[ODFW-News] ODFW program reduces crime, ensures public hunting on timberlands

[ODFW News]

For Immediate Release Tuesday, April 4, 2006
 
ODFW program reduces crime, ensures public hunting on timberlands 
 
SALEM - Preventing vandalism, garbage dumping, poaching and other crimes
is a constant challenge for private industrial timberland owners. Since
2000, grants from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife's Access
and Habitat Program have funded law enforcement patrols on more than 3
million acres of privately owned timberlands across the state. 
 
Last year, the A&H Program funded 13 Oregon State Police senior troopers
who patrolled nearly three million acres of western Oregon private
timberlands in 14 counties during hunting seasons.
 
The Access and Habitat Program was created by the Oregon Legislature in
1993 and is funded by a $2 surcharge on hunting licenses.  Funds raised
by the program are distributed through grants to individual and
corporate landowners, conservation organizations and others for
cooperative wildlife habitat improvement and hunter access projects
throughout the state.
 
Cooperative law enforcement programs date back to the early 1990s, when
timber companies noticed increased levels of vandalism, garbage dumping
and other illegal activities on their lands. The Access and Habitat
Program offered funding for law enforcement patrols on those private
timberlands in return for continued public hunting access.
 
Between August 2005 and the end of last year, troopers patrolling
western Oregon private timberlands drove nearly 95,000 miles for 7,600
hours of patrol time. They contacted 5,466 individuals, conducted 169
investigations, gave out 794 warnings for various violations and made
232 arrests or issued citations. The total cost for the 2005 patrols was
$216,343.
 
Over the past 15 years, A&H funded OSP senior troopers have driven
nearly 500,000 miles and spent almost 50,000 hours patrolling western
Oregon's private forests.
 
Some of the most common violations are littering, driving off-highway
vehicles in prohibited areas, illegal fires and vandalism. But they also
deal with poaching, theft, drug use, altercations among individuals and
drunk drivers. Dealing with these more serious violations in remote
locations makes forest law enforcement a particularly dangerous job.
 
"We had some really outstanding cases made by these troopers this last
year, some are still currently under investigation," said Lt. Steve
Lane, Oregon State Police, Northwest Region Fish and Wildlife Division
supervisor.
 
The funding provided by the A&H Program for forest law enforcement
considerably reduces the expense that timberland owners would incur if
they had to provide their own security and has substantially decreased
problems companies have experienced in the past. In return, the lands
remain open to the public for hunting. It also gives landowners the
opportunity to work with ODFW to manage big game herds on their
properties.
 
The first law enforcement project was in 1994, when the A&H Program
funded patrols on 700,000 acres of private timberlands in three western
Oregon counties. Over the next several years, the program expanded to
include patrols on private western Oregon timberlands in 11 counties,
encompassing 2.75 million acres.
 
In 2005, the A&H Program dedicated nearly $1.3 million to continue law
enforcement on these lands for a five-year period.
 
A&H Program grants also support a Linn County sheriff's deputy patrol on
400,000 acres of private forest lands in Linn and Lane counties and an
ODFW technician who patrols 127,000 acres of private timberlands in
Wallowa County.
 
"These patrols provide an increase in the level of voluntary compliance
with the rules when people see those marked Oregon State Police pickups
on patrol," said Lane. "Voluntary compliance is the goal of these
patrols and the program."
 
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/.
 
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