Beaver State Podcast

The Oregon Department of Transportation is the largest owner of stream crossings in the state of Oregon, and much of their culvert infrastructure is in need of repair. So, ODOT and ODFW developed the Culvert Repair Programmatic Agreement to address fish passage during temporary repairs to failing culverts. So far, the project has made more than 840 miles of newly accessible habitat available to fi...

It's April Fools! The perfect time to debunk some of the misnomers and myths around fish and wildlife management. This episode looks back at some of the persistant misinformation and incorrect assumptions about ODFW and some of the more complicated natural resource issues by revisiting some of the segments from our myth-busting episodes. 

Raising kids on the outdoors takes all kinds. Roscoe Chang's approach to parenting kids in the outdoors is to make it as fun as possible. When Roscoe signed his young son, Kenji, up for an ODFW shotgun skills clinic a few years ago, he had no idea it would lead his son into competitive trap shooting, but he's happy it did, because it gave him and his son one more way to connect around their passio...

Spring means a new generation of wild animals on the landscape. With more people enjoying the great outdoors, that can mean more human/wildlife encounters. Wildlife biologist Anne Mary Myers talks about how those encounters often end badly for wild animals, especially young animals removed from the wild by well-meaning people. It's important to understand that a young animal's chances of survival...

Is data a big part of your hunting experience? If not, you may want to think about adding it to your list of digital tools before putting in for controlled hunts. In this episode, we talk to ODFW's Justin Dion, the person responsible for compiling all the hunt reports and providing all of that information back to hunters in the form of Big Game Hunting Harvest Statistics . Be sure to check out the...

Montana Pagano, a watershed restoration specialist with the Nez Percé Tribe and Kyle Bratcher, NE Oregon district fish biologist with Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife live in one of the best adventure spots in all of Oregon. The Eagle Cap Wilderness is the largest roadless area in the state, and of course their backyard is Hells Canyon. We chatted with Montana and Kyle about some safety and...

Dr. Leslie King's outdoor journey has taken her from the shores of Chesapeake Bay to Oregon's Sauvie Island. She's a medical doctor who has traveled throughout Oregon and around the world for her work. Dr. King is also an avid hunter, angler and trapper. As Black History Month winds down, Dr. King talks to us about the intersections of human health, climate change and increasing access to the outd...

Lydia Parker is the Executive Director of Hunters of Color , a non-profit dedicated to diversifying hunting, and an avid hunter, who along with co-founders Jimmy Flat and Thomas Tyner wants to spread the the joy of being People of Color outdoors through education, mentoring and advocacy. Parker talked to us about her work in starting the non-profit and about the importance of making the outdoors a...

Fly fishing for steelhead got its start in the Gold Rush days, according to author and fly fishing historian John Shewey, who walks us through the evolution from modified trout flies to today's modern steelhead flies. 

The Christmas Bird Counts around Oregon will begin soon, so we sat down with Oregon Birding Association president Sarah Swanson, who is also the author of "Must-See Birds of the Pacific Northwest," to talk about opportunities to participate in long-running community science projects like the Christmas Bird Counts. To find a Christmas Bird Count near you, please visit the Oregon Birding Association...

Generations of families saw Herman the sturgeon at the State Fairgrounds every year until the big fish retired to a tank at Bonneville Hatchery, where it remains one of the most popular tourist attractions in the state. We explore Oregon's sturgeon, their biology, range and management with ODFW Columbia River Project Manager Tucker Jones. 

ODFW along with the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation and Manulife Investment Management's timberland business (formerly Hancock Natural Resource Group) completed phase one of the Minam River Wildlife Area project adding more than 4,600 acres of public land to the state's wildlife area system. We talk to ODFW's East Region Manager Nick Myatt and Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation's Senior Conservation Prog...

Mark Penninger has been measuring animals for the record books for many years. But a set of elk antlers found by a crew of cone collectors for tree propagation and turned into ODFW, was a true jaw dropper for Penninger, who talks about how he measured the antlers for Northwest Big Game Records Inc. and how they rank as the second-largest typical Rocky Mountain elk antlers ever recorded in the stat...

