Trip to Oregon

[AndrewJ]

Visited family up in Oregon, went on a camping trip in the SE part of the state. The terrain is rugged and unforgiving, and the weather is merciless. It was cold, rainy, windy, and then near freezing, but had a couple of days with a few hours of uninterrupted sun. We rode horses all day, really amazing how much land you can cover. Saw many obsidian shards and points, there used to be a substantial native population in the area until the calvary started chasing them out in the 1860s. It's amazing to look at the obsidian and think how another human stood in this very same spot over a century and a half ago...what was their life like, what was the area like, did they have any idea what was coming?

 

Saw two coyotes, 35 antelope, and four deer. The whole landscape is full of plant life, but the deer are gone. One of the old timers who rode with us has been going for years, said the same rides in the 70s and 80s we would have seen thousands of deer. I am not joking, this is confirmed by multiple people. The deer were so thick you had to try not to run into them. Now they are all gone, the land is just empty.

 

Where did they go? The old cowboys say the state killed them- too many tags, focus on revenue and not on herd health. Biologists say it was the cows carrying a virus/pathogen to the water holes that spread to deer and killed them.

 

The new threat to the deer- cougars. A cougar eats one deer a week, a nursing cougar eats two a week. A few years ago Oregon banned hunting of cougars and bears with dogs as it is unsportsmanlike. The result- no one hunts cougars and their populations explode. In that extended area the state killed off 40 cougars in the last year as part of population management. The state uses dogs to hunt the cougars (it is exempt from the law as it is for population management), but the irony is not lost on those who see it.

 

Some pics below, hope you enjoy-

 

[NWhunter]

Love and miss my home state, hopefully get to move back one day.