POLK COUNTY — The Oregon
Wildlife Center off Steel Bridge Road in northern Polk County near
Willamina will soon belong to The Nature Conservancy.
The Bonneville Power
Administration is funding the $1.5 million purchase of the 472 acres as
part of its efforts to protect, restore and enhance habitat for
wildlife, according to BPA project manager Dorie Welch in a letter to
affected landowners.
Although the sale is not
complete, members of the conservancy have been out on the property
surveying what already lives and grows there.
“So far they have found six or
seven somewhat rare (plant) species that they were surprised to find
already living there,” said Mitch Maxson, director of marketing for The
Nature Conservancy. “It added to what we already thought would be a
great ecological location.”
The sale should be final in late July, and will belong to The Nature Conservancy, which will manage the property.
The first project phase will be active restoration work done by contractors, Maxson said.
“The intent is to open it to the
public for some sort of use at some point in the future,” said Dan
Bell, Willamette Basin director for The Nature Conservancy.
Public access would be through
guided tours or with specific permission for the foreseeable future,
according to the grant documents filled out by The Nature Conservancy.
The project will provide an
opportunity to engage volunteers, communities and organized groups in
onsite work parties, the documents state.
“That specific location is
still in the midst of coming into our possession,” Maxson said. “Next
spring, we would like to have some people out there to help with all
sorts of things, helping to create trails for more access, all sorts of
things like that.”
The land most recently was used for the care of rare African wildlife, Welch said.
“That use is in the process of
winding down, and the focus going forward will be on native Willamette
Valley wildlife habitats,” Welch said.
The land is in the Willamette
River Basin, which covers more than 11,500 square miles and stretches
from its headwaters in the Cascade Mountains to its confluence with the
Columbia River, Welch said.
The property — comprised of
about half well-maintained pasture and half oak woodland, with some
remnant upland prairie — has not been open to the public under its
current ownership.
The Nature Conservancy will
conserve and restore regionally imperiled prairie and Oregon white oak
savanna and open oak woodland systems, according to the grant documents.
The prairie habitat is dominated by non-native pasture grasses.
The area is in an ideal
location to help a nearby population of Fender’s blue butterfly, an
endangered species. The butterfly is known to live about three miles
from the property.
The area also will help grassland bird populations, such as the western meadowlark and streaked horned lark
.
The Noble Oaks property is the
ancestral home of the Yam Hill (Yamhill) band of Kalapuyas, an
antecedent band of Grand Ronde, said Michael Yarnosh, ceded lands
program manager for the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community
of Oregon, in a letter of support for the project.
The land is part of a larger area ceded by the tribe to the United States through the 1855 Willamette Valley Treaty, he said.
The 472-acre property will form
a connection between two adjacent conservation easements, creating a
larger block of about 700 acres of conserved land in the area, Yarnosh
said.
