Beaver State Podcast

Luke Ovgard grew up fishing around Klamath Lake, but his fishing interests quickly outgrew even the legendary Klamath Lake redband trout that prowl the region. Luke's passion for fishing didn't necessarily mean catching bigger and bigger fish, in fact, it meant catching all kinds of fish, preferably anything that swims. Using techniques like micro fishing, Ovgard's passion for catching as many spe...

Hunting and fishing as a group activity might not be everyone's first thought as a place to start, but for many people, especially the growing numbers of women who are participating in hunting and fishing, Facebook groups, meetup apps and community education events have offered an opportunity to do something that can be challenging to learn on your own. For this podcast episode, we talked to Haile...

Oregon is not made up of just Douglas fir and Ponderosa pines, even though these are two of the most prevalent trees on their respective sides of the state. Portland-based arbocultural educator Casey Clapp talks to us about trees as habitat, their historical significance on the landscape before settlers showed up and what might happen as our changing climate continues.  Show Notes:   Book recommen...

The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife's Recruitment, Retention and Reactivation Coordinator Antonio Salgado works with many different community groups teach hunting, fishing and outdoor recreation classes in Spanish. But often works most closely with Oregon-based Hunters of Color, a group whose goal is: Fostering a more equitable and inclusive community for hunters. This partnership has alrea...

Every year in late summer and early fall, ODFW receives dozens of messages about miniature Great white sharks washing up on Oregon beaches. Turns out these are juvenile Salmon sharks, a relative of white sharks but not the same thing. To find out more about Salmon sharks and why they might be washing up on our shores, we talked to ODFW's Lynn Mattes and the Big Fish Lab's Dr. Alexandra McInturf ab...

The needs of humans and the needs of the wildlife that surround us are intensifying. Habitat loss and fragmentation due to human development keep wildlife from finding food, water and shelter. These factors also make adhering to daily, seasonal and life history needs extra challenging and inhibit migratory movements, like moving to and from foraging areas and breeding sites. Dr. Rachel Wheat has b...

Dr. Kaeli Swift is a researcher and renowned science communicator who loves to unwrap the fascinating world of Corvids for her followers on social media. We caught up with Dr. Swift in Seattle before she left for a new research project she's conducting on the island of Tinian. Dr. Swift talked to us about crows and ravens, their biology, behavior and intelligence in this episode of the Beaver Stat...

We go bay clamming with Shellfish Program Leader Mitch Vance during a minus-2 tide at Yaquina Bay to illustrate how many different types of clams you can find as well as some of the barriers to entry and challenges to be prepared for. We also talk about how you don't need a minus-2 tide to find bay clams, in fact, you can find them year-round during almost any low tide if you know where to go. Thi...

In this second installment of the Beaver State Podcast Book Club, we convened at the ODFW office in Clackamas to meet with Northwest District Watershed Manager Steve Niemela, District Biologist Dave Keiter and District Public Information Officer Beth Quillian too discuss author Mary Roach's book "Fuzz." This book takes an often humorous look at human/wildlife conflict around the world and compares...

You know when the salmon and steelhead runs just aren't living up to expectations and someone tells you it's because of ocean conditions? Pretty frustrating, right? The National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration's Dr. Laurie Weitkamp recently conducted a five-week study of the North Pacific to look at all kind of factors from food to water temperature and everything in between to try to get at...

Children's author and illustrator Katherine Roy has tackled topics like sharks and elephants in books but more recently she has turned her brushes and words loose on the topic of reproduction in her latest book, "Making More - How Life Begins." We talked to Katherine for this episode about how a project like that comes together and what makes for effective science communication in elements like ar...

Oregon was one of the first places in the world to observe the direct impacts of ocean acidification when the oyster hatchery production collapsed in 2007. Dr. Caren Braby, former Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife Marine Resources Program Manager and Laura Anderson, former ODFW Commissioner and founder of Local Ocean Seafoods in Newport, talk us through the history, science and ongoing effort...

We read Kirk Wallace Johnson's "The Feather Thief" for this inaugural episode of the Beaver State Podcast Book Club, and we really enjoyed it. It's a fantastic crime story, a first-rate science explainer about the Age of Exploitation and peek behind the curtains of a small group of fly tyers who collect exceedingly rare feathers. This first Book Club podcast episode features fly fishing author and...