ODFW's North Coast District Wildlife Biologist Paul Atwood covers the basics of Oregon's coastal Roosevelt elk. They're quite a bit different than their Cascade relatives, and hunting them in the rugged, wet Oregon Coast Range is a very different kind of adventure. 

There are two main populations of Roosevelt elk in Oregon, the coastal Roosevelt and the Cascade Roosevelt. Cascade Roosevelt elk tend to act a little more like Rocky Mountain elk due to the landscapes they inhabit. ODFW's Big Game Manger Brian Wolfer talks about the biology, life history strategy and thoughts around hunting these Roosevelt elk in the Cascade Mountains. 

ODFW's Brian Ratliff hunts Rocky Mountain Elk mainly with archery equipment but also with a rifle often while exploring Eastern Oregon by horseback. He's also been the District Wildlife Biologist for Baker for more than a decade, which gives him a lot knowledge about some of Oregon's most iconic ungulates. Part two of our three-part series on Oregon's elk focuses on hunting Rocky Mountain elk on t...

DeWaine Jackson has researched a lot of Oregon's wildlife over the course of his career with ODFW. It's a different role than that of a district wildlife biologist, but the information he provides helps everyone understand the complex population dynamics so that they can make decisions that will help protect and preserve wildlife. Elk might be the most charismatic megafauna in the state, and Jacks...

While lamprey, with their eel-like bodies and suction cup mouths full of sharp teeth and vampire-like feeding habits might seem scary, they're actually not dangerous to humans at all. In fact, they're a very important part of the ecosystems they live in. These anadromous fish provide marine-derived nutrients to the stream systems they migrate into, and the protein-dense nutrition they provided for...

Oregon has six species of geese that reside or pass through the state each winter, making the state fairly goose rich. Whether you're a birder looking to get your eyes on more than 11 different subspecies or a hunter looking for opportunities, ODFW migratory bird coordinator Brandon Reishus explains goose biology, habitat preferences, migration differences and what makes parts of Oregon so good fo...

Oregon's rivers, streams, and aquifers support a wide range of benefits for both humans and the environment—sources of water for drinking, agriculture, recreation, and essential habitat for fish and wildlife. A clean and reliable source of water is critical for meeting Oregonian's basic needs and for supporting Oregon's economy, but it all hangs under the shadow of climate change. In this episode,...

Sage grouse may be known for their elaborate courtship displays in the Sage Brush Sea of Western North America, but conserving the species has raised their profile to the national level as private land owners, public land managers and state and federal fish and wildlife agencies worked together in partnership to change the paradigm of a species in peril. In this episode, we talk to ODFW sage grous...

Mussel fatigue, it's a thing. In fact, our freshwater mussels are strained and in need of some attention. This week's Beaver State Podcast looks at Oregon's freshwater mussels through the lens of a large-scale habitat improvement project along Murderer's Creek in the John Day Basin. This creek happens to have very high mussel populations, so biologists are studying the impacts of the habitat impro...

Black-tailed deer are called Pacific ghosts for a reason. They can be amazingly elusive thanks to a highly developed sense of place. We talked to Douglas District Wildlife Biologist Tod Lum and Charleston District Wildlife Biologist Stuart Love about black-tailed deer biology, life history strategy and what it takes to pursue these amazing deer across some of the thickest, rain-saturated terrain i...

Band-tailed pigeons nearly went the way of their now-extinct cousins, passenger pigeons. But these mountain-dwelling pigeons got a reprieve from market hunting through the passage of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and have since recovered as a species. For this episode, we talked to ODFW migratory gamebird coordinator Brandon Reishus and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Pacific Flyway Representative...

The Beaver State Podcast takes you on a road trip through the Ochoco Mountains with district wildlife biologist Greg Jackle to explore the region's habitat, wildlife and recreational opportunities.