Community meeting at 6.02 on the 29th of April hosted by the Deschutes Planning Commission.
It's the second one we had had one previously, and the content this evening will essentially
be the same in terms of the presentation. What I'd like to do before we start though,
if I may, is to introduce the other planning commissioners who will be on the call with
us. First of all, Commissioner Susan Altman. Susan, could you introduce yourself and also
your area that you represent and say something about, perhaps, if you wish, your interest
or comments on the topic? Susan, could you unmute yourself, please?
Why Alt A if you don't unmute from the grab? Okay, so Vice-Chair Jessica Kieras, you're
also muted. If you could unmute yourself, please introduce yourself, and we'll go back to Susan.
Okay, I'm Jessica Kieras. I represent the Redmond area and live in between Redmond and sisters.
I'm very interested in this meeting tonight and in the project in general, because I'm very
interested in supporting wildlife, and I'm curious to hear where the most important areas
are for them and see what I can learn about that tonight. Thank you.
Let me try going back to Commissioner Altman, please.
Can you hear me? We can indeed. Thank you.
My name is Susan Altman. I think there might be some feedback. My name is Susan Altman. I represent
Redmond. I love wildlife. Sorry, I got to fix my audio, but I'll get that fixed. I'm happy to
be here. I love the talk. Okay, Susan, you're going in and out. If you don't mind, I'll move
on to Commissioner Steve Swisher, who has just joined us. Steve, we're just going through brief
introductions, the areas we represent, and also interesting to hear about.
Yeah, I've been here from the beginning. I'm Steve Swisher, and I represent the sisters area,
and ultimately, I live out in the Tollgate area, and again, we are inundated with wildlife here,
mule there in particular, and a variety of other species all the way from Cooper and an occasional bear.
One of the interesting things that happened last week that I was really interested in was
driving into Bend as we approached Tummullo, right on the right-hand side in an open field,
we're about 35 head of elk, and I've never seen any personally there in that particular place,
so might be able to help the inventory because now I know where the elk lives.
So in any event, it was a magnificent sight seeing those animals.
Very good. So, Commissioners, this evening, the meeting is going to be moderated and the
presentation is made by the staff. So, throughout the meeting, if you have any
questions you wish to ask of the moderator, please raise your hand electronically,
and Peter will actually pick up the question or indeed a speaker, if in fact it's while either
Wendy or one of our experts are speaking. For the general public, our meeting this evening is
going to be very broadly similar in terms of the information that we're going to be giving
than the meeting we actually had on the 15th of April, although we're hoping that the
question and answers will actually cover different areas. You may have noticed that in the agenda
packet that was sent out by the county, all of the questions, those that were answered live,
and those that were answered afterwards, as well as the answers to those questions
were included in the briefing document for this meeting. So, if your question has already
been answered, you of course are free to ask it again or you can read the answer as we have given
in the paper and ask a different question. To have a choice this evening of appearing live
rather than simply typing in your question, so that's entirely for your own choice.
If you want to make a comment or a question and be seen, then we would be very pleased to
have the chance to see you rather than just simply responding to your text. With that said,
I'm going to hand over now the meeting to Tanya Saltzman, who is a senior planner with the shoots
planning department, and she will give you the information relevant to how to ask questions
and so on and so forth. I'll come up back at the end to wind up the meeting. Please, Tanya.
Great. Thanks, Chair Hudson. Yeah, my name is Tanya Saltzman. I'm a senior planner here with
the shoots County. Thank you very much for joining us on this balmy evening. We're very
appreciative of every one of you who decided to join us tonight on Zoom and on Facebook Live.
One technical note, it's our understanding that our video through the traditional County
meeting portal is having some issues. Probably if you're looking at that, then you will not
hear me say this, but we'll try to rectify that. And in the meantime, you can view it on Zoom or
Facebook Live. So I'm going to first go over some just tidbits of housekeeping, just the
technical and logistical issues, and then we'll go into the meat of the presentation.
The meeting is being broadcast by a Zoom and by a Facebook Live,
and it will be recorded if you want to view it later. This meeting is also
featuring simultaneous interpretation in Spanish. Thank you very much to Mark and Chris,
our interpreters, who will be both working to translate this as we speak. Click on the globe
button in Zoom. This is only available in Zoom where it says interpretation. I believe that's
what it says. And that will lead you to a channel that broadcasts the audio in Spanish.
A recording of that will be made available as well.
Everything to do with this project, including the link to the story map,
as well as the survey, it's available on our project website. And the URL for our project
website is www.deschutes.org slash wildlife update. All one word. We have a nice shortened URL
from the last open house. You can also go to our community development page just on the
county website, and it's listed under prominent projects. So you don't have to remember
the website. But I'll pop it up again at the end. That's where you'll find the story map,
which is going to be the guiding document for this presentation tonight. The survey where
we want to hear your opinions is embedded into the story map. It's found at the end of that.
So while we're going through this document tonight, I encourage you all to look at it
on your own as well because there's maps and fun things to play with. We can only delve
so deeply while we're in this public meeting. But if you want to look at it on your own and go
in more deeply, we would appreciate that. That's why we created it. So
as Chair Hudson said, this is the second of two open houses. And you will be afforded the
opportunity to ask questions, either typing them or saying them, speaking them on video.
That will largely take place after the presentation, although we might take
some questions throughout, depending on the chair's discretion. For those using Zoom or
Facebook Live, there should be a Q&A box at the bottom of the screen. You can type your question
in there. To ask your question on the video via Zoom, use the raise hand feature. And once
you're recognized, it might take a little time, you will then be elevated to a panelist,
which lets you speak and be seen. It takes a couple of seconds. So you might pop out for a minute
or a couple seconds, excuse me, before you come back in and then you can speak. And we'll all see
you. You can ask your question live. And all of the questions and answers tonight will be
captured on a document that we will share, both on our website, well on our website. As
Chair Hudson mentioned, we did that for the first open house. That's currently available
on the project website as well. I encourage you to look at that. We covered a lot of questions
and answers on that, including some that were not able to be answered during the last open house.
So a couple of follow-up things there. And lastly, I just want to introduce our team.
In addition to myself, we have Dr. Wendy Wenty from Mason Bruce and Gerard,
our consultant firm. And she'll talk more about all of her amazing qualifications shortly.
We also have from Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, Andrew Welch and Sarah Gregory.
And I believe we have additional representatives from ODFW watching. Thank you for that.
And for County staff, we have our Community Development Director, Nick Lillac, Planning
Manager, Peter Gattowski, and Associate Planners, Kyle Collins and Brandon Herman. So thanks
so much to everybody for keeping these wheels moving. And with that, I'll actually get to
the fun stuff. And we're going to go, I'm going to share my screen and show you the story map.
And I'm going to go through it, and then I'll hand it off to Wendy, who will talk about the
actual wildlife that you all are here to hear about. So bear with me for one moment while I
share my screen, please. You should be able to see that.
Okay. So this is the Deschutes County Wildlife Inventory Update. These are just some
instructions on how to use it on your own. A project overview. This is a pilot project,
and we were funded by a grant from the Department of Land Conservation and Development,
otherwise known as DLCD, to update three different wildlife inventories, all of which are extremely
old over 30 years. And they're relating to elk, mule deer, and bald and golden eagles.
Bald and golden eagles are kind of lumped into one inventory for the purposes of this study.
So we really, we get four for three, essentially. These inventories are produced by ODFW and
US Fish and Wildlife. I should also mention that we do have someone from US Fish and Wildlife who
can respond to questions at a later date, if there's specific questions for that agency.
This grant is really the beginning of a project. It's all about the data collection.