Trumpeter swans may be recognizable by their loud, old-car-horn honking calls, but Oregon's largest waterfowl species is still considered cryptic, because they tend to hang out around another large, white swan called Tundra swans. This makes counting Oregon's Trumpeter swans challenging. To add to the challenges, you have Trumpeter swans that use the Pacific Flyway part of Western Oregon and a uni...

Dishaun and Caleb Berry are your typical father and son anglers who love to spend a day fishing together. But they grew up in very different eras. Dishaun, who founded Get Hooked LLC , a project that teaches at-risk and inner city youth how to fish and enjoy the outdoors, started out fishing piers in Santa Monica as a kid before moving to Oregon at a time when he did not see many other Black men o...

Welcome to the 4 th season of the Beaver State Podcast! In this episode, Tim and Nicole talk about Conservation Leaders for Tomorrow, a program that provides natural resource professionals training in the diverse values and important roles of hunting and its impact on conservation. Tim went through the program in 2015, and Nicole completed the training this year. In addition to completing a Hunter...

So, how does this book club work? We'll be reading four books a year, or one book each quarter to be discussed in a podcast episode during that quarter. We'll have guests that relate to the topics in the book as well as a special representative of the podcast audience to join us to discuss the book. The first book for the first quarter of 2023 will be "The Feather Thief," by Kirk Wallace Johnson....

In this last episode of Season 3 of the Beaver State Podcast, we delve into the stories of Oregon's native minnows, especially the Oregon chub, arguably one of the most famous fish in the world as the first fish ever delisted from the federal Endangered Species List. We also touch on the more-recently delisted Borax Lake chub and some of the joys and challenges of working with these super-importan...

The Salmon Trout Enhancement Program, or S.T.E.P, has been around since the early 1980s, an effort by the Oregon State Legislature to put Oregonians more closely in touch with the management of natural resources, chiefly by way of allowing volunteers to help raise more fish. Like many programs, S.T.E.P has evolved over the years and now includes a strong educational component that brings salmon an...

Sauvie Island may be the undisputed heavyweight of Oregon waterfowl hunting locations, but it isn't the only sweet spot in the state. Summer Lake, Klamath, the high desert, the Columbia and Willamette rivers and coastal estuaries all offer excellent waterfowl hunting opportunities if you're up for an adventure. ODFW's migratory gamebird coordinator Brandon Reishus takes us on a tour of Oregon's be...

Jaklyn Larsen doesn't like the term "social media influencer," but when a crow decided to befriend her, she documented it on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok, making Clumsy famous and giving us a peek inside that strange and fantastic two-way relationship that some corvids have with humans. In this episode, we talked to Jaklyn about her creative endeavors, many of which involve plant and wildlife pho...

Brandon Harper and Justin Stubbs are U.S. Marines. They're veterans who've decided to work in the world of hunting and fishing education at ODFW, which has put them in a unique position to help other Oregon veterans who don't have a lot of resources available to them due to the lack of military installations in Oregon. By working with groups like Project Healing Waters, Wounded Warrior Project, Wa...

Mike Harrington is the newest Fish Chief, or Fish Division Administrator. He's the person who heads up ODFW's Fish side of the house, as opposed to the wildlife side of the house. His path to becoming Fish Chief has taken him all over the country and the state of Oregon, giving him a diverse background, but always keeping him grounded in his love of fish, fishing and passing that on to his kids. W...

Conservation is our overarching goal at ODFW, but getting folks out to interact with the state's fish and wildlife is also an important part of what we do. That might be through hunting, fishing or wildlife viewing. Underlying all of those things is the notion that being out in nature is just really good for our brains and bodies. We wanted to know the backstory about the great outdoors and why ou...

Tim Akimoff and Beth Quillian teamed up with Ashley Sanchez and Aaron Keller, hosts of The Nevada Wild Podcast at the 6th Annual Human-Bear Conflict Workshop in South Lake Tahoe, Nevada. We take you on a journey around North America to look at solutions to human-caused problems for bears in places like Arviat in Nunavut where the mayor, Joe Savikataaq Jr., talks about efforts to reduce polar bear...