Managing Wildlife Populations
Region 3 Elk Surveys: Region 3 District Wildlife Biologists Wampole and Fidorra conducted aerial surveys of the Colockum elk herd. Aerial surveys provide data to estimate population size and post-hunt calf to cow and bull to cow ratios. This information is used to inform population trends.
Oak Creek Wildlife Area Elk Feeding Operations: Oak Creek staff members wrapped up the last of elk feeding on the Oak Creek Unit on March 16 and on the Cowiche Unit on March 19. A total of 702.9 tons of hay were fed to wintering elk from Dec. 26, 2023 to March 19, 2024. The high count of elk fed during this season was 3,072.
Walleye Fishing for Predator Food Web Project: L.T Murray Wildlife Area Assistant Manager Winegeart and Natural Resource Technician Blore assisted the Large Lakes fisheries team by taking a day to help catch walleye near Lyons Ferry. The study is to evaluate and understand prey utilization by walleye, but the L.T. Murray crew focused on fishing and learning more about what their coworkers do on a daily basis.
Providing Recreation Opportunities
L.T. Murray Recreation Access: After receiving a complaint from a hiker, L.T. Murray Wildlife Manager Morrison and Assistant Manager Winegeart looked at a structure that was constructed by a private landowner years ago on the Quilomene Unit property boundary. The structure was built to eliminate corner hopping from Department of Fish and Wildlife to Department of Natural Resources land.
Conserving Natural Landscapes
L.T. Murray Wildlife Area Access Site Improvements: L.T. Murray Wildlife Area Assistant Manager Winegeart, Natural Resource Scientist Nass, and Natural Resource Technician Blore replaced a partially burned wire gate with a new metal gate and placed barrier rock around the perimeter of the Whiskey Dick Unit’s Pump House Road parking site to replace the sagebrush barrier that was lost to the 2022 Vantage Highway fire. Individuals with trailers had begun driving outside of the parking site around other vehicles to turn around to avoid having to back up. A few tested their vehicles 4-wheel drive capabilities by driving farther into the newly replanted shrubsteppe. The rocks and gate provide an obvious boundary and facelift for this site.
Wenas Wildlife Area Plug Planting: Wenas Wildlife Area staff members, along with help from Region 3 Natural Resource Specialist Boggs, planted plugs of various species in three locations across the wildlife area. Near Sheep Co. Road, both sage and bitterbrush were planted, while a variety of species including sage, juniper, mock orange, bitterbrush, and Scouler’s willow were planted throughout the Cow Canyon fire 2022 burn scar and the Evans Canyon fire 2020 burn scar on Cleman Mountain.
Wenas Wildlife Area Fence Repair: Wenas Wildlife Area Natural Resource Technicians Stoltenow and Janes repaired a portion of fence surrounding a parking area off Durr Road that had been torn down and members of the public were driving through off the green dot road. Tracks were going through a Conservation Reserve Program lease where the agency is working with a lessee on reestablishing the site back into native habitat.
Wenas Wildlife Area Firebreak Maintenance: Wenas Wildlife Area staff members finished burning weeds throughout the firebreak that runs along the elk fence in the southern portion of the wildlife area. The removal of the tumbleweeds will improve the chances of wildfires in the wildlife area to be contained and not jump to neighboring properties. This will also improve the effectiveness of the herbicide that will be applied to the firebreak. The herbicide will prevent weeds from building up throughout the rest of the year.
L.T. Murray Wildlife Area Grazing: Manager Morrison worked with a Vence technician to install a virtual fence base station (tower) on the Quilomene Unit of the L.T. Murray Wildlife Area. The tower has a line-of-sight reach of approximately ten miles. The wildlife area’s cattle grazing lessee will place GPS enabled shock collars on all adult cows that will communicate with the base station to allow the grazer to alter the collar’s preloaded boundaries via radio frequency while the GPS function will allow for tracking and delivering audible sounds and incremental shocks to the cows when necessary.
The 2024 grazing season will mark the beginning of virtual fence use on the wildlife area. Hopes are high for this grazing management technique to be successful due to the state of the areas pasture fences and the impediment of fences to the wildlife that utilize the wildlife area. Boundary fences and fences needed for safety, such as fences paralleling the highway, will still be maintained. Ideally, internal pasture fences that are in very poor condition will be removed several years from now once the program proves successful.
Sunnyside-Snake River Wildlife Area Byron Shrub Planting: Sunnyside-Snake River Wildlife Area Manager Kaelber, Assistant Manager Ferguson, Natural Resource Technician Cardenas, along with help from Region 3 Private Lands Biologist Manderbach have been plugging away with shrub plantings on the Byron Unit. These shrubs are part of a fire restoration project after a fire burned much of the area in September 2022. Sagebrush, bitterbrush, juniper, mock orange, serviceberry, golden currant, and Pacific willow are all being planted.
Pine City Planting: Region 3 Private Lands Biologist Manderbach assisted Region 1 Private Lands Biologist Nizer and a group of volunteers with a large shrub and tree planting project in Pine City. The area burned in the Labor Day fires in 2020 and is an important roosting area for turkeys. Ponderosa pines were planted on the hillsides, along with hawthorn, juniper, and Wood’s rose in the flats. Nearly 700 plants were put in the ground that day on top of the 800 that were planted earlier in the week.
Providing Education and Outreach
Oak Creek Wildlife Area Kiosk Updates: Oak Creek Wildlife Area Natural Resource Worker O’Brien updated signage at the kiosks on Tim’s Pond and the Naches River access site across from Rowe Farms.
Other
Oak Creek Wildlife Area Graffiti Removal: Natural Resource Worker O’Brien covered up graffiti at multiple locations on the Oak Creek Wildlife Area.
Oak Creek Wildlife Area Gate Improvement: Oak Creek Wildlife Area Manager Mackey and Natural Resource Worker O’Brien retrofitted the locking mechanism of the Mud Lake gate to allow for multiple locks.
L.T. Murray Wildlife Area Elk Feeding: The L.T. Murray crew members took some bad hay to a local landscaping company for compost. The hay had too much moisture to cover with tarp at delivery and never had a chance to dry so a few of the top bales were set aside during the feeding season. Some would fall through the hay forks like butter.
L.T. Murray Wildlife Area Road Management: L.T. Murray Wildlife Area Manager Morrison and Assistant Manager Winegeart inspected an area of the Corrals Access Road on the L.T. Murray’s Whiskey Dick Unit after heavy erosion was reported. The site burned in the 2022 Vantage Highway fire. Without standing vegetation and a litter layer to reduce and slow water runoff and with the addition of potentially hydrophobic soils resulting from fire intensity, excess water runoff altered this once easily traversable road to a barely accessible road.
L.T. Murray Wildlife Area Fence Repair: L.T. Murray Wildlife Area Natural Resource Technician Blore worked with a master hunter to repair boundary fence around the Teanaway Valley Unit. Melting snow and wildlife always leave this fence in need of maintenance in the spring.
L.T. Murray Wildlife Area Habitat Work: L.T. Murray Wildlife Area Manager Morrison and Habitat Biologist Reavill deployed 20 data loggers in meadows near the L.T. Murray Unit’s Tamarack Spring to monitor snow melt timing and water availability to start a project to improve headwater retention in the Manastash drainage.
Private Lands Work Party: Most of the Private Lands team members from around the state met in Electric City for an annual Private Lands Work Party. Region 3 Private Lands Biologist Manderbach met many Private Lands staff members he had not met before. Private Lands biologists demonstrated equipment and tractor implements. They planted around 600 shrubs and seeded two food plots.