We're presenting this data, and we want to hear from the public regarding
just your thoughts about how this data was produced, what it might mean,
where it applies. We're going to show you a bunch of maps. So we're not,
to be clear, we're not yet proposing anything right yet. We're not proposing zoning changes or
comprehensive plan changes, any regulatory or non-regulatory changes. That could be a whole
separate process that would occur later, and we'll explain that later. But the purposes
of this is to present the data and tell you where, why, and how about all of that data.
And then I'll just note quickly that part of this potential directions forward, and again,
we'll touch on this at the end, could be integrated into our comprehensive plan update.
That is a project, a very large project that will take into account, not just wildlife, but
wildfire, housing, transportation, all of the things that influence development patterns in
our county. This is just one facet of it. So it remains to be seen exactly how these pieces of
the pie are going to fit together in terms of how we approach the project. But note that,
eventually, it will all be considered in a holistic fashion to the best of our ability.
And ultimately, our main goal is if we are directed by the Board of County Commissioners
to pursue this project, we're looking to achieve a balance. And that's what a lot of
planners aim to do. We recognize the critical importance of wildlife protection,
and you'll hear more about all of those details soon, and recognizing that people do have
development expectations and entitlements. And these things don't have to be mutually
exclusive. It's not an either or. And we're going to strive to achieve that in later
phases of this project. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Wendy Wenty
to talk about the actual species and inventory and all of that. And Wendy, as last time,
you can just guide me and tell me when to advance and when to pause, if that's good.
All right. Thank you, Tanya. And good evening, everybody. Thanks for taking the time to join
us. And I'm hoping that this is a good and informative session for you and that you get
to ask questions that you're interested in and get some answers from the panel this evening.
So what I'm going to do is introduce myself and then I'll walk you through the inventory update
process that we went through for this project. So as Tanya mentioned, my name's Wendy Wenty.
I am a biologist and a wildlife biologist and an ecologist. I work for a natural resources
consulting firm called Mason, Bruce and Gerard. And I've worked in the central and eastern
Oregon areas for the past 20 years. So I worked for USGS studying amphibian decline in eastern
Oregon for a number of years. And then in 2005, took the position with Mason, Bruce and Gerard
and have been working on wildlife related impacts and issues in central and eastern Oregon since
then. And so I was quite happy to help the county with this with this project.
So let's scroll on down to the information collected part of the story map. Thank you.
Yeah, so I'll walk through how we went through this process and then where we landed. So essentially
we set up two different groups at the outset of the project. The first is called the TAC.
That's the technical advisory committee. And that's essentially the steering committee that's
The decision-making group. I facilitated as the consultant, but this group consisted of several folks I'll list who it was, but they discussed and selected the inventories.
So their role was to essentially pick the inventories to be updated in this pilot project and then also to review the data and the results and the report that we prepared at the end of it.
So the members of the TAC were Tanya Saltzman and Peter Gutowski, both of whom are with us this evening from the county.
But then also Sarah Gregory, Corey Heath, Andrew Walsh, and Joy Vaughn from ODFW.
And we have Sarah and Andrew here with us as well on the panel this evening.
Emily Weidner represented the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
And then from DLCD we had Amanda Puntin and then Scott Edelman.
So it was a good group of folks who came together back in August of 2020 and then again in February of 2021 to essentially look at the results of the update.
Now the second group was called the Interagency Working Group.
That's the IWG.
And that was essentially the doers.
Those were the species experts who came together to actually gather the data for the inventories.
And they overlapped the TAC.
It made sense to have them on both groups.
But essentially their job was to collect the updated information and pull it together as these new inventories.
And the folks who were on that group were Andrew Walsh and Sarah Gregory again from ODFW who are with us this evening.
And then Emily Weidner from Fish and Wildlife Service.
And then those folks pulled in information from other species experts as needed.
If they were like for example Emily reached out to the BLM and the Forest Service to gather more information on the Bald and Golden Eagles in the county.
Myself, I was pretty much the facilitator of that group.
And I had assistance from a couple of folks at MB&G, Jesse Roper and Kate Custer who are biologists and also GIS experts.
So they helped with the inventory pulling together.
So the IWG met more times than the TAC.
We met in October and December of 2020.
And then again in January of 2021.
So let me scroll down and we'll briefly introduce the three data sets.
All three of the sets that were selected for inventory update are essentially they're old.
That was the biggest issue.
They're old.
So they're out of date and there have been quite a lot of changes with them over the time frame since they were initially put into place.
So let's go down to the top one.
The first was the Mule Deer Winter Range Habitat.
And again, I'm just going to briefly introduce these and then I'll go into a deeper discussion of the data set so that you can get a better understanding of it.
And then hopefully we'll get your questions about it during the panel discussion.
But the Mule Deer Winter Range Habitat was very out of date and the usage patterns have changed over the intervening years.
So that one was selected for update.
So let's go ahead and scroll down to the next.
The second one is this is actually a part of a bigger inventory as Tanya mentioned before.
This is the sensitive bird habitat, but specifically the attack elected to update the bald eagle and golden eagle nest sites.
So there are other species that are included in that inventory, but these two have seen a lot of change and are very out of date.
And they also tend to be involved in development conflicts.
So land use comes into play with these species quite a lot.
And then the third was the Elk Winter Range Habitat.
So this was similar to Mule Deer in that the inventory is very old again.
And so it was selected by the attack because this is one that also ends up having a lot of conflict with land use changes.
And there have been some significant changes in how the elk are utilizing the winter range habitat in the county.
So let's go into detail on these.
I do want to put in a plug here.
If you're watching this zoom, I'm hoping you get a chance to go and take a look at the story map.
It does have these interactive maps.
So you can go in there and look at the inventory is current and the new information and kind of toggle back and forth and take a look at that yourselves.
But we will walk through that here.
Okay, so the Mule Deer Winter Range, the tan colored polygons here.
What are the Mule Deer Winter Range?
Yes, Mule Deer Winter Range.
Sorry, I heard some talking in the background.
So that's what it is.
And this is the current winter range.
And this is called the WA zone.
I think I'm hearing the interpreter speaking at the same time as everybody else hearing that or is that just me?
I'll keep going because I can just talk through it, but I don't want it to be distracting for folks.
So the current WA zone covers approximately 315,847 acres.
And you can see that polygon there in the tan.
So the IWG relied on a number of different data sets to update this.
And again, I would encourage you to go look at the story map to see these.
These are sort of snapshots of the data that were provided by ODFW.
But the data sets consisted of first the biological Mule Deer Winter Range, which is essentially a general outline.
You can look at this map.
It's all of Eastern Oregon, Central and Eastern Oregon, essentially from the Cascades to the East.
And it lays out where habitat is used by the deer, typically from December through April.
And that's driven by both abiotic and biotic conditions, things like vegetation communities.
But then also elevation and precipitation amounts, so those types of data that go into there.
Another data set were aerial and ground survey observations that are collected by ODFW.
So the ODFW biologists relied on their most recent data, which were collected between 2015 and 2020.
And you can see that on these snapshots as well.
Another set of data were a Mule Deer Resource Selection Function Model.
This is a model that was based on a very large set of GPS collared deer.
So they had GPS collars placed on them, and their locations were collected over the course of this study.
And so that can, and taking into account the different types of habitat characteristics,
like whether or not there are juniper covers or juniper forest coverage across the landscape,
or, again, precipitation amounts, could be used to essentially model the probability
that deer would use a particular area as winter range.
And so that's this co-at-all study.
We're lucky enough to have one of the co-authors on that with us, with Sarah Gregory.
So she'll be a panel member and was involved in that study.
And then finally, there are deer density polygons shown here.
They're kind of the funky, green-looking polygons sort of up in the northern part of the county there
that were for some groups of deer that were collared.
Yes, thank you, Tanya.
