Oregon Wildblog

Introducing Vik Anantha - Oregon Wild board president

My name is Vik Anantha and I am the new Board President of Oregon Wild. It’s an honor and privilege to serve Oregon Wild. In my day job, I am a health care IT executive, but volunteering with Oregon Wild lets me care about the health of the planet.

When I spoke at our 2015 Call of the Wild benefit celebration I asked how many of the attendees were born in Oregon.

Dozens of hands shot up as evidence that many of us have moved from somewhere else and made Oregon, our home. It could be from a neighboring state, like my wife Anne-Marie, or somewhere much further away like me.

The Sea Otters See Change

By Seth Heller

In our previous installment, we examined the basics of life as a sea otter. Now we explore the history of the species, including their brush with extinction at the hands of the international fur trade and slow recovery.

The Day After Delisting

As you’ve heard by now, Oregon wildlife officials voted last night to strip state Endangered Species Act protections from Oregon's wolves. If you have read previous Wolf Pack emails on this process, you know that this decision was coming and exactly what we were expecting.

The Myth of Replanting: 5 Ways Oregon’s Laws Destroy Forests

Here in Oregon, a little less than half of the land is forested. Almost all of that forestland is owned either by private timber companies, the State of Oregon, or a federal agency such as the U.S. Forest Service, or the Bureau of Land Management. In Western Oregon, there are two very different sets of rules that these forestland owners follow. Most federal lands are governed by the Northwest Forest Plan; State and private lands, however, are governed by the Oregon Forest Practices Act, or the OFPA.

Love the Forest? Save the Fisher.

By Seth Heller

Fisher cat – polecat – pekan – martes pennanti – woolang. The pacific fisher’s abundance of monikers contrasts their slim existence in Oregon. Despite an alarmingly low presence in the Oregon wild, the pacific fisher remains stubbornly labeled a species of ‘least concern’. Given the incredible rate of poisoning due to illegal marijuana growers, it’s a title that should give pause to conservationists throughout the Pacific Northwest.

30,000 Cheers for Crater Lake!

As we approach the 2016 Presidential election, we're hearing a lot about public lands and the best use for them. Everything from drilling in the arctic wildlife refuges to privatizing and selling off public lands for development have been proposed. While public lands have always had their detractors, this minority has become much more vocal in recent years, and their attacks on public lands have increasingly drawn the attention and support of national politicians.

Speaking for the Trees

Last week Oregon Wild hosted its first ever forest management film festival at the Bijou Art Cinema in Eugene. With the help of organizations like the Sierra Club, Pacific Rivers Council and Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics we filled the cinema with forest lovers. This successful event brought people from all walks of life, and all across Oregon to listen to the stories told by our three featured films.