The Conservation Column By Pepper Trail Editor’s Note: Due to the particularly sensitive and complex issues raised by the USFWS Draft Barred Owl Manage-ment Strategy, the RVAS Board held a special meeting with Dr. Trail in January 2024 to discuss the public comment letter that follows. Although the Board was not in complete agreement about [...]
This article by Chapter member Nate Trimble appeared in the Spring 2023 edition of Oregon Birds. As readers of Oregon Birds surely know, birding is an enjoyable and personally enriching hobby that gets us out in nature and connects us with the beauty of the world around us. But can birding be more than [...]
The following article was taken from Writers on the Range with permission from the author: No, this isn’t about those folks who spend their winters in Arizona or Florida. The snowbird behind this warning is an actual bird, the dark-eyed junco, a small creature you probably know if you have a bird feeder and maybe [...]
The Conservation Column by Pepper Trail Welcome back from summer! With unprecedented heat baking the globe and political divisions at an all-time high, it's easy to focus on the negative. So let's ease into fall by highlighting two positive developments on the local conservation front. Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument Expansion Wins in Court -- Again In [...]
By Erin Ulrich It’s the start of 2023-2024 programs and activities for the Rogue Valley Audubon Society. This year we are celebrating more than 50 years of advocating for bird conservation and education to protect birds and their habitats in the Rogue Valley. RVAS was first recognized as a non-profit, 501c(3) organization by the IRS [...]
Conservation Column By Juliet Grable The 2023 Farm Bill: An Opportunity to Get It Right Last month, The Guardian ran a story about a new study that highlights how agriculture is devastating bird populations in Europe. For the study, a group of 50 researchers analyzed data gathered from 28 countries over nearly four decades: “The [...]
Conservation Column By Juliet Grable Avian Flu Update One year ago, Pepper Trail provided an excellent summary on the status of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza, aka HPAI, aka avian flu. At the time, it was evident that the newest subtype of the virus, called H5N1, was infect-ing and killing wild birds on a scale not [...]
Here is a link to the article from the Rogue Valley Times: https://www.rv-times.com/localstate/former-sewage-lagoons-in-shadow-of-table-rocks-smell-sweet-to-birds/article_b1062784-cdad-11ed-93ff-cfae0913b50e.html
Writers on the Range has published an article by Pepper Trail on the effort to place wildlife crossings in Southern Oregon. https://writersontherange.org/no-one-wants-to-collide-with-a-deer/ More information about this effort is on the Southern Oregon Wildlife Crossing Coalition website: https://www.myowf.org/sowcc
The Conservation Column By Pepper Trail This month’s column focuses on a long-neglected but hugely important bird habitat in Oregon and the Great Basin: saline lakes. Lacking outflows, and too salty for fish, these lakes are perfect incubators for brine shrimp and brine flies, which in turn provide essential food for great concentrations of migrating [...]
