All spring and summer, until the smoke descended, Tony and I marveled at the ever blue skies here in Southern Oregon. Clouds were rare. Late fall and early winter have changed the script. Every day, now, clouds decorate the sky. “Valley fog” early in the morning lifts to reveal the mountains, still wearing a mantle of clouds. Soon the sun …

 

ASHLAND HAS A WILDLIFE PROBLEM.

When I was in New England a month ago, my phone kept buzzing with “cougar alerts” from the City of Ashland. Earlier in the summer, a mother bear and her two cubs had greeted visitors at the entrance to the famed Lithia Park, setting off glee and panic. The other day, as Tony and I drove to our morning rendezvous with Starbucks, four deer ambled across a downtown crosswalk, against the light.

What’s going on?

Folks who lived in Ashland in the 80s and 90s don’t recall so much mixing of “wild” and “tame.” But it’s become a fact of life here, like the summer smoke.

Oregon wildlife laws are clear: resident wildlife have rights. “After all, they were here first,” says Jim in a post on our neighborhood listserv. The regulations are more specific. When it comes to cougars (a.k.a. mountain lions), for example, they are free to roam and hunt at night, even in populated areas. There must be multiple sightings during daylight hours for it to be considered a threat to human safety.

Thus a 2 a.m. photo of a cougar consuming a deer carcass near a town elementary school—only a few blocks from our house—caused only a modest stir. The school’s principal said she didn’t worry about night time sightings. What if it were daytime?  “I’d stay inside…I think that would have a distinct effect,” she told a local reporter.

A morning stroll by a cougar on the downtown Southern Oregon University (SOU) campus raised more concern. An impromptu meeting between university personnel, the city, ODFW and a federal trapper resulted in a decision to shoot the cougar. By the time the police received the go ahead and secured a clear shot, though, the cougar had moved on.

This November, the Ashland Police Department launched a new wildlife tracking system, showing confirmed cougar and bear sightings, along with deer carcasses left by large predators. Citizens were invited to go into the system and enter sightings, including what the animal was doing, its reaction when it saw you, and whether the animal appeared aggressive.

Embedded in the tracking system was a realization: an adenovirus had been felling the weakest of the Ashland deer herd, luring cougars to town for an easy dinner.

What’s up with the bears?

Common wisdom is that the bears come to town for edible garbage, leftovers from bird feeders, and house explorations.

In May, an Ashland man came home and found a black bear foraging inside his kitchen. It had broken through a screen in the window, but willingly exited through the front door. A few days later, another Ashland resident woke to find a mama bear and three cubs in his garage. One cub managed to gain entry to an adjacent laundry room, where it gobbled cat food. The family captured the invasion on video. In June, a local woman spotted a bear cub in her garden the day after it was caught dipping its feet in her swimming pool. She chased it away using a bear whistle and a boat horn.

More disconcerting, a young mother described on the neighborhood listserv how she’d been awakened in the middle of the night by a large bear killing a small deer in her front yard. “I have a 3 1/2yr old—not much bigger than this baby—and granted my child is always long asleep during bear visiting hours, the bears are going to consume whatever creatures they can,” she wrote.

“