Where Have All the Birds Gone?

Malheur National Wildlife Refuge is located in southeast Oregon's high desert, sometimes referred to as "Oregon's Outback".  It is a sparsely populated arid steppe-- farmed and ranched only in areas were there is irrigation or available surface water.  Sagebrush stretches to the basalt rimrock on the horizon and stunted juniper trees, twisted by the persistent wind stand sentinel atop volcanic lava domes [photo, left].  A place of wild horses and abandoned homesteads, a visitor can easily imagine the vaqueros holding hot iron while bending over calves struggling in the dust.

The Refuge was a century old in 2008.  Its predecessor, Lake Malheur Reservation, was created by President Theodore Roosevelt with public land surrounding Harney and Malheur Lakes. Malheur comes from the French "bad hour".   Early European explorers found the lakes' alkaline water unsuitable for drinking or watering stock, but it was the home of many native Americans whose record of occupation goes back thousands of years. They subsisted on the abundant wildlife, grains, and plants.  The local Paiute tribe took their name from a favorite wild tuber. In 1935 more land was purchased from a ranching empire that extended up the Donner und Blitzen River valley towards the source of water on Steen's Mountain, a tilted block of uplifted basalt. The purchase gave the Refuge its rough T shape, consisting of 187,000 acres (75,676 hectares) of which 120,000 is wetlands. The Refuge was created in response to the decimation of  birds for their feathers to be used in the ladies millinery trade at the turn of the last century. Audubon Society members in Portland publicized the destruction with photographs and lobbied vigorously to get the protection from market gunners the birds desperately needed.

Modern descriptions of Malheur inform of the thousands of migratory birds along the Pacific Flyway that stop to feed and rest.  Local residents attest that in their life time migratory waterfowl would darken the sky in flight. Those days are apparently past. Malheur still attracts birds in the thousands, however the lakes are now much smaller and the surrounding wetlands are drying out. Dead reeds form an impenetrable mat preventing birds from feeding on insects, new shoots, and aquatic life such as sago pondweed.  Part of the Donner und Blitzen River was channelized in the 1920s by the land owner to improve hay field drainage, but that modification has adversely impacted the wetlands and the aquatic habitat of the native Great Basin redband trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss newberrii).   Nothing has been done to return the river's course to a more natural meander.   Some lifetime human residents of Harney County blame the reduction in bird numbers on mismanagement of the Refuge's resources.  The geologic record shows the Harney basin has a cyclical water level.  In the past the lakes have been greatly reduced in size while in other years, notably 1980, the basin flooded with water. Water is a precious commodity in the desert.  Competition with agriculture and cattle ranching for a reliable fresh water supply is intense. Factors such as hunting and habitat loss in other parts of the birds' range are also at work reducing populations.  But April is supposed to be a prime month for viewing migrating waterfowl like the snow goose (Chen hyperborea) on their way to the arctic tundra.  Now, the snow geese and sandhill cranes (Grus canadensis) are seen outside the

Refuge boundaries resting and feeding in flooded fields near the town of Burns.  According to one Refuge worker, the geese even make use of a treated waste water holding pond behind the town drugstore.  This writer saw one flock of snow geese numbering not more than 200 huddled in the corner of a wet field. Hardly the thousands he was expecting. [photos, NFWS]

Admittedly, the runoff from Steen's has just begun in earnest due to a long, cold winter. The only part of the Refuge with abundant water is its southern end nearer Steen's.  At Benson Pond [photo, left] an idyllic riparian oasis fringed by large cottonwood trees, there was a goodvariety of ducks and a trumpeter swan (Olor buccinator).  The size of the swan compared to its entourage of pond ducks was quite impressive even at a distance.  Of the ducks the cinnamon teals and the black and white buffleheads (Bucephala albeola) were considered the most attractive. Coots, a marsh bird often confused with the only black adult duck in America, the common scoter, were numerous as were Canadian geese (Branta canadensis moffitti).  Yet for a large, protected and supposedly managed ecosystem the populations of wildlife seemed strangely depleted.