Oregon transplants antelope to Nevada

This story was published Fri, Feb 25, 2000

By Terry Hudson
Herald Oregon bureau

HERMISTON - Craig Ely couldn't help but reminisce Thursday as he helped capture pronghorn antelope at the Umatilla Chemical Depot for transport to Nevada.

The Northeast Region director for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife was a teen-ager when his father, John, was instrumental in reintroducing 17 pronghorns to the depot in 1969.

"When they brought in the pronghorn, I would have been about 15 years old," Ely said. "I can remember the excitement. ... Dad's first thoughts were they could be hunted here, but as time went on, there were some concerns about that. They began to use the population here for transplanting."

Craig said his father, a 32-year veteran of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, died about two years ago.

"This is a different herd now," he said. "But I was here when the first ones were transplanted. It's fun to be a part of both ends of it."

Wildlife officials were conducting the capture and relocation effort as part of a program to trade the antelope for Nevada bighorn sheep.

In January, Nevada allowed Oregon Fish and Wildlife to take 15 bighorn sheep for genetic study, and Oregon will receive another 15 next week. The bighorn sheep are being moved to Southeastern Oregon.

In all, 50 antelope were captured Thursday. Thirty does were loaded into a truck headed for Nevada, 18 antelope were released, and two were euthanized after sustaining injuries in the capture process.

Aided by fencing that formed a V-like formation, the capture team funneled the antelope into a corrallike trap using a helicopter piloted by Phil Stevenson of Haines, Ore.

Viewed from high atop a ridge, the herd moved as a single unit as Stevenson herded it across the depot, up a small hill and into the trap. His job was over in less than a half-hour.

"That went just about as slick as it could have," Stevenson said. "They used the gully just perfectly. When the animals came over the ridge, they dropped right into it."

Once inside the trap, each antelope was taken out a back gate where a team of "muggers" immobilized them, while others tested the animals to determine age and sex, draw blood, take a tissue sample and mark the animals with a tag.

Up to eight animals at a time were on the ground with groups of four or five people working on them, before it was determined which would be transported to Nevada and which would be released back to the depot.

"Because we have an opportunity to put our hands on these antelope, we have an opportunity to gather some information," said wildlife biologist Don Whittaker.

The two animals that were euthanized were injured in the process. That's about the standard for an operation this size.

"Typically, on these types of operations, we run about a 3 to 5 percent mortality rate," said Norm Hasseldahl, an Oregon Fish and Wildlife official from La Grande.

Joe Williams, a Nevada wildlife biologist, was helping load the animals before transporting them to his state.

"We've had an established antelope population where these are going, but the winter of 1992-93 decimated 60 to 65 percent of that," Williams said. "We have an existing population, but it's small. We're not reintroducing the species, but we want to augment it."

The animals were loaded into a double-decked trailer owned by the Nevada Department of Wildlife.

Williams said the antelope would be released within 24 hours in Nevada.

"The road noise and hum of the truck settles them down," Williams said. "They'll lie down and go to sleep after we get on the road."

Kevin Blakely, a wildlife biologist with ODFW and one of the roundup organizers, called the operation an efficient one.

"We've done this before, where the helicopter has been in the air for four hours and we have to quit, because we're running the animals too hard," Blakely said. "This was a very short period of time. The animals here are used to structure. They see a fence every day, and that helped us."

Ariana Burns, a senior wildlife biology major at Oregon State University in Corvallis, was one of many who volunteered as a mugger.

"That's the most fun I've had in a long time," she said. "I looked at this as more of an adventure than anything else. Having a wildlife degree, this is the kind of thing I have to do. There was a lot of teamwork going on out here."

More than 50 people assisted in Thursday's operation, which was planned during the past three months.

The last time antelope were transplanted from the depot was in 1988. The depot antelope population before Thursday was estimated at 100 to 120 animals.

 

Copyright 2002 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.