So that were collared to kind of fill in a gap of deer GPS data from that co-at-all study.
So these were just additional deer that were collared to gather additional information on winter range use by the species.
So all of that fed into this proposed mule deer winter range inventory.
So you can see here the existing winter range, which is, again, kind of those tan polygons.
That's the current WA zone, and that's about 315,000 acres.
Now, the blue polygons are the new areas that have been identified by the IWG,
and they cover about 188,000 additional acres.
So the total amount of winter range would be 503,979 acres
because the inventory would include both the old and the new.
So the old areas are considered to be important, and the new areas are important as well.
And essentially, when I say important, I mean that these are areas that were identified
by the ODFW biologists as being important for the long-term maintenance of the species in the county
and by providing the winter range habitat that they need to be able to persist.
Okay, so let's move down to our second inventory.
This is the sensitive bird habitat.
So you can see here it's a little bit harder to see on this one just because they're smaller.
But you can see these small dots in here.
These are the existing Deschutes County bald and golden eagle nest locations
and their surrounding protected habitat areas.
So essentially, this existing dataset includes five bald eagles and 20 golden eagle nest locations,
and each of those was buffered by a quarter-mile radius of this sensitive habitat area.
Okay, so the blue polygons you see popping up here, those indicate the new inventory.
So they are including both the old but then the new is on this page.
And essentially, this inventory was based on a number of data sources just like the mule deer inventory.
The main one being the Oregon Eagle Foundation dataset,
which is a database for the state of Oregon that Fish and Wildlife Service,
US Fish and Wildlife Service relies on.
So it's a very important nonprofit organization that maintains these information on eagle nest use
and the occupancy data and whether or not it's an active nest.
The data also relied on Forest Service, their database,
but then also biologists from the Forest Service who had information on eagles using nest sites on forest service lands
and then Bureau of Land Management local biologist records as well.
So this new inventory is a little different.
It does buffer the nests differently for golden eagles.
But one thing I do want to say first is that the increases in the numbers of nests
are indicating five to 116 bald eagle nest locations.
And then the inventory increases from 20 to 103 golden eagle nest locations.
I don't want that to mislead you into thinking that all of a sudden
there are a whole lot more bald and golden eagle nests in the county.
And there are a couple of things that you should understand about that.
One is that this inventory, the new inventory here,
it includes all of the nests in the county.
It covers nests that are even solely on public lands.
So those don't necessarily interact with the land use code or anything like that
for Deschutes County, but they are included in the inventory updates
simply because they are known sites on public lands for those species.
And the second point is that the new approach that was used for these
essentially created nest polygons for pairs that have multiple or alternative nest sites.
So for example, there are 41 golden eagle territories that are represented
and there are 103 nest locations.
So some of those territories include two or more nest locations for that pair.
But back to talking about the buffering.
So for bald eagles, the IWG elected to stay with the quarter mile radius
from the nest site to determine the sensitive area for that species.
But it was extended to two miles for golden eagles and you can see that
when you see some of the individual nests that appear to be indicated
in the inventory you can see the wider circle that would be associated with those.
That is thought of by Fish and Wildlife Service as sort of a threshold
or a trip, a distance to bring them into the conversation
on any land use changes or things that may affect that pair
because they can vary quite a lot.
There's a lot of flexibility in how the individual pairs handle disturbance,
for example, but they have seen some pairs that are very sensitive
and so this two mile buffer captures essentially the extent away from the nest
but any given pair may be sensitive.
So that's why it is larger.
So if you think numerically the existing inventory is about 2,297 acres
that fall within that sensitive habitat area and this proposed
what you see here on the screen for the whole county is 344,778 acres
included in all of the polygons that you see there.
Yes, I think we can go on down to the elk.
Okay, so the third inventory like I mentioned before, that's the elk winter range
and you can see on here the polygons for the current elk winter range.
The wildlife area combining zone for elk winter range is about 51,717 acres right now
and similar to the mule deer data update, the IWG considered a number of data sources
and we have a snapshot here that was provided by ODFW to capture these different data sources
but they included again similarly to the
The deer, the biological elk winter range. So this is the area that ODFW typically understands that
species will utilize the winter range essentially east of the crust of the Cascades.
The second data set were winter observation data, again, that are collected by ODFW between
2015 and 2020. So they are using the most recent data sets that they have to determine this.
And then finally, the third piece of the puzzle here is ODFW biologists' professional knowledge
of winter range habitat use patterns by local elk herds. So where the local elk herds are seen
throughout the county, throughout the winter. And it helps, you know, each of the herds,
they understand their movement patterns in the general areas that they utilize in the winter.
So that was fed into this inventory as well.
So you can see here, the proposed elk winter range inventory includes both, again, the existing
WA zone and these new blue polygons that are outlined in sort of that teal coloration there.
So the, this is a, again, a couple of areas that are thought of by ODFW as the significant winter
range. So those are, those are based on the data inputs that I just walked us through in the
last slide. But these are areas that are thought to be important for the long-term maintenance of this
species in the county. So the blue polygons that are identified here, there's essentially one big
one, the triangular one up in the north and then there's one down in the south part of the county.
Those cover approximately 359,000 acres. So altogether, if you take those along with
the existing WA zone, you end up with about 411,190 acres that would be included in this new inventory layer.
Okay, so I'm going to hand this back over to Tanya to kind of go through the next steps.
But I do encourage you, again, to go to the story map. You can
actually this last screen that she's going to scroll down to in a minute.
You can look at all of the inventories overlaid together for the whole county. Yeah, it's kind of
kind of nice to be able to see them before and after. And so I will pass it back to you, Tanya.
So thank you very much, everybody. And I'm hoping we will talk very soon on the panel.
Great. Thanks, Wendy. Just a quick note. As we were going through this,
I realized that I forgot to mention that all of the photographs you see in this story map
were actually taken by the project team here. There's little credits on them,
but I thought they're fabulous photographs, so I wanted to give them a shout out.
And also, the person responsible for making this story map and generating these maps
from the data provided is Ines Kurlin from the county, and she did a
fabulous job of putting this together in a really, I think, a really visually
interesting and accessible way. You can play with these maps. You can zoom in.
You can do all kinds of fun stuff, including the older, excuse me, the maps
before that Wendy was just explaining. And perhaps now it's time to check in
with Chair Hudson about if you'd like me to keep going in terms of
the rest of the story map and process, or if you'd like to take a pause and have me
unshare and have some Q&A opportunities. So why don't you go straight into the
moderated Q&A and start with the anybody who wants to come live, basically.
Okay.
Looks like there's one raised hand. I believe Ted Netter. I'm seeing this. I don't know.
This is just to help Peter Gatowski out with his moderation.
And, Aila, if you could elevate Ted Netter.
He's transferring over to the other side.
Takes a minute. We need to fill the space.
Hello. Can you see me and hear me?
Yes.
All right. Well, my name is Ted Netter. I'm a farmer and rancher in the lower bridge area of
the county. So I'm here kind of representing the lower bridge subzone, meaning based on the
land use planning directives. And that's about 7,600 acres.
That are not included currently in the wildlife area out here, which is primarily a mule deer
winter range. And so also I represented the Farm Bureau with the last ODF and W
Commission group on landowner and mule deer tags in the Metolius unit. So my questions are based on
population data. I see that you guys have collected and gathered the data sets from
the Department of Fish and Wildlife. Comments on that, at least from my perspective in
dealing, trying to work through the interactive map, your story map. From the outside, it looks
really good. I haven't been able to figure out how to make it interactive. So like when I try to
zero in on the actual population data in the acreage that is not in the wildlife zone
already, I haven't been able to make that work. So it's kind of hard to see what your
guys' gathered numbers are. To go along with that, it seems like your guys' inventories that
you're talking about are acres. Habitat and especially winter range habitat needs to start with
a population and then the amount of habitats that's there because not all ground is the same.
