Local News

For centuries, killing predators was to fish and wildlife management what leeches were to medicine. By the mid-20th century, even the dullest minds in government had figured this out. But duller minds were yet to come.
Enter the administration of George W. Bush. In 2008, it is hawking control of salmon-eating birds, fish and mammals as if this were Dr. Kickapoo's Elixir for Rheum, Ague, Blindness and Insanity.
Virtually the entire scientific community agrees that if the four nearly useless Snake River dams remain in place, Columbia and Snake river salmon stocks will go extinct. Even Bush's National Marine Fisheries Service has admitted this. Mostly because of these dams, the system's cohos are already extinct, sockeyes are functionally extinct and 13 stocks in 78 populations are threatened or endangered. Yet last October, the Fisheries Service released its draft Columbia-Snake salmon plan that calls for a surge in the war on predators. The surge, together with barging young salmon, increasing hatchery production and all the other bells, whistles and tweaks that have failed so spectacularly in the past, will cost $800 million every year. By comparison, the Army Corps of Engineers estimates the cost of breaching the dams at $1 billion.

Mike Ficher keeping it together at KPOV.At noon on Thursday, June 26 KPOV, Bend's low power FM community radio station will have been on the air for three years. Operating out of the back of the historic Boys and Girls club building that extends nearly the entirety of the block between Bond and Wall streets, the station now features a well-polished combination of news, commentary and music that's found near the end of the FM dial at 106.7.
 
As has also been the case with KPOV since its inception, the station has a knack for organizing events as they'll do once again by throwing a party the following Saturday. Actually they're not calling it a party, but rather a "hootenanny," celebrating on the surface the station's birthday, but to station insiders the festivities could very well mark a new phase for the community radio station. It's quite likely that by late June, or soon afterward, KPOV will have received the OK from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to transform the station into a full powered FM outlet.

It's been said that burros, beans and brawn won the West. Now, organizers of the Democratic National Convention are weighing whether iconic images of the Old West should be used to market the event in Denver this summer. The debate is not without significance. Democrats, who have been unable to gain a foothold in Southern states in recent presidential elections, have begun portraying the West as the "New South." And donkeys have an honorable history in both the West and the South.
The donkey has been associated with the Democratic Party ever since Andrew Jackson, a Southerner, adopted it as a symbol when he ran for president in 1828. Originally assigned to Jackson by the opposition in an attempt to brand him a jackass, Jackson turned the icon to his advantage and won the presidency by a large margin. By the late 1800s, the donkey was firmly established as the party's official symbol.
In this spirit, Democratic leaders at the National Western Stock Show in January chose a donkey to serve as the official mascot for the convention. The selection of a burro called "Mordecai," owned by sometime Democratic political candidate Curtis Imrie, brought lots of media attention.
Those of us who know donkeys - I've raised and trained several over the last quarter-century, but hesitate to use the word "owned" - know that their stubbornness isn't just obstinacy; it's caused by the human's failure to grasp their intelligence and cautiousness. Donkeys also can be quick and strong, and many possess an uncanny courage and endurance - all necessary qualities for any candidate.

The Badlands doesn't give up its mystique easily. On a recent field trip to survey the proposed Wilderness area east of Bend, my guide and I hiked more than an hour over dusty trails, winding through an ancient, but not necessarily, awe-inspiring juniper forest before we reached our destination - a massive lava rock formation that erupts from the sandy desert floor in jagged arches and columns.
This is Flatiron rock, one of several major geologic sites within the Badlands and one of the reasons that the Bureau of Land Management designated the Badlands as a Wilderness Study Area in 1980.
It's here that it becomes clear why - despite the presence of old jeep trails, the occasional tree stump and other tell tale signs of human impact - supporters say that the Badlands is deserving of the federal government's highest level of environmental protection.
Geologists describe Flatirons as an inflated lava feature, a product of a fissure in a lava tube that pushed molten rock to the surface of the Badlands shield volcano 80,000 years ago. It's a clue to the area's violent geologic history and the forces that shaped the surrounding region, including Bend. Today, it's an attraction for hikers who start at the trailhead about 15 miles east of Bend on Hwy. 20, and one of the reasons that Congress is looking to make Badlands only the second wilderness area east of the Cascades in Oregon.