If you’re next to one of the local waterways in coming weeks and see chunks of fish on the shore or floating in the water, don’t call the game warden.
Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife is conducting its annual “nutrient enrichment” program, ODFW Wildlife Biologist Karen Hans said.
Due to big numbers of spring Chinook that returned to the South Santiam Hachery this year, Hans said more fish will be deposited in local creeks and in more locations than normal.
She said plans are to dump chunks in Wiley and Moose creeks, Soda Fork and the Main Stem of the South Santiam, and possibly in the Waterloo area – some of them “places we don’t normally go.”
Hans cautioned residents to be particularly careful not to let their dogs get into the salmon, since the fish often carry Salmon poisoning disease, a fatal disease of dogs and other canids caused by a rickettsial parasite, Neorickettsia helminthoeca.
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Desert Springs Trout Farm of Summer Lake was awarded a nearly $1.3 million contract by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to supply trout to offset the impacts of dams in the Willamette Valley, the agency announced last week.
Desert Springs has experience providing live fish to the state and delivering to water bodies throughout Oregon.
They have worked with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife in the past and are familiar with the state’s permitting process and standards for fish production.
The contract is for trout supply and delivery only; it does not include hatchery facilities.
The Corps determined earlier this year that the Leaburg Hatchery on the McKenzie River will not be used to produce trout. While hatchery’s future is still under consideration it is still in use. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife is still caring for fish being grown in the facility and will release them when appropriate.
The Corps recently awarded sole-source contracts to ODFW to operate four Willamette Valley hatcheries, including the South Santiam Hatchery, and the Cole M. Rivers hatchery in the Rogue River Basin.
Those contracts went into effect Sept. 1, and include services such as fish production and release, marking and tagging of fish, and fish health services.
Since the 1950s, the Corps has paid ODFW to manage hatchery operations and provide fish production services to accomplish required mitigation for impacts to habitat by the Corps’ dams.
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife carried out these services for the Corps under either contractual or cooperative agreements.
Negotiations this year to extend the contract for South Santiam went into “overtime,” according to a Corps statement, but one-year agreements, with an option for a second year, have been signed to perpetuate the programs.
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A four-wheeler/ATV Evaluations class will be held from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday, Sept. 23, in Lebanon.
The class will be offered by Ore-gon ATV Safety, a youth rider endorsement program, started in response to the rising number of ATV related injuries and deaths. Class size is limited.
Oregon state law requires youths 15 years of age and younger to receive a hands-on endorsement of their mental and physical ATV riding skills. They must possess an endorsed All-Terrain Safety Education Card to ride on public lands. Classes allow youth riders to learn or demonstrate safe mental and physical riding skills.
Each youth will need to bring his or her own ATV and personal protective equipment to class. Also, before registering each child must take an on-line class to get his or her OPRD ATV Safety Education Card. The course is found at rideATVoregon.org.
Class registration fee is $25. Registrations can be made at http://www.oregon.gov/oprd/ATV/pages/hands_on_training.aspx. Participants will be given the location when they register.
For more information contact instructor Robin Galloway, Linn County 4-H Faculty, at (541) 730-3469 or [email protected].