So meaning irrigated agriculture, less acres provides a lot more habitat.
So those were a couple of things that I think need to be considered in this decision.
And the other thing is that irrigated agriculture, which just to give you an idea,
yeah, 7,600 acres, not all of that's irrigated, but it represents about 4% of the increase
but out here in Lower Bridge, and you can check this with the local biologists,
we provide the majority of the winter habitat on private land, the irrigated agriculture.
We regularly receive damage from deer and especially elk, and that has an economic
impact that we are expected to bear basically joyfully. And we do love our wildlife. I mean,
I see deer and elk on a daily basis, elk on a weekly basis,
and I've had as many as 10 eagles landing on one pivot at one point in time.
Now with that said, I receive approximately $10,000 worth of crop damage from deer a year,
and I've received up to $20,000 in crop damage from elk in one three-day period.
I've also had a bald eagle kill a calf right in front of me.
So we love our wildlife and we want to support them, but we want everybody to be cognizant of
what's happening on the ground and what we're doing to support
the wildlife, and then also what we have to bear in the support of those wildlife.
So Ted, thank you for participating and being our first Deschutes County resident
and farmer to offer those perspectives. So there was a lot of information there,
and let's start with our, first of all, I'm Peter Gutowski, Deschutes County's planning manager,
and tonight let me just acknowledge before I elevate one of our colleagues to respond to
your questions and comments. Staff tonight is going to obviously balance the Zoom attendees who
will, I suspect, will continue to receive questions and we want to answer them.
And then there's also, we have Facebook live, we have the Zoom chat feature, so we have colleagues
who are monitoring both of those platforms. So as questions come up that are typed in,
I should have the ability to introduce them when it's appropriate.
One last thing, I just want to recognize again that our planning commission is hosting
tonight's open house. In addition to Chair Hudson and Vice Chair Jessica Curis, we have
Planning Commissioner Steve Swisher, Planning Commissioner Susan Altman, and Planning Commissioner
Maggie Kirby. Okay, so what I heard significantly is there's an acknowledgement
and Ted, bear with me, I'm going to try to capture some of your comments that in the lower
bridge area, there are areas that are currently identified as being part of this new wildlife
set of inventories. There are areas of lower bridge that are not included. There's a recognition
as well about the importance of population counts and data and emphasizing those distributions
or those data points in relationship to acreage and how to reconcile the two of those.
So with that imperfect overview, at least in your first comment, I want to turn it over to
Sarah Gregory or Andrew Walts with our Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife here in the
Central Oregon District to hear your thoughts about Mr. Netters' observations to date.
Yeah, thanks, Peter. I think Sarah got cut off momentarily. Hopefully she's
able to get back in. Yeah, hi, Ted. Good to hear from you. Andrew Walts, Oregon Department of
Fish and Wildlife in the Bend office. Yeah, so I think Ted's spot on with how important
the lower bridge area is for wildlife, especially wintering mule deer, it certainly is
the crucial winter range and that's why we used the different forms of data to
inform that recommendation for increasing the habitat protections up there in the northern part
of the county. The mixture that you can see on that story map with our observations from
the helicopter surveys, the mule deer model habitat model for winter range use that was informed
by GPS-colored mule deer amounts that's cutting-edge data and that certainly is the most crucial area
for wintering mule deer that's not currently protected in the county. That was our task
as a part of the group was coming with data to inform the county to bring this
proposal forward or potential polygons to bring to the commission.
Great, thank you, Andrew. And then there is an acknowledgement
that Mr. Netter spoke about in terms of the impacts that wildlife can create on private property
as certainly for commercial farmers in this region. It's not lost on any of us.
Are you aware, Andrew, or when Sarah comes back, are there programs with the department
or with your department or with the department of agriculture that
offer opportunities to offset those impacts or, I guess, articulating in a different way?
What type of resources are available that you're aware of at the state level that
can be made available to farmers in this case to coexist with farmers? As Mr. Netter noted,
and you acknowledge as well, Andrew, that the lower-bridge unit is very important. These are
areas in our county that have our largest commercial farms. And the fact that there's
just not a lot of development relative to other places in our county certainly provide,
presume, a significant refuge. But in light of that, any resources that you're aware of that
can be made available, again, to try to do the best we can to coexist with our farmers and
the wildlife that live and migrate in that region? Yeah, absolutely. And
ODFW is mandated in statute to address wildlife damage. And that certainly is part of the reason
we're here and part of what we do. And that, in addition to what Ted was getting out with his
comments of how vital that private land is for harboring wildlife, especially in times
like the winter, those critical times of year. The majority of quality wildlife habitat
is often on private lands, especially in places like eastern Oregon.
So yes, we have several different ways, especially for deer and elk. We have a budget to supply
fencing and other supplies for folks. And we've worked with Ted and his neighbors on in the
You know, protect their haystacks in their fields. We're able to give out damaged tags,
you know, special hunting opportunities to try to keep those animals, you know, moving
around a little bit more, not just, you know, camping out, you know, herd of 100 elk camping
out for a week just in one field is not good for anybody. So yeah, you know, there's several
hazing permits and lots of tools in the toolbox that we use, you know, on a very
regular basis, especially in the wintertime, to help help private landowners and maintain
the relationship between private landowners and wildlife.
Great. Thank you, Andrew. That's very informative. Anyways, as we shift, I have a question that
came in over Google Doc as, well, I think we'll try to alternate between those that
are attendees and please raise your hand. Don't be shy. This is a group that welcomes
these types of questions. This is exactly the form to receive any questions that are
coming up. But a question that came up over Google Doc and, Wendy, we heard this at
our first open house on the 15th, but I think it's worth echoing just for today's
audience is how did the technical advisor committee or this internal work group select
these three inventories? What made these three inventories separate from others that, you
know, I'm sure are important for wildlife biology and for disjutes County as a region?
Yeah, thanks, Peter. So it was the tack that actually made the selection, the technical
advisory committee. But of course, there is overlap between the IWG members and the
tack. But essentially what the tack did was review the the existing significant
goal five inventories. And there are about 12 of them, depending on how you slice
and dice it. Some of them have different groups of species that are mixed in there.
So it's all under one inventory and it gets a little more complicated that way.
But essentially, the tack looked at what the county had and considered things
like how outdated the data are. So are there a lot more resources available today
scientifically that weren't available in the past in the 1990s when these were
originally set up? So they looked at that. They also looked at inventories
where there's a lot of conflict. So which inventories are essentially coming up a lot
in land use discussion? So bigger geographic inventories tended to fall in that.
And then inventories that are species that seem to be not doing as well today. That was a bit
of the discussion to particularly for the mule deer inventory. But essentially the attack
made the decision based on the existing inventories and selected these three for this pilot program.
But they also did select two alternatives that were kind of second tier level of importance.
And one of those was the deer migration corridors, that data set, because there is a
much more up-to-date set of data for that today. And then the other one was threatened
and endangered species, and in particular the Oregon spotted frog. So those are species that
are protected by the Federal Endangered Species Act. And the inventory for the Oregon spotted
frog was discussed simply because it is a species that's listed in the county. So
again, I would stress that this is a pilot program and it was taking essentially the three
top tier inventories out of that group of existing inventories that seemed
like they would most benefit from an update. Thank you, Wendy. Let me pause. Aila, who's a
colleague of ours who's the person behind the curtain here to make this meeting as productive
as it is. I'm looking at our attendees. We have several people in attendance. I see some familiar
names. I just want to pause to see if anybody has a question that is worth introducing to the
audience, to our panel. Please raise a hand. I will circle back occasionally just to make
sure that this group that's here and listening, if a question does arise, there's an opportunity to
share it. So I'm not seeing any hands, so that must mean that a lot of the information that we
provided presumably at our first open house has been conveyed, excuse me, and is relatively
understood. Mr. Chairman, let's take this moment before I go back to a Google doc
that's collecting our written questions. Don't want to check in with the planning commissioners.
