[ODFW-News] Western Oregon landowners win awards

[ODFW News]

Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife 	
Contact: 	Jon Germond (503) 947-6088	
Internet: www.dfw.state.or.us  Fax: (503) 947-6070
	
For Immediate Release	March 17, 2003
Area Landowners Awarded for Efforts to Improve Fish and Wildlife
Habitat

SALEM - The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission recently honored two
northwest Oregon companies with a Fish and Wildlife Steward Award for
Forest Lands. Mark and Jolly Krautmann of Heritage Seedlings, Inc. in
Salem and Gerald Palmer of Simpson Resource Company in Tillamook were
recognized for their work to improve habitat for fish and wildlife on
their land

The Fish and Wildlife Steward Award is a cooperative program between
the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) and Oregon Department
of Forestry (ODF) to recognize landowners who are implementing the
Oregon Plan for Salmon and Watersheds through their stewardship
activities. Awards are given out yearly at either Commission or Board of
Forestry meetings and recipients also are acknowledged at a ceremony
with the Governor.

The Krautmann's were recognized for stewardship activities on 54 acres
on two of their four farms in Marion County. With help from their
restoration ecologist, Lynda Boyer, the Krautmann's restored 14 acres of
native riparian habitat along Stout Creek, a tributary of the North
Santiam River that supports spring chinook salmon, winter steelhead, and
cutthroat trout. They also removed invasive brush, reed canary grass,
and non-native blackberries, and replanted the area with 4,000 trees and
shrubs, as well as sedges and rushes. 

-MORE-

Forest Steward Awards, Continued
At their Joseph Street farm just east of Salem, the couple removed
conifers that were over-topping Oregon white oaks, opening up dense tree
stands to form a savanna, and restored native prairie on about 40 acres.
The opened stands provide forage for deer, non-game birds, and mammals.
The Krautmanns plan to restore another 100 acres of oak savanna and
upland and wet prairie habitat on their two other farms over the next
few years.

Mr. Krautmann, who currently is the president of the Oregon Association
of Nurserymen, promotes a philosophy of commercial operation beneficial
to fish and wildlife habitat and believes the nursery industry is
uniquely geared to play a substantial role in the restoration and
recovery of native habitats and plant species. The couple currently has
seven acres of native upland seed in production that will help them
implement these kinds of large-scale restoration projects, and make seed
available for others doing similar work.

The Simpson Resource Company, under the direction of Gerald Palmer, has
been instrumental in improving habitat for fish and wildlife on their
forestlands in northwest Oregon. Mr. Palmer has led the company's effort
to retain green trees and snags along both fish bearing and non-fish
bearing streams in excess of the numbers per acre and basal area
required by the Forest Practices Act. They voluntarily clumped and
retained large trees to protect sensitive bird nesting sites and removed
old stream crossing structures and restored fish passage at impassable
road crossing structures to ensure adequate fish passage. 

Simpson Resource Company, along with many other industrial forest
landowners in Oregon, has implemented a voluntary program to identify
roads on their lands that pose a risk of contributing sediment to
Oregon's waterways, and aggressively taken action to address those
risks. They installed many additional cross-drainage road culverts and
applied durable rock surfacing to haul roads that may be used during wet
periods.

The company has also been an active participant in the North Coast
Salmonid Habitat Restoration Project created in 1995 to restore
in-stream habitat. The project is a cooperative group of industrial
forestland owners, the Oregon Wildlife Heritage Foundation, ODF and
ODFW. In addition, the company has been an active participant in several
monitoring studies conducted by ODF, and they allow hunters access to
most of their lands during hunting seasons.
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Information and Education Division
Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife
(503) 947-6002