Sad day in Oregon , 41 Elk Die

Little Big Man MT Chris

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A report from an area near Richland Or , said a herd of elk crossing the Brownlee Resivor Tuesday morning near the powder river arm , which is the area where the Elk cross annually, this year for some reason , the ice didn't hold and a whole herd went through the ice , 45 elk in all, ODFW tried to get to the elk to attempt resucue and then to try to salvage any meat , both attempts where unsuccessful, it's reported 4 elk made it out alive . Hate to see that many animals go at one time , even though it happens from time to time in different states for different reasons , it's still a hard one to takek
 
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They crossed the Powder Arm between Holcomb Park and the mouth of the Powder. It's an area we call the Flats. On the south side is Idaho Power's Daly Creek Ranch. They bought that ranch 8 or 9 years ago as mitigation for taking wildlife habitat away when they began filling Brownlee Dam in 1958. They run a few youth hunts there but their purpose for buying the ranch as I understood it during their re-licensing was to restore habitat and provide wintering feed for wildlife. I can't remember the exact number but of the crops they grow around 80% was to be left for wildlife. With the light hunting pressure the elk keg up there. I've heard there may be as many as 300 on the ranch now. We're also having a winter like we haven't seen for over 20 years and have elk all through Eagle Valley now. This band was spending the day on Daly Creek, crossing during the evening or night over to the north side and feeding in a ranchers field then crossing back in the morning to Daly Creek when they broke through.
With this winter's snowpack that area will be bare ground in a few months when the COE starts regulating the reservoir for flood control for Portland. All 41 elk that went in were lost.
 
I remember this happening somewhere else in the last couple of years. Mother nature be pretty unforgiving some times.
 

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