On May 20, the Otley Ranch team and refuge staff moved 225 head of cattle, including bulls, cows, and calves, to Lava Beds Field. The move marked an important milestone for the project, bringing livestock into the study area for the first time under the virtual fencing system.
Early follow-up checks were encouraging.
Success measures include changes in reed canarygrass height and structure and longer-term changes in plant diversity and habitat conditions, with a commitment to share a public summary of methods, monitoring results, and any adaptive changes.
At Malheur Lake, one thing is abundantly clear: the water is anything but, and the decades-long turbid conditions are impacting ecological health of the lake, which is a crucial area for migratory birds along the Pacific Flyway.
The shorelines and shallow waters of many of eastern Oregon’s shallow alkaline lakes contain a distinctive flora that has been incompletely explored. These plants appear as water levels in the lakes begins to drop in May, and many have flowered and begun to dry up by mid to late June.
Written by Casie Smith/Photos by James Pearson and Janelle Wicks The absence of submergent vegetation and the minimal emergent vegetation existing in Malheur Lake is partially a result of the
