Protecting Desert Fish and Wildlife

Devlin Holloway

Oregon’s high desert is teeming with a diversity of fish and wildlife, including species that are found nowhere else on the planet.

Living in high desert sagebrush steppe, with all its variations in temperature and precipitation, requires unique adaptations of its inhabitants. And yet, a surprising diversity of plants and animals make their home in Oregon’s Sagebrush Sea, including a number of species that literally would not exist if not for these sagebrush shrublands. Known as “sagebrush obligates” and “sagebrush-dependent species,” they include a number of species you probably know — greater sage-grouse, pygmy rabbit and pronghorn — and a few you may be less familiar with — loggerhead shrike, kit fox and sagebrush lizard.

The sage-grouse, pygmy rabbit and pronghorn antelope all thrive in a healthy sagebrush steppe ecosystem. This is especially true in the Greater-Hart Sheldon region which holds some of the most important sage-grouse habitat in the state and the Western U.S., a critically important pronghorn migration corridor, and core habitat for the imperiled pygmy rabbit.

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Stewardship Pronghorn Fence

Stewardship Pronghorn Fence

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Sarah Graham, Sage Sustainers Member

Sarah Graham, Sage Sustainers Member

“I contribute to ONDA monthly because it adds up to a larger annual gift than what I’d be able to comfortably afford if I were to do a simple one-time donation annually. I’m able to give more to ONDA this way and have greater impact which is important to me, and my dog Polly.”

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Craig Terry, ONDA member and stewardship volunteer

Craig Terry, ONDA member and stewardship volunteer

“The people I have had the privilege to share time with each season keep me volunteering again and again. Who else but those ONDA staff leaders would make fresh coffee at dawn each morning or pack a watermelon all day to serve as a reward under a juniper in a steep canyon?” Craig, who grew up in northwestern Nevada, says ONDA connects him with places he loves and a mission he believes in. “My grandfather and his father put up wire fences for their ranching needs. Taking out barbed wire sort of completes a circle for me.”

Greater sage-grouse

Shannon Phifer

Pronghorn

Devlin Holloway

Pygmy rabbit

John Marshall

Sagebrush lizard

Ben Lowe

Loggerhead shrike

Richard Eltrich

Eastern Oregon’s lakes, rivers, and streams attract tens of thousands of birds on their seasonal migrations, including sandhill crane, Wilson’s phalarope, eared grebe and tundra swan, while native fish, such as Chinook salmon, steelhead, and redband and bull trout flourish in Oregon’s desert rivers. Lake Abert — the Pacific Northwest’s only hypersaline lake —provides irreplaceable habitat to hundreds of thousands of migrating waterbirds annually along the Pacific Flyway, Malheur National Wildlife Refuge hosts hundreds of wildlife species, and the federally-threatened Lahontan cutthroat trout seek refuge in McDermitt Creek in the Trout Creek Mountains.

Greater sandhill crane

Tom Koerner

Wilson's phalarope

Nick Thompson

Eared grebe

Mathijs van Lisdonk

Redband trout

Fish Eye Guy Photography

Bull trout

Joel Sartore/Wade Fredenberg

These fragile desert lands and rivers are threatened by changes in climate, improper livestock grazing, off-road vehicle use, mining, and road building. Loss of habitat and other human activities have pushed many of these desert species toward extinction.

Both the federal government and the state of Oregon are in the midst of expansive new planning processes to identify key wildlife habitats and migration corridors and preserve sagebrush steppe in the face of climate change and other threats. The next two years will offer an unprecedented opportunity to ensure a future for these magnificent fish, wildlife and plants and the habitats they need in Oregon’s outback. Throughout these processes ONDA will advocate for wildlife protections along with improved land management, preservation of wilderness, provision of recreational opportunities and other values.