The Halfway Point
By Zavier Borja, Latino Outdoor Engagement Coordinator for Children’s Forest of Central Oregon The Painted Hills of eastern Oregon are one of the seven wonders that we have here in Oregon. Beyond the fact that it is a breathtaking geological structure out in what feels like the middle of nowhere, I also hold this...
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Sage-grouse are down, but not out
October 13, 2020 | by Jeremy Austin, Policy Manager The numbers are in. Oregon’s sage-grouse population essentially remained flat in 2020. Following years of steep declines, the bird is dwelling at the second-lowest population level ever measured in our state. For nearly 60 years the scientific community has documented the decline of sage-grouse across...
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Steens Next 20
by Senior Attorney Mac Lacy Steens Mountain is an extraordinary place. Known to the Northern Paiute as Tse’tse’ede, “the Cold One,” the mountain covers an ecologically distinctive, half-million acre landscape replete with specially protected public lands and rivers and a diversity of habitats essential to hundreds of species of fish and wildlife. Twenty years...
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Steens Act Turns 20
Known by the Northern Paiute as Tse’tse’ede, the Steens is both a historic homeland and an unparalleled treasure in Oregon’s high desert. The largest fault block mountain in North America, Steens stands sentinel over the mystical Alvord Desert and thousands of square miles of the sagebrush sea. It is a landscape that has endured...
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11 Inspiring Films
Join us on Friday, October 2, 2020 for the Wild & Scenic Film Festival, presented by E2 Solar. This year’s festival will be a virtual, streamed-in-HD celebration of the best conservation films of the year and we can’t wait to have you join us! This year’s lineup will take you on a journey throughout...
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Signs of Fall
Autumn is a time of transition in Oregon’s high desert. The cooler days and cooler nights bring a wave of red and yellow hues into this generally sage-green and dusky golden brown plantlife, and everything from butterflies to elk is on the move. Read on for more of the cyclic and seasonal natural phenomena...
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Species Spotlight: Quaking Aspen
by LeeAnn Kriegh The day I fell in love with Central Oregon, I woke to the sound of a quaking aspen’s leaves rustling outside my bedroom window. A breeze was stirring, and I looked out to see the leaves flashing green-silver against the white of the trunk and the blue of a cloudless sky....
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What Wild & Scenic Looks Like
Did you know that, in addition to rivers, the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act can also protect creeks, streams and lakes? Wild and Scenic desert waters take many forms and every drop of desert water plays an important role in the desert ecosystem. From mighty salmon-bearing rivers, like the North Fork John Day, to...
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Sutton Mountain Dazzles, Inspires in Equal Measure
By Matt Wastradowski The Painted Hills Unit of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument sees roughly 200,000 visitors per year, almost all of them dazzled by the brightly colored hillsides, arid landscapes, and explosive ecological history of the John Day River Basin. But just east of the Painted Hills sits Sutton Mountain, rising...
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Meet Six Steady ONDA Members
ONDA turned 33 this year, and more than a few of our members have been with us ever since our founding in the mid-eighties. We love the perspective that those long-time desert advocates bring! We also appreciate all the fresh ideas and excited questions that folks who are new to the desert and new...
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