Old Rocks
Diamond Member
Wallowa county has a new addition to it's already large inventory of grand wildlife.
Wild herd of bison roams base of Wallowa Mountains in Oregon | OregonLive.com
Bison found grazing on private or public lands without grazing rights are trespassing, Huffman said. That makes for a thorny issue in this case because the herd has no owner.
Herd hasn't attracted much attention
Residents along Bear Creek Road near Wallowa say the herd occasionally descends after a heavy snowfall, paying no more attention to fences than cobwebs and showing up almost magically at dawn in somebody's pasture.
Landowners spotted one old bull that may have been ejected from the herd by a younger alpha male on a solitary walkabout last fall, heading north toward the Oregon-Washington border. He vanished into the mountains and hasn't been seen again.
But mostly, the herd hasn't attracted much attention so far. That's possibly because Wallowa County, roughly the size of Delaware and Rhode Island, has a population of only 7,150.
Another explanation could be people are already preoccupied with two packs of gray wolves, an estimated 60 immigrant moose plus uncounted cougar, bear, bald eagles and Rocky Mountain elk.
"Quite a little zoo, huh?" quipped Moholt, who predicted the bison numbers will grow. "They are successfully calving. They are breeding."
Wild herd of bison roams base of Wallowa Mountains in Oregon | OregonLive.com
Bison found grazing on private or public lands without grazing rights are trespassing, Huffman said. That makes for a thorny issue in this case because the herd has no owner.
Herd hasn't attracted much attention
Residents along Bear Creek Road near Wallowa say the herd occasionally descends after a heavy snowfall, paying no more attention to fences than cobwebs and showing up almost magically at dawn in somebody's pasture.
Landowners spotted one old bull that may have been ejected from the herd by a younger alpha male on a solitary walkabout last fall, heading north toward the Oregon-Washington border. He vanished into the mountains and hasn't been seen again.
But mostly, the herd hasn't attracted much attention so far. That's possibly because Wallowa County, roughly the size of Delaware and Rhode Island, has a population of only 7,150.
Another explanation could be people are already preoccupied with two packs of gray wolves, an estimated 60 immigrant moose plus uncounted cougar, bear, bald eagles and Rocky Mountain elk.
"Quite a little zoo, huh?" quipped Moholt, who predicted the bison numbers will grow. "They are successfully calving. They are breeding."
