Prineville City Hall
Members Present: Kit Dickey, Vickie Dunaway, Jenna Deibel, Shirley Jaynes, Nettie Downing, Susie Hermreck, Frank Porfily, Kevin Keown, Cynthia Harper, Monty Gregg, Mark Maboll, Jean Nelson-Dean, and Mary Opperman. Zoom:
Agenda Overview: Introductions were made. March Minutes were approved, with some corrections. Susan H.’s and Mark M.’s names are spelled incorrectly, Mountain Creek should be capitalized, “May 21. June” should be “,”, in Monitoring/Outreach “Riparian” should not be capitalized, in Forest Service Updates “grasslands” should be capitalized, and in Western Beavers, no “’” after “beaver dams’ slow water”. Mary went over financials: bills paid were 3/28 for Dawn $455.00, 4/1 New Unknown $260.00, and 4/12 New Unknown $260.00.
Beaver Presentation:
Presentation title: Collaborative Approach to Beaver Distribution Monitoring Ochoco National Forest by Monty Gregg
Petition from citizen scientist at OSU to prohibit beaver trapping statewide. Became controversial because there is no reliable monitoring effort of the species across the state, needed to make moratorium. ONF requested trapping moratorium in Grassland and Willow Creek plus tributaries in 1975 and entire ONF in 1986. ODFW checks in every decade to see how the monitoring is going. Other forests look to ONF because they have had a moratorium for so long, but most of ONF data is anecdotal. There’s no strict protocol in place, so no empirical data surrounding the trapping moratorium. Started creating protocol in 2020. Most existing protocol is western-Oregon centric, so needed protocol that fit our forest and our needs.
Why here, why now? Beaver populations were already exterminated by the time European settlement happened in Oregon, but settlement certainly worsened conditions more so. Forest Service ditched and drained a lot of wetland habitat to create better foraging habitat for livestock. The government has invested a lot of money into beaver restoration and empirical monitoring helps justify those costs and helps monitor impact of efforts. “No Random Acts of Conservation” is Monty’s mantra because there’s limited funds available, so need to prioritize. Partnerships help make this easier and create more impactful, landscape level action.
Some management actions USFS has taken include filling severely cut banks with dump trucks to raise the water table, beaver dam analogs (Can also help establish willow reestablishment), and willow replanting along stream banks. Restoration of these places is so important because these habitats are the most visited locations for critters of all types in the forest.
Blue Mountains Elk Initiative is the oldest elk initiative in the country. Established in 1990 to address elk nuisance issues such as elk eating all forage meant for livestock. Thought is that by improving elk habitat on public lands, they won’t bother forage on private property. Blue Mountain forests have come together to properly address elk management while keeping elk on the forest for as long as they possibly can. All Hands All Brands is meant to hold partners accountable for being active in this partnership and providing direct support for the program.
Monitoring Objectives – 1) Make informed decisions to improve management on the ONF, and 2) To understand the trend in populations of beaver in the ONF.
Monitoring Challenges – 1) Limited capacity/Unifying partners, 2) Forest-wide monitoring (not even distribution of habitat), and 3) Comparing Trapped Populations to Untrapped Populations
Barriers to Beaver Redistribution – Big areas of non-habitat downstream so beaver can’t move to good habitat that exists upstream, so fragmentation is a big deal. Need to be intentional about where we focus restoration to be most effective.
Otters and beavers are competitors in the wild! Otters are carnivores and will dig into a beaver den and eat the kits.
Monitoring/Outreach: Vickie contacted Jill Welbourne who used to work on ONF, and she will likely be the person who does our monitoring plots. Will cost less money than contracting through OSU. She had several questions for the group about monitoring protocols that the Executive Committee will discuss with the Full Group at next month’s meeting.
Forest Service Updates: Kevin- Not a lot has changed since last month. Burning that was discussed last month for the Grassland has been done and is looking good. The Lower Bridge portion of Wildfire Crisis Zone will have a decision in September. Met with Tribes to discuss what the Forest is up to on the Grassland and the Tribes’ needs during this project time. Corral Flat comment period closed on 4/15. Mill Creek Final EA is out and in the objection period, which ends 5/3. North Fork Crooked River Project will be in objection period within the next month. Accelerated tree mortality report is being polished to cover hazard tree abatements in developed areas of forest. Hiring of seasonals is happening right now and will be bringing 20 traditionally seasonal folks into seasonal-permanent positions in almost all resource areas. Plus, another 10 traditional seasonal folks will be hired for the summer.
Funding Opportunities/OWEB Update: No Update. Grant is still going through paperwork processes and hasn’t crossed Kit’s desk yet. The state can take 2-4 months to process paperwork, so should be ready soon.
Facilitator Discussion: Jean could potentially be a candidate and is here today to introduce herself. Retired from the Deschutes NF as the Public Affairs Officer and previously was a Planner for the BLM in Prineville. She participated in this group at the beginning while she was working for the BLM! In her job, she has done facilitation for collaborative groups and watershed councils across the PNW. She’s been approached by multiple people to facilitate this group, and she is interested now that she is retired. She also has a lot of experience with new member outreach!
Prescribed Fire/Strategy Plan Subcommittee: Kit – There is a draft that the subcommittee is going over and will be given to the full group for review soon.
Update on Operations Manual: Dawn sent copies of the Operations Manual to the group. Vickie put the new Operations Manual up for a vote. All said “Ay”, none said “Nay”.
Foundation Update: The Foundation is working on Central Oregon Shared Stewardship Alliance and getting a governance structure set up for the group. Also working on putting together Climate Change Workshops to address the 2019 Climate Change Assessments for Central and South-Central Oregon. At these workshops, Foundation wants to address capacity concerns and find ways we can work together in partnerships to deal with it. June 21 is the first Global Warming Workshop. DCFP gave the Foundation their updated MOU, but the Foundation was not consulted during that process, so they need to discuss more before signing.
EA Update – Mill Creek/Corral Flat: Janet, Dawn, Cynthia and Jenna met on 4/4 to create a public comment document for Corral Flat. They approved the EA but had some requests for the Forest Service to make sure they do their due diligence regarding road closures and short-term riparian zone impacts.
New Member Discussion: Jenna talked to EJ Davis with OSU Extension and Andrew Speith with Wasco County Forest Collaborative about the potential for inviting environmental groups to the collaborative. They recommend solidifying our community membership first, and then reaching out to local environmental groups instead of the bigger statewide players. Andrew recommended having some speakers on environmental justice and traditional ecological knowledge for the full group in the meantime.
General Sharing: Cynthia brought a copy of the Crook County Natural Resources Plan and recommended that members should read it if they’re interested because there’s a lot of good basic information on collaborative structures related to natural resources.
Kit made a motion to adjourn the meeting. Mary 2nd the motion. The meeting was adjourned at 3:23pm.
