Unwelcome at the Malheur Visitor’s Centre

Supposedly Oregon’s Malheur River was so named in about 1825 because during a Hudson’s Bay Company expedition, a cache of hidden furs had been stolen. A “malheur” in French is a hardship, disaster, or ordeal. I haven’t yet found the proof, but my alternative theory is that the first French-Canadian to “discover” this area, so named it because of the calamitous clouds of mosquitos they had to endure. That was not to be the last Malheur ordeal.

I was a bit surprised in July 2019 to find these abundant mosquitos in the middle of the arid sagebrush steppes of the Snake-Columbia Shrub Steppe Ecoregion (NA1309). I was though visiting the very special Malheur National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) – a huge area of lakes and wetlands in southeast Oregon. The NWR was established in 1908 by President Theodore Roosevelt, now 760 km² in area. It is one of the most important migration stop-overs in the Pacific Flyway. Hundreds of thousands of geese and ducks stop by to feed and fatten up during migration and tens of thousands of pelicans, egrets, ducks, grebes, and many other birds breed in the summer.

I have written previously in several blogs about conservation depending on balancing ecological needs and local development concerns. This has been particularly difficult in the Malheur area where cattle have been part of the economic landscape since the 1800s, well before the refuge was created, but where the incredible ecological value of Lake Malheur and associated wetlands makes it imperative to set aside land (and water) for conservation. Having just read some local histories of the area (Edge of Awe: experiences of the Malheur-Steens Country, Editor Alan L. Contreras, 2019), it is clear that the back-and-forth between these competing interests has been going on for the entire last century.

Nobody would argue that the Malheur NWR is currently in a completely natural state, but it does exist, albeit managed, and continues to be of sufficient habitat quality that the waterfowl are still stopping and surviving. Cattle continue to be raised in parts of the reserve and a reasonably fair balance has evolved. A new refuge management plan was carefully consulted and drafted from 2008 to 2013 and it has been widely accepted and praised by agricultural and cattle interests and by the conservation community.

But the going has not been easy. Local cattle farmers, the Hammonds, disputing grazing restrictions on NWR lands, were convicted in 2012 of arson on federal lands, dating back to events that took place in previous decades. They were sentenced to five years in jail. They certainly had a lot of local support but, taking into account the new management plan now in force, I hazard to guess that most local residents are grudgingly satisfied with a new status quo that reflects their economic needs, protects the refuge which they are also surely proud of, and would also be supportive of justice having been served to the Hammonds. The Hammonds did serve parts of their sentences in prison until they were pardoned by President Trump on July 10, 2018.

The situation deteriorated dramatically in late 2015 with the arrival of Ammon Bundy and hangers-on, and their armed invasion of the NWR. Ammon is part of the Bundy family that were involved in a famous 2014 stand-off with the federal government in Nevada. Bundy and associates are part of a loose network of radical militia groups who oppose the federal government, notably federal control over western lands, demanding their return to local control. In insisting that the land be returned to local owners, they notably don’t include in their manifestos any support for returning it to the truly original owners from whom it was stolen – the Paiute tribe in the case of the Malheur NWR.

To get a feel for this historic event, I stopped in at the now-peaceful visitor centre at Malheur NWR. This was the building that the dozen or so members of the Bundy gang invaded on 2 January, 2016 in their take-over of the NWR. They were claiming to be doing so in defence of the Hammonds, but the latter voluntarily reported to prison on January 4, 2016 to serve the remainder of their terms and explicitly rejected the help of the out-of-state militants. One person was shot and killed by the police during the occupation, which lasted about 40 days. The wintering birds probably didn’t really notice the invasion – maybe they appreciated the sudden absence of annoying birders! Eventually the militants surrendered; 27 were charged with various crimes and many were convicted and imprisoned. Ammon Bundy himself was released on a technicality.

This armed takeover is the only such instance of an American wildlife refuge being militarily invaded and occupied. Probably won’t be the last, but the case of Malheur NWR does show that when we take the time to talk, consult, and negotiate, while not ceding ground in critical areas for conservation, solutions can be found that don’t require violent transgressions of the law.