Commissioners, this is your second open house. Any questions or observations that
you might want to offer to tonight's audience? I'll turn it over to the chair,
but want to make sure we're giving you ample time to ensure that any questions you have
or comments that you feel like are important can be made at this relatively early hour as we're
into this just for almost 60 minutes now. Okay, Peter, thank you very much indeed.
So planning commissioners, any questions or comments for the speakers or indeed
this whole topic? Please, if you could raise your hand electronically just to help me see on the screen.
So I don't see any pressing questions from the planning commission. Peter, one of the things
you may like to consider, I mean, the last meeting and this meeting, the experts are very
kindly sat and listened and only spoken when they've been posed a question or
had comments made in their direction. It would be interesting to just have their general reaction
or comments on if you like the meaning of the data or the importance of the data or indeed the
limitations of the data and really the big problem of balancing wildlife with a county which is
continuing to grow. So really any aspects of the whole situation including Wendy,
just their general comments on the process they very kindly went through with the county.
Well, thank you, commissioner. Sarah, if I can elevate you just to follow up on our chair's
comments relating to the data and it's not lost on any of us that the
Schuetz County's wildlife inventories are 30 years old and a lot has changed and continues
to change daily here in our region as so many individuals and families and businesses relocate
here. But we would love to hear your thoughts on how the magnitude of these inventories,
how they relate to the inventories 30 years ago and why it's so important to have this
conversation that will ultimately be shared with the Board of County Commissioners about how to
proceed. Sure, yeah, thank you for giving me the opportunity, Peter and Char Hudson,
the rest of the planning commission and I apologize for disappearing a few minutes ago,
my internet just fell off the cliff so hopefully it's not going to happen again here midstream.
But I've been thinking about the job that Andrew and Corey and Emily and the rest of us did
to put these inventories together and I think we actually had the easy job
at you all are going to have a much more difficult task carving all of this out.
That's something that goes on paper for protections for our wildlife and
when we say these inventories are old, just to make sense that's true but the landscape
that these animals are relying on is the same. The technology that we've developed to track
their movements and interact with them on a seasonal basis and whatnot has enhanced and
improved and that's given us these really fine scale data sets and allowed us to display
these maps and things that tell the story to the rest of us and to our community. So these
animals need these landscapes to move around, they're large-bodied animals, they're fairly
long-lived, they have these seasonal ranges between winter and summer, up the hill, the
cascades, down the hill, back to the shrub step and there's so many obstacles in the way as they
try to move and although those obstacles contribute to their mortality with mule deer for sure,
those mule deer that migrate have a higher survival rate. So our mule deer populations
depend on migrating and on being able to use that landscape and probably the same thing goes for
elk. Unfortunately we don't have the fine scale data for elk or information about elk but we're
gathering that too so it's just important that we recognize that and it's all about where we
put our values, you know, how we want to rank things and I understand that economics and all
the social implications with that but that's that for us but I'll just take a step back
and let the rest of you guys sort it out. So thanks for giving me a chance to speak.
No, thank you.
And happy to answer specifics about the data too, I just wanted to kind of give a general comment.
Thank you. Andrew or Wendy, any follow-up remarks that you have as Deschutes County embarks on
updating three significant inventories on wildlife species that are well known and I think
revered in many places that help, you know, really create or add to the quality of life or
contribute to the quality of life that makes this region so special. Andrew, I see both you and
Wendy have unmuted so maybe we'll go with Andrew for your thoughts and perspectives.
Sure, yeah. I mean, Sarah covered everything wonderfully and I'll let that stand. I'll
just add the one, you know, kind of highlight that I'll throw in there for low light depending
on your perspective but it is the state of the Mulder population in Central Oregon.
Just, you know, it's in the last decade give or take, you know, Mulder across the west have
really been having a hard time with Central Oregon, certainly no exception and you know,
right now we're averaging about a 10% decline per year in our intensive surveys, you know,
and the units in Central Oregon that make up, you know, portions of Deschutes County
are anywhere from a quarter to half of what their management objective should be for
population-wise. You know, what we and the public have decided the number of Mulder should
be on the landscape where we're not close and where that gap is getting wider and it's a
myriad of things like Sarah was hinting at but it's a good conversation to have right now
and we really appreciate the opportunity to bring this data forward and present it to
the public and the county and and see where it goes from there.
Thanks Andrew. Wendy, your thoughts as well would be greatly appreciated.
Sure, just a really high level I'm just thinking as an ecologist and a biologist that
it's very encouraging to see the county reconsidering these datasets, understanding
that the data we're all and that things are changing on the landscape and so there are these
pressures and so I see the county is responding to where they're seeing these areas of conflict
that have to do with resources that the county values, that the people who live in Deschutes
County value, which is both on the economic side but also on the wildlife side and so I
guess I would just offer encouragement and say that I was happy to be involved in a project
that was looking at paying attention to the new science, the best available science that we have
for these three species, well actually four, you're talking about bald and golden eagle,
so the three inventories that were selected to be updated so yeah I think that is my summary.
Great, Tanya, I have a question for you that's been asked on our Zoom Q&A extension.
I'll just read the question and let you provide context and let me know if there's, you know,
if you want me to offer any supplemental remarks but I certainly think this is,
as the grant coordinator and as the leader of this project, this is right up your alley.
The question is, would Deschutes County be interested in applying to the Department of
Land Conservation and Development for more grant money to expand the scope of the inventory update
to more species, you know, whether those are threatened in endangered species or certain
native species, you know, they're native trees or, you know, vegetation that is noteworthy,
other, you know, basically getting to those sensitive habitats,
like wetlands and whatnot, so your thoughts on this process and how it relates into other opportunities.
Opportunities in coordination with the Department of Land Conservation and Development.
Thanks, Peter. That's a very good question. More grant money. I have kind of two parts
of that. One, obviously, additional funding, which provides additional resources to further
study things is great. However, I would also say that this is, I personally would like
to see this process through first as this is a pilot project, as we've noted before. Technically
counties don't actually have a regular mechanism to keep updating these inventories, so you could
kind of sit there with a static inventory forever. And so we're delving into this new
kind of universe, at least for us, of updating these three. So I think, well, yes, I think
having additional resources to pursue all of the other significant species resources, habitats,
et cetera, or even an additional chunk of them would be fantastic. I think just thinking
process-wise, I would like to see kind of how our process ends up going in terms of
these three. What's the reaction from the public? It's a big lift to once we, if
we decide to pursue updating these inventories, and I'll explain this a little bit later, but
it is a lengthy process that's prescribed in large part by the state in terms of how
you determine significance of an inventory and that sort of thing. So in that sense,
I'd want to come see this through to the end, see how it works, see how our process
works with the public, the planning commission, the board, et cetera. And then once we've
kind of honed in on that and kind of, I don't want to say perfected it because
nothing's ever perfect, but what we learned from that and then perhaps pursue
additional resources to tackle more stuff. And this might be a part of the
comprehensive plan. We might be able to kind of start shipping away at that more
beyond these three in the comprehensive plan and might be at a later date. So
that's a long-winded answer to saying yes, but so we want to make sure we're
doing it right before we kind of take on more, I think.
