A wolverine was photographed by a trail camera on April 2, 2011 after being attracted to a camera site baited with a road-killed deer. Audrey Magoun photo.
They look like a couple of teenaged delinquents caught on security cameras.
But these new photos from ODFW are adding to a small pile of evidence that wolverines are back in Oregon and might be here to stay.
A wolverine in Yellowstone National Park. Photo from National Park Service.
A researcher working with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife says she’s found the first ever confirmed wolverine tracks in Wallowa County.
Dr. Audrey Magoun found the tracks almost a week ago while hiking through the snow in the Eagle Cap Wilderness. She was able to follow them for about a mile. Judging by their size, she thinks they were left by a male.
This is not just the first set of tracks for Wallowa County, but one of the few signs of wolverines in Oregon in more than 75 years.
6:40 p.m. update:
Environmental groups are throwing a victory party Thursday evening at Bark’s offices on SE Grand. Click here for details.
Earlier:
The coalition working to stop the Palomar natural gas pipeline is thrilled over today’s news, first reported right here on Natural Oregon.
The hotly contested Palomar Natural Gas Pipeline is dead.
Today, the Palomar Gas Transmission company filed papers with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to withdraw the project. But at the same time, Palomar says it’s exploring options for a new pipeline in the future.
How serious are they about developing a new pipeline? How long will it take? Big questions with no easy answers. At least not today.
One of the wolves of the Imnaha pack in Wallowa County has died.
ODFW says it found the year old female yesterday – thanks to the signal from her radio collar. The collar sends out a special alert when it doesn’t move for four hours or more, and that’s when the agency suspected something might be wrong.
Waking up from my winter hibernation to pass along this amazing video from ODFW. I have no idea why other media haven’t picked up on it.
Shot on December 30, it gives us a close up look at three members of the Imnaha wolf pack in Northeast Oregon. That includes the alpha female and a pair of one year old pups. By now, the pups are full grown.
ODFW says it counted 16 pack members, bigger than previously believed. The agency thinks the pack produced six pups last year instead of four.
Can you believe someone would stoop this low for a few bucks?
A group of thieves hacked their way through a forest on the Olympic Peninsula, stripping the branches off hundreds of young white pines. Washington DNR says they stole about 20,000 pounds of pine boughs, probably to sell them to holiday garland and wreath makers. At 25 cents per pound, the boughs are worth about $5,000. Most of the trees will probably die.
You can read the rest of the story on DNR’s Ear To The Ground Blog:
Thieves take 20,000 pounds of pine boughs; destroy hundreds of trees on state trust land.
Courtesy ODFW
Pull out the traps – a federal appeals court says there won’t be any more killing of sea lions at Bonneville Dam.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ordered a stop to the killing saying that wildlife officials didn’t really explain how killing sea lions is supposed to help salmon and steelhead.
At first look, the answer to that question seems obvious. Bonneville Dam is a big bottleneck for salmon working their way upstream to spawn. It forces them into a small area and makes them easy pickings for California and Steller sea lions.
But the legal standard appears to require a “significant negative impact” and the court says federal and state wildlife officials didn’t prove that’s what was happening.
Bonneville Power Administration is writing some big checks to fishermen this fall. One guy is getting more than $81,000.
Each year, BPA pays a bounty for northern pikeminnow caught in the Columbia River. The fish, according to BPA, eat millions of young salmon and steelhead.
For 2010, BPA will pay a total of $1.2 million for 173,112 pikeminnow.
Continue reading for the full press release.
ODFW has a new web page where you can read up on the three new proposed marine reserves.
Marine reserves are like state parks in the ocean. They are areas set aside for conservation, research and recreation. But activities like fishing and crabbing aren’t allowed.
So far we have two reserves along the coast at Otter Rock and Redfish Rocks. Now state officials are considering three more at Cape Perpetua near Florence, Cascade Head near Lincoln City and Cape Falcon near Manzanita.
