Klamath Falls News - Locally owned news brand, reporting stories affecting citizens of the Klamath Basin.
LAKEVIEW, ORE. – Prescribed fire season has arrived in South Central Oregon, and fire managers on the Fremont-Winema National Forest and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service are looking for opportunities to apply prescribed fire to the local landscape.
Read MoreCHILOQUIN, Ore. - The Klamath Tribes today filed a lawsuit against the Bureau of Reclamation in federal district court in Medford, Oregon, over Reclamation’s ongoing violations of the Endangered Species Act in its operation of the Klamath Project. C’waam (Lost River sucker) and Koptu (shortnose sucker), two critically endangered fish of vital spiritual and cultural importance to the Tribes, are being pushed to the very brink of extinction by Reclamation’s violation of one of our country’s bedrock environmental laws.
Read MoreTULELAKE, Calif. - On Saturday, March 27, a fire that was started in a tule marsh on private land east of Lower Klamath NWR escaped and burned approximately one acre within the refuge boundary. The landowners called CAL FIRE/Siskiyou Unit who responded and began suppression and containment efforts, naming the incident, ‘Refuge Fire’.
Read MoreCHILOQUIN, Ore. - In this historically bad water year, protecting the C’waam (Lost River sucker) and Koptu (shortnose sucker) must be the first priority. That is the key message the Klamath Tribes delivered to the Bureau of Reclamation today [3/15/21] in comments on Reclamation’s initial draft management framework for Klamath Project operations this spring.
Read MoreIn a forest few people ever visit, scattered black logs burned over a decade ago peek out of the dense yellowed vegetation littering the forest floor. This contrasts with the bright green shrubs on the slope and the needles adorning tall evergreen trees above.
Read MoreSISKIYOU COUNTY, Calif. - It was a dark and stormy fall night in a pine-juniper forest of rural northern California. A group of 30 visitors had carefully made their way about 200 yards inside Barnum Cave, located off an unmarked dirt track halfway between the towns of Yreka and Weed.
Read MoreSALEM, Ore. — The Oregon Department of Forestry and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have signed an agreement that will enhance protections for the Pacific fisher on nearly 184,000 acres of land owned by the Oregon Board of Forestry. This includes the Santiam, Gilchrist and Sun Pass state forests as well as other Board of Forestry land in Lane, Douglas, Coos and Josephine counties.
Read MoreLakeview, Ore. – Planned fall prescribed fire operations will start as soon as conditions allow for smoke management and desired prescription outcomes. Fire managers on the Fremont-Winema National Forest, Lakeview District Bureau of land Management (BLM) and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) Sheldon-Hart Mountain National Wildlife Refuge Complex are looking for opportunities to apply prescribed fire to the landscape.
Read MoreSouthern Oregon – Franklin’s bumblebee has the smallest geographic range of any bumblebee species in North America. The hills of southwest Oregon and northern California are where this elusive bee calls home. Although it has always been hard to spot, the bee has not been observed in its native habitat since 2006.
Read MoreDriving south along Volcanic Legacy Scenic Byway on the western edge of Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuge, 77-year-old Cy Phillips scans the landscape on a cold, cloudy March morning. He is looking for an old oak tree blown down during a recent storm.
Read MoreA program on efforts to restore populations of wocus plants in the Klamath Basin will be presented next week during a meeting of the Klamath Basin Chapter of the Native Plant Society of Oregon.
The program is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Monday, Feb. 4, at the Klamath County Museum, 1451 Main St. in Klamath Falls. The meeting is open to anyone interested. Presenters will be Megan Skinner, acting water operations chief at the Bureau of Reclamation’s Klamath Basin Area Office, and Christie Nichols, a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Read MoreWhen Akimi King found monarch butterfly eggs in her garden near Klamath Falls, Oregon, in August 2017, she had no idea one would make western monarch history as the first Pacific Northwest migrant observed reproducing in California.
Since monarch survival in the wild is less than two percent, King, a biologist in the Klamath Falls Fish and Wildlife Office, raised the larvae indoors for the next month.
Read MoreChris Derrickson tilts his head slightly, listening to the faint bird-like ‘chirping’ sound through his earphones while standing in a slowly moving boat. He concentrates on a digital scanner as the chirp grows stronger, closing in on his target. But rather than look to the sky for a bird, Derrickson leans over, peering into the murky waters of Upper Klamath Lake.
Read MoreA court filing on Friday outlined the Bureau of Reclamation’s proposed 2018 Klamath Project operations, including how Reclamation plans to provide water to irrigators in the Klamath Basin by mid-April and provide water for endangered species.
Read MoreThe U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service is planning on the initial release of a portion of 2,500 Lost River and Shortnose suckers for 2018 on March 20th in the Shoalwater Bay area. Although, the Klamath Tribes appreciate this effort, we feel strongly that in order to be effective this needs to be accomplished on a much larger scale. We also are saddened that we are at the point where artificial propagation is now a necessary step in attempt to save these species from extinction.
Read MoreOn Friday, February 9, 2018, attorneys for the Klamath Tribes sent a letter to representatives of three federal agencies requesting that Upper Klamath Lake be managed at higher levels throughout the upcoming irrigation season to protect the endangered C’waam and Koptu (Lost River and Shortnose suckers, respectively).
Read MoreLakeview, Ore. – Fire managers within South Central Oregon Fire Management Partnership (SCOFMP) are utilizing the warm fall temperatures to continue with prescribed burning as weather and air conditions permit.
Prescribed burns help decrease the threat of high-intensity, high-severity wildfires; reduce the risk of insect and disease outbreak; recycle nutrients that increase soil productivity; and improve wildlife habitat.
The actual days of ignition for these burn projects will depend on several factors including appropriate humidity levels, wind speed and direction, temperature, and fuel moisture. Burns only occur on days when the Oregon Smoke Management Office indicates suitable weather conditions exist for smoke dispersal.
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