarzan-you-Jane manner. He has a secret sorrow which drove him to a life among the wild beasts. His business is regarded as butchery and it takes a superhuman man to be a competent butcher.

The truth: The heavy work for a hunter is not so much the location of game and the supervision of the final kill as the camp routine. He supervises a tiny portable city... He must be an expert mechanic -- he must be able to rebuild a motorcar from the spare parts he carries and improvise those parts he has not... The hunter finally combines the duties of sea captain, a bodyguard, a chauffer, a tracker, a skinner, a headwaiter, a tourist guide, a photographer, a mechanic, a stevedore, an interpreter, a game expert, a gin rummy partner, drinking companion, social equal, technical superior, boss, employee, and handyman.

Possibly the best argument for trophy hunting I've ever read: You are not shooting to kill. You are shooting to make immortal the thing you shoot. To kill just anything is a sin. To kill something that will be dead soon, but is so fine as to give you pleasure for years, is wonderful. Everything dies. You just hasten the process... I can understand killing something that you want so badly that you are willing to go to weeks of trouble and great expense to collect it, so that you will have it and enjoy it and remember it all your life.

This rings of Timothy Treadwell: I'll never make another one of these things where the first object is the camera, with nothing but dirty work to be done with the gun, mopping up after the humanitarians.

On coming home from a long trip: All the excitement and dangerous security were finished. Now it would be work and civilian frustration again. All the feeling of complete fatalism was gone. Now the future was in my hands again.

Old man and the bear -- Alaska homecoming

Hunting from shore, originally uploaded by mattstansberry.

Back to the real world. Check out more photos from the Alaskan Brown Bear hunting adventure.

Oregon turkey hunt turns into wildflower safari

I never got to detail last weekend's Oregon Outdoor Journal Fest. It started out with a trip down to see Mike Kaiser, a turkey hunting guide in the Medford area. Mike and I headed out at 4am to stalk Southern Oregon's booming turkey population. We hunted a private plot of oak savanna just east of town. As we were getting out of the truck, we could hear 10 turkeys, at least, gobbling up in the trees around us. We walked about a half mile, picked a good spot and sat there, listening. Mike started making some hen noises with a mouth call and a box call, and we were listening to the toms gobbling back at us. It seemed pretty much inevitable that I was going to shoot a bird that morning. Unfortunately, we misjudged how far away the turkey we were focusing on was. It was practically on the next ridge over, but its call was carrying pretty far. Once we realized that the bird wasn't getting any closer, we pulled up stakes and moved. We hiked back and forth across miles of rolling hills, stopping to call periodically. We had a lot of birds responding to us, but none coming in. The closest we came was a pair of jakes (juvenile male turkeys) that seemed to be shadowing us, but eventually they ran off over the next ridge, still calling at us the whole time. During the course of the morning we saw tons of wildflowers and had great views of Mt. McGloughlin. Pictures below:

From MattStansberry

From MattStansberry

From MattStansberry

From MattStansberry

From MattStansberry

From MattStansberry

Oregon State Senate moves to ban canned hunts

According to the Associated Press, the Oregon State Senate voted 22-5 to ban "canned hunting" in Oregon. It would outlaw the hunting of such animals as Ibex goats and Russian boars on closed game reserves.



I'm not opposed to "canned" huting from an animal rights perspective. And I'm not really bent out of shape about it for the "sporting" reason either. I am opposed to canned hunts and exotic ranching in general on the grounds that the animals can escape and impact wild animals -- spreading disease, out-competing native species.

Quote from ODFW: If you have species that are classified as livestock that can escape and manage to establish themselves in the wild, yes, it can pose a definite threat to native wildlife and habitats.

Ron Anglin, head of the Fish and Wildlife Department's Wildlife Division.

Oregon cougar hunting under fire

Conservationists and hunters are clashing over Oregon's cougar hunting regulations. ODFW wants to ease a law passed in 1994, Measure 18, which banned hunting cougars with dogs. According to Portland Independent Media Center, ODFW wants to get more leverage to deputize hunters to chase problem cougars with hounds.



Not that a lack of hounds is slowing hunters down. According to an article in the Mail Tribune, hunters killed a record 284 cougars in Oregon last year, the highest total mortality of cougars ever logged in the state.

But at the same time, cougar numbers are up. ODFW said cougars were nearly eliminated in Oregon by the mid-1960s, but today the cougar population in Oregon is estimated to be 5,100. The minimum desirable number of cougar in the state is 3,000.

Obviously some bloggers are taking an anti-hunting stance, but there are just as many voices on the other side, like the Oregon Hunters Association which is offering prizes for hunters that bag cougars.

I don't have a clear stance on this -- I have a cougar tag, but I'm not sure I could use it. I think hunters should be able to hunt cougar; but it should cost more than $10 to do it. Killing less than 6% of the cougar population per year seems sustainable, but that number seems arbitrary.