Great, thank you. A question that we just received, I think, is asking for
clarity and maybe even to the extent that there's, I'm sure it's anthropogenic,
but just an understanding of the precipitous declines in mule deer
population. But this is a question that's acknowledging that mule deer
populations in the Metolius unit have been on the decline since 2016. In 2015,
the populations were 129% of the management objective. In 2016, it was
dropped to 93%. And I guess the question is, is it true that the
mule deer populations are now at 55%? And as that decline is clarified, I
think it'd be also to be helpful just generally summarizing kind of what's
the basis for that decline in a county, especially in a rural county that has
statewide planning and prescriptive rules that pertain to farm and forest
lands and whatnot. So I add that as an opportunity to kind of share what
those stressors are for mule deer. So Sarah or Andrew, I would ask one of
you to hear your thoughts on this question here.
Sure, yeah. Yeah. Thanks, Peter. Ted's right in this question. The
Tolius unit right now is estimated to be about 55% of that management
objective. And like I said earlier, just about every other area in Central
Oregon declining rapidly. And he's right that there's still a lot of rural area
there and irrigated landscape. It's not just land use that drives down a
mule deer population. It's the saying death by a thousand cuts is kind
of applicable to what happens to mule deer in a place like Central
Oregon. Certainly development has an impact development on winter range
dividing up habitats with fences and roads and more traffic and road
strikes, dogs, the just constant use of habitat both summer range and winter
range by all of us who like to go recreate outside. It's no secret that
Sheets County is increasing rapidly in that sense and that that's a
stressor on wildlife. There's certainly our disease outbreaks in
mule deer populations and we've had some in that lower bridge area,
Cricket River Ranch that area, historically that kind of flare up
now and then. And that certainly puts a hole in the population as
well as the couple of bad winters we had. You know, those those don't
help either. A couple of years ago and we had that late snow at the end
of February. That's really hard on mule deer right at the end of
winter. So yeah, you know, it's that's exactly what we were talking
about. There's only so many things you can do as a wildlife
manager. You can fight for habitat, you can try to do habitat
improvement and you can cut hunting tags. Otherwise, you know, you
just try to do the best you can and work with your partners, both
federal, local and and private landowners.
Great. Thanks, Andrew. The questions are are now coming in. So
appreciate everybody's participation.
Tony, I know you were you were planning on talking about this
towards the tail end of tonight's presentation, but it's a
question in the queue and I want to honor it. If you
would just discuss the projects that this project's timeline,
obviously, we're we're this is funded by in part by Department
of Land Conservation and Development grant. And the
grant expires in May. And so what are what's the project
timeline or goals after May 2021? What what happens next?
Thanks, Peter. Yeah, that's a perfect segue. I'm not going
to bother to share in my screen, but you can the rest of the
story map just kind of explains this in some text. So yes, the
grant ends at the end of May. So as part of this, this is our
second of two open houses. We encourage everyone to go take the
survey that is part of the story map. It's a it's I
think it's three questions, including an open ended question.
If you want to just generally submit comments, you can do it
that way. You can also email me. But it's just trying to gauge
in a very general level, the public support for kind of
pursuing a potential inventory update. We're going to collect
that information and provide that to the Planning Commission
and to the board in a, you know, again, it's fairly broad
brush, but we'll provide all of the comments that we receive
to those those bodies. And then automatic lights. And then
we'll have discussions with with both the Planning Commission
and the board of the best way to proceed this. Ultimately, an
inventory update would be a it's noted in the comprehensive
plan. So there are options to kind of just attack that little
bit of the comprehensive plan by providing these updated
inventories, essentially patching an existing plan, or
incorporating it into a larger comprehensive plan update where
we'll look at things more holistically. And that depends
on a combination of factors, just resources, momentum, you
know, there's there's pros and cons to each of those things. And
I'll say that the actual inventory update process is an
extensive public process. So that's when we're looking at the
maps. And then we're also deciding, you know, what, what
are we, what are we doing with this information? Does that
mean we are talking about what what uses there are in
these areas, or what, you know, other other types of
kind of regulatory frameworks? And that is all to be
determined. And that's going to depend on public input, board
input, Planning Commission input, kind of, everybody's
input, the experts input, what, how we could incorporate
these inventories into our existing plan, while achieving
that balance. So that's a long way of saying it's a
the public interaction of just this data, data
presentation ends in May, and then there's going to be
further conversations with primarily the board to
determine the best way forward.
And Tonya, for for those that want to monitor, I'll just
follow up just for those that want to monitor the
progression of this process is there's the website, right?
There that's that will that I presume will be updated.
They can also reach out to you as a project
coordinator. Any other are those the two kind of best
options to track that is contacting you and tracking
the monitoring the website and absolutely. Okay, and I
would great. And I would suspect we would as as
county staff will certainly engage our communications
director as this process matures so that of course
everybody and anybody who is interested in this topic and
has an opinion and wants to make sure they're involved has
those ample opportunities. So it's not as if one person
will just wake up one day and find it. Oh, the
amendments were done. This this will be a robust public
process. I will ask this question to you, Tonya,
you're welcome to relay it back to me. It's dealing
more with development standards and siding standards. So
please feel free to kick it back to me. So the the
setting it up. In Tamalo and throughout the less dense
areas of the county, I see problematic fencing, non
porous to wildlife being installed through large
property areas, confining wildlife, especially young
deer and elk, often into roadways along long
stretches of the county roads. So here's the
question. Are county planners able to address and
perhaps impose limitations on the types of fencing
homeowners can utilize? I'm going to kick that one
back to you because you have a very intimate
knowledge of the specific development rights.
Great. Yeah, I'm certainly welcome or willing to
respond. So it's a great question. We are we
have numerous inventories that are identified in our
wildlife area combining some pertaining to elk and
mule deer and sage grouse and antelope, just to name a
few and any development that is proposed in these
areas specifically relating to dwellings, but
there are siding standards that that come into play
for fencing and so to the extent that if one is
building a dwelling or an accessory structure and
they they want fencing, fencing is required to
accommodate wildlife passage. And so obviously these
new inventories extend into the tummolo region in
ways that the exist excuse me the existing
inventories do not. And so you know I think as
we as this process matures and we engage with the
Planning Commission and the board these types of
siding standards will will be you know recommended to
continue in addition to you know proximity to
roads. So dwellings can be you know sided closer
to the road as opposed into the the heart of a
large parcel or track. So those are just an
example of a couple of provisions that are in
place today that I think if we if we get the
community support Planning Commission input and
board direction would I presume likely continue
for the reasons that were expressed by the the
person that offered that introductory statement and
questions. So thank you for for for providing
that. I guess Mr. Chairman this isn't really a
question but it's a statement and it's an
opportunity for me to use it to check in back with
you and other commissioners. This forum is is
important in initiating conversations between the
public and the public agencies. It would be
valuable to continue this as an ongoing
conversation drawing on the resources of the
community. These conversations could become a
more holistic view of the state of the county.
Mr. Chairman and the commissioners you are our
citizen involvement advisory committee under
goal one. And so want to hear your thoughts
about the importance of maintaining continuing
dialogue with our resource agencies with our
residents and businesses to ensure that we are
all familiar with with the latest circumstances
that are influencing our region. So Peter as
you know the whole issue of wildlife their
habitat the interaction with our planning rules
and as well as our zoning and so on and so
forth very very often comes up at the Planning
Commission and the Planning Commission is always
open to those discussions but I think we're
moving to a phase where we might see some more
formal recognition that in fit this is this is in
fact an ongoing.
Um, conversation. What I'd like to do, first of all, is to give the other members of the planning commission a chance to, uh, add their comments to that, that specific question, and then I'll come back and, and give some general comments myself.
So Susan Altman, is your mic working again? Would you like to kick off, please?
How do we get a conversation going as a, an ongoing open house, if you like?
