I learned many things in that work, but the most powerful lesson was quite simple: When you’re dealing with wildland fire, the question is never if you are going to have an event, but only when?
So, inescapably, Malheur is a managed landscape – not a national park where the goal is to leave nature alone as much as possible. By managing the landscape, we make it more productive for the birds and wildlife that depend upon it.
As we all know, Sodhouse Spring became a part of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, and in the 1930s the government set out to develop a headquarters complex on the site. The goal, echoing similar developments at many other government sites in the arid West, was to create a friendly oasis.
When we are asked what makes us birders, most of us probably answer with something about the beauty of birds and the challenge of seeking them out.
The big question here cannot yet be answered. Either this has been a very anomalous winter, or, as some climate models are suggesting, this is our first introduction to a new sort of winter that will come to our region more frequently as a result of a warming climate. Right now, it is too soon to know which scenario applies.
