[ODFW-News] A & H Program protects and enhances big game winter range

[ODFW News]

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/.
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