Um, I hope you can hear me. Uh, I'm always interested in having conversations about this topic. Um, I would, you know, welcome it being an agenda item at any time.
So I, I think that that, uh, as, as time permits, I know we have a busy calendar coming up, but I do think that it's important going forward.
And as I'm not sure if it was Peter or Tonya who mentioned it about the comprehensive plan coming up, I think that natural resources definitely falls into, um, that umbrella under that umbrella.
And I think that what a lot of people move here for is for the natural resources, the natural beauty, the outdoor experience, whether they, um, enjoy wildlife or hiking or fishing or hunting or it all goes together.
You know, it's a, a holistic view of the county and the county's growth that we need to be looking at.
So I think this is definitely important conversation that should be continued.
Commissioners, any other commissioners have any ideally different comments? Commissioner Swisher, please.
I would just like to say that in a greater sister's country, we've lived here 25 years now.
Uh, this has been an ongoing topic for 25 years in terms of the wildlife, the migration patterns, uh, building, fencing, those kinds of things.
And it constantly, um, is brought up in different forums regarding, you know, what's really happening to our wildlife.
And again, I'm speaking as just one member of the commission, but I'm a native Oregonian, uh, fifth generation, grew up farming and ranching and part of that operation in Northern Klamath County that touched to the Sheeps County.
And basically through all of that entire frame of reference I've had is the interaction with wildlife and those types of things with the farming and ranching interface.
And so with that, I think it's just extraordinarily, and again, grew up hunting and fishing and those types of things.
So it's an extraordinarily important topic. And I think that, uh, providing some type of a Canadian viewing interface, I like the, uh, recommendation earlier if all of this works through this process.
There are many more species in the three we're talking about that's really important, but I think also needs to be inventoried and reviewed and looked at.
So basically, I'm not saying anything different other than the fact that providing this ongoing conversation, leading towards comprehensive plan update and whatever extensive inventories we can do, I would certainly favor that.
Vice Jack Harris, please.
Um, yeah, we read the question since it's kind of handy you can reread it on zoom. Um, and so just to make sure I think I understood correctly by this forum, I think the question asker may mean this forum meaning this zoom meeting open house format.
It's on Facebook live. Um, I'm, I'm glad to hear that it's an accessible format. In terms of the planning commission, we meet every second and fourth Thursday or Thursday at 530.
Um, and currently we're on zoom, but eventually we'll be on zoom or in person. And there's a time during the beginning of the meeting where you can come to the meeting and raise any topics that's not on the agenda.
Or you can, you know, your topic that you want to talk about is on the agenda. You can stay and then talk about that at that point. But if there's something that that's important to you that you want to talk about, you can do that then.
Um, and the person also asked if, you know, kind of this could be sort of a forum for more holistic conversations. I think not just about wildlife, but about maybe other county planning things.
And I just think that is a really good idea. And when we do have people come out, we get a really good sense of what's important to people about the county and how they'd like to see things develop into the future.
And those things are definitely very much in our minds and our conversations. And we're very influenced by that. So, um, maybe this format could be used more often or on a number of different topics. So I thought it was a really great comment.
Thank you. Uh, Maggie, Maggie Kirby, I know you're in a foreign place, but do you, um, are you still there? Can you hear us? Have you any comments?
Okay, Maggie's out of town. Um, maybe she'll come back on again. Peter, I see you have one more question. Um, is that a, a one that has not been answered yet?
It is a new question. And it's one that I think our is for our state biologists. Um, and it's relating to wolves, uh, acknowledging that they are dispersing through central Oregon from the blue mountains to the OChicos to the Cascades.
Uh, in addition to direct population management asserted by federal and state wildlife management agencies, uh, this question asks, does the county have any plans? But I, I would first like to hear from the state. Does the state have any plans for protective designations or overlays for broader
corridors accommodating large, large scale, excuse me, accommodating landscape scale, wildlife dispersal of this type. Um, so, uh, from a state standpoint, uh, it'd be interesting to hear Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife's
perspectives. I can say to shoots County, this issue has not elevated in the way that the, the three species that we're discussing as part of the three inventories have been elevated. So, uh, Sarah Andrew, we would be interested in your thoughts.
Sure. Thanks, Peter. Yeah. Um, they, there certainly is, you know, an increasing number of wolves. We were in Wolf report, you know, we had to do an annual report and it just came out. Um, you know, I think we really recently, um, you know, it's a statewide report of the known, you know, bare minimum population of wolves in the state.
There certainly is an increasing number of wolves that do disperse through central Oregon as, as the question, um, hinted at, uh, primarily, you know, wolves, the high densities in northeastern Oregon and their, their, their migrating, um, down through central Oregon, including to shoots County. Currently, there's no, um, resident pack wolf activity that we that we've identified into shoots County that it's stuck around.
So far, they've, they've continued migrating usually to the south, um, those dispersing wolves. But, you know, we do have the Oregon wolf plan is in place. It was updated a year or so ago, you know, unratified by the, uh, ODFW commission. Um, they are managed at the state level now currently since being delisted federally. Um, and yeah, you know, they're, they are protected by the wolf plan.
There's, there's, you know, it's a, it's a big public document plan that folks can check out. Um, as far as habitat protections, you know, there's, that's kind of a different question. But, you know, I will say updating protections and corridors for one species often impacts other species as well.
Um, you know, this work we're trying to do with Mule Deer and elk habitat protection certainly isn't limited to benefiting Mule Deer and elk. It, it goes well beyond that.
Thanks. Thanks, Andrew. Um, Mr. Chairman, we're, we're almost 90 minutes into the meeting. I was going to, I think we've, we've, uh, responded to over a half a dozen questions so far. I would turn it over to you.
And if you think the timing is right, we can transition to Tanya for closing remarks or maybe I have this order, uh, reversed. But, uh, I, I turn it over to the chair and possibly to Tanya Saltzman, our project manager for, for these, this wildlife inventory pro inventory project for, for next steps this evening.
So one of the very usual things that happens when you run these sort of meetings and people, uh, see you visually without a mask or with a mask is you get stopped in the street and it's amazing how many people have done that.
And I know my colleagues on the planning commission have had the same experience. Um, one of the things that we're trying because usually the question starts, well, why haven't you, and it's X, Y or Z, depending whether it's transport or water or wildlife comes up very regularly.
One of the things that the planning commission has been very, very interested in and discussed often with county staff is whether there is a need for a, uh, natural resources manager.
And there was a time when there wasn't actually a county forester. And I think nowadays with the wildfire risk mitigation and all that good stuff, we've seen the value of that.
I think, uh, we should continue that discussion because at some point, uh, has more and more developments bring forward their own plans on how to try and make an eco friendly environment.
We're seeing quite a variety of efforts, but really we have no mechanism, if you like, for a wildlife advocate or a wildlife expert who is expert by virtue of understanding what's being done in other places in the county.
So, you know, one of the things is, which is important is that if this is an important topic, then the public can take up what, uh, vice chair Keras was alluding to, which was come and tell the planning commission at the beginning of every meeting.
There is actually an open frame where you can talk about anything. That's the first thing.
The second most popular question recently, which I, Nick, if you're with us, uh, I'd like to translate to you.
Ah, excellent. Thank you. Just so I don't make the same mistake twice of talking to somebody who isn't there. Um, and I'm going to come back to Maggie in a second.
Um, so Nick, um, Tanya's been asked, what are you going to do with this data? And indeed she's going to tell us again that effectively it's not her decision.
It's going to go to the board of county commissioners ultimately, but we're going to act as an advocate.
So 25 years ago or 30 years ago, somebody did an enormous amount of work to compile the first wildlife inventory.
And I think the question would be, why did that happen then that it couldn't happen now?