I'd like to see a better argument for killing cougars than avoiding "problem animal" situations. The conservationists are tearing that one apart, as they should. It's pretty flimsy. If they charged more for tags, opened it up to trophy-chasing non-residents and delivered the money to habitat conservation, that would be better.

Outdoor Life magazine sucks and is harmful to outdoor recreation

Outdoor Life sucks.

I signed up for Outdoor Life magazine a while back, part of a package with Field & Stream -- you basically got it for free. I've never been impressed with the magazine, but lately I've been downright disgusted.

This was before the Jim Zumbo nightmare broke wide open, but that just adds fuel to the fire. Outdoor Life turned its back on one of its own, a sportsman and award winning writer, in order to save face with its advertisers. One word to describe that behavior: spineless.

Beyond that, 2/3 of the magazine (60 of the 90 pages) are entirely worthless. The front 30 pages is full of inane semi-outdoors related news and gag photos, mostly ads, a handful of throw away soundbite tips that no one will remember or use. The back 30 pages is all product photos and descriptions with the editorial quality of the Cabela's catalogue (no offense Cabela's, you guys are great). And then towards the very end the ads devolve into x-ray glasses, male enhancement and exploding cigars -- scam companies that advertised in the backs of comic books in the 1980s. Comic books won't even take their money anymore, but OL will.

I could go on and on: The constant shilling, the blatant dominance of the ATV set (would any of these people even think of hiking in or packing out meat on a horse or on their back?); the months spent on the "Dream Cabin" feature to sell ad space to building material companies (Who gives a shit about the dream cabin?); The "When animals attack" cartoon that illustrates increasingly preposterous scenarios every month.

But all that wasn't enough to set me against Outdoor Life. I've been working in the publishing business for the past 4 years and I know the challenges editors face. Trying to publish something real, lasting, insightful is hard work. Plus, you're at the mercy of publishers and ad revenue -- it's a tough balance. But what really turned me off was the irresponsible, sensational editorial feature in the February 2007 issue.

From Outdoor Life: Hell Hounds! Wolf Attack -- A fight to the death! Our exclusive photo gallery of a wolf eating a deer -- WHILE IT'S STILL ALIVE! -- raises questions whether wolves are noble predators or nature's monsters.

So let me get this straight, wolves doing what they are designed to do (eat deer) makes them "nature's monsters"? Right. So what the hell are we hunters? At least the wolves are engaging with their prey and fighting for their food on their own terms.

Other interesting quotes from the article: Wolves may have killed 200-300 dogs in Idaho -- according to estimates by a guy who got phone calls about the problem after his dogs were attacked by wolves .

OL also throws out this gem: "Wolf attacks on livestock, game animals, pets and even people are becoming an almost weekly occurrence." What does that mean? Wolves somewhere are eating something at some point, almost weekly!

OL pulls a couple canned, out-of-context quotes from 2 wildlife officials in a sidebar, but other than that, no biologists are given a voice.

Check out Oregon Dept of Fish and Wildlife's stance on wolves.

I'm not against hunting wolves. I think it would be a great fund raiser for state wildlife departments. Charge $100 per tag and sell them by lottery. What I don't want to see is wolf extermination, which seems to be what this magazine is advocating.

I'd like to end with a quote from Ed Abbey's, Desert Solitaire:

We need more predators. The sheepmen complain, it is true, that the coyotes eat some of their lambs. This is true, but do they eat enough? I mean, enough lambs to keep the coyotes sleek, healthy and well fed. That is my concern. As for the sacrifice of an occasional lamb, that seems to me a small price to pay for the support of the coyote population. The lambs, accustomed by tradition to their role, do not complain; and the sheepmen, who run their hooved locusts on the public lands and are heavily subsidized, most of them as hog-rich as they are pigheaded, can easily afford these trifling losses.

I won't hold my breath for Outdoor Life to ask me to write for them.

Poacher scum kills Eastern Oregon bighorn sheep

From the Oregon Hunters Association: According to Trooper Robert Wilson, of the Oregon State Police Fish and Wildlife Division in Ontario, four hunters discovered the headless body of an illegally killed California bighorn sheep on Jan. 22 in the Long Gulch area east of Owyhee Reservoir.



California bighorn sheep were first reintroduced into the lower Owyhee River area in 1965. The herd now numbers about 200 animals. It costs about $1,200 per head to transplant a bighorn sheep, according to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, so illegally killed animals represent a significant financial loss to the state as well as reduced future hunting opportunities.

There is a $10,000 reward for info leading to the arrest and conviction of the poacher scum. OHA contributed $5,250 of that cash, with other money coming from the Backcountry Hunters and Anglers and the Foundation for North American Wild Sheep.