And also in the intervening period of 25 or 30 years, do you actually have sufficient experience of that data and its use to tell us what good things have been done with it?
Well, in that case, that's a really big question. And I would defer to our experts here. I'm not a wildlife biologist or a wildlife expert.
Have there been benefits? Again, I would have to defer to our experts because in theory, yes, there's been extraordinary benefits, but by the same token, we've also seen the decline in the population over the last few years that was discussed earlier,
beginning with Mr. I think it was Nedder's question, which was excellent. And Andrew's response to that.
I think getting back to the natural resource stewardship question and this ongoing conversation where I thought you might go with this question was,
our county has recognized the value and the importance of having a county forester to address this wildfire and forest management issue in our county that is so, so important.
Are we at the point now where we need to look at allocating resources to a different natural resource and that being wildlife, habitat, species?
And so we are studying that. Kyle's online right now. He's studying that for us and we'll be bringing some examples back to the Planning Commission or the Board of County Commissioners this summer.
I can share with you what we're already hearing is that position should be a wildlife manager, a biologist, a planner, a hydrologist, a geologist.
I mean, we're getting all kinds of really, really great examples of what that position could be.
But one of the things that that position could be, going back to the ongoing conversation, is if we had somebody that was designated in that role, that person could make sure that that conversation continues.
In some forum, we have Project Wildfire that deals with wildfire. We don't have a similar entity with the county that tackles this issue.
We have a wetland and a floodplain manager. We don't have a natural resources stewardship position.
So this position could be really, really valuable to continue this conversation and then serve as that expert, that in-house expert that coordinates with the agencies, coordinates with planning, coordinates with the road department,
coordinates with the Planning Commission, provides that expertise to the board and provides so many valuable services to our county.
So I'm sorry I didn't answer your initial question. Perhaps our resource agency experts would like to answer that question.
I think it wasn't quite so...
Holistic, as it sounded. Really what I was asking was, was the original inventory part, for example, of a comprehensive plan process? Is that what drove it at that stage? And is that where the inventory exists in the comprehensive plan?
Yes, and yes, and Peter will be probably the better one to answer as he's certainly has more expertise and experience with this than I do. But yes, it is the inventory is adopted as part of the comprehensive plan.
And whether it was initially created because of goal five, the goal five inventory that we have, which is part of this process, and we were compelled to do that as part of our initial comprehensive plan.
And then we focused on other things over the years, but not allocating resources to this.
This is so timely. And I think we're one of the only counties in the state to consider an inventory update because it is a significant undertaking. But yes, it is a part of the comprehensive plan and the comprehensive plan update process.
So in fact, it may be if the Board of County Commissioners decided appropriate and the there is an update to the cap to the comprehensive plan to the county, then to actually have it occur as part of that wouldn't be a bad fit.
Yeah, that's right. It could be a standalone amendment, which I think is a valuable conversation for us to have this summer, or is it is it rolled into and included as part of the comprehensive plan update process.
They could be other one.
Very good.
I noticed that actually Maggie Kirby looks as though she's dropped off the one of the other planning commissioners.
Maggie is in an unfavorable time zone, which is probably why she's had to go and attend to other things.
Tanya, where were you hoping to go from here in terms of this meeting? I'm not talking about your plan for the world.
Well, in 10 years, yes, thanks for that question. I actually covered most of the next steps in the answer to the question previously asked about potential next steps.
I would probably just end by plugging the survey. Once again, I will just very briefly share my screen one last time if you don't mind.
So this is at the end of the story map where it says, what do you think this button here takes you to the survey, which is very quick.
Just it gauges general support and as I said before offers a big blank box for you to type in your thoughts if you'd like.
This is open until May 6. So about another week. It's been out open. It'll be about a month total.
So we would really love to have those responses. I thought I would have, I don't have a number of how many people have responded to the survey thus far.
I will say now that I remembered that a few days were about this just general forum format.
We're also interested in hearing what you think of this process, the zoom, the Facebook live in general, because, you know, even if COVID, you know, goes away and our procedures become much more in person.
There is some value, I think, in this virtual medium as well. So if you have comments just about that, we'd love to hear it.
And, oh yes, sorry. A few days after the first open house we had a count of approximately, I believe it was over 2000 people who had viewed this on Facebook live.
So that's extremely encouraging and hopefully we'll have similar numbers for this open house as well.
So I will just end with that and thanks for everything, for everybody's great questions and for coming out and please take our survey and you can also email me comments as well.
And we'll be, as Peter said, posting updates to the project in terms of meetings or forums or anything like that on the project website.
So Tanya, in terms of anybody who wants to respond via the website with sufficient time that they might get really important comments into your report for the Board of County Commissioners,
how long will that time period be for additional testimony to be given?
I'm not sure I understand the question we have.
The response website could stay open forever, but you're going to prepare a report for the County Commissioners and they're going to look at it sometime,
presumably in the next two or three months.
Anybody who wants to get their comments in and have them recognized maybe by being elevated through a comment which is actually repeated by your report to the County Commissioners
will be well advised to actually put their question comment in fairly soon.
Yes.
How long is fairly soon?
I would say that the same May 6 deadline for the survey itself, if you have larger comments to email me, let's go by that.
It's not super hard and fast.
Obviously, this is a continuing conversation, but the sooner you get that in, the better.
And that's not to say that if you email me in June, we're going to ignore your comments.
It just might not make it into that report.
So I would encourage May 6, just whether it's survey or email or handwritten letter, let's go with that.
Thank you.
Very good.
Thank you.
So I checked at one point and it looked as though our rebroadcast through the encoder site was not happening at least at the beginning of the meeting.
So let me just say again, the intention is to re-record this Zoom and Facebook live meeting and we will broadcast it via,
and it will be available via the County Meeting Portal at some time in the next few days.
So that will become our record of this community meeting.
I think if I may, I'd like now formally just to start the wrap up of the meeting, but let me just pause in case any one of the people who are still with us,
and we've actually only lost three people since we started.
Have any last questions, comments, or indeed any of the experts or planning commissioners or Wendy yourself or Tanya,
you really should pay your electricity bill and it wouldn't keep going out on you.
Okay.
So one of the things which it's important to remember, and I think it's largely true from the county's point of view at least,
we may actually have a lot of public recognition, moral authority, how we want to call it.
A bit like ODF and W, we don't actually own any of the land on which the wildlife lives,
except through regulation, through statute, through encouragement.
But at the end of the day, compliance and enforcement really is in the hands of the landowners.
And in Dishoops County, 80% of the land is actually held publicly.
And the two major owners, leaving aside the state because it's a relatively small holding in Dishoops County,
but the US Forest Service I think is fairly wildlife resource management orientated.
Looking at the area, for example, that is the Dishoops Wildlife Corridor,
which is actually about 27 square miles owned by the BLM,
there the deer population now is down to 28% of its carrying capacity.
Andrew, I think that's about the right number.
And the reason for that is the closer you get to bend,
the more incursion you get from motorized vehicles, drones,
people using ultralights and all sorts of things that effectively are having an impact on the environment,
which at least in the short term is probably much greater than the impact that year on year occurs because of development.
So I think it would be very good in terms of the public discussion if it was going to continue
to really try and encompass also public education to encourage not enforcement but compliance.
I think that way our admiration and our reason for living in Dishoops County can be so much more meaningful
that we actually not just enjoy living here and we're not loving it to death,
but rather we're taking responsibility, public responsibility for this beautiful place that we live.
Unless that's really caused somebody to want to make any comments at 7.41,
I would like to draw the meeting to a close,
noting we still have lost only three people from our starting participant number, which is excellent,
and I adjourn this virtual community meeting.
Thank you very much indeed for your participation, one and all.
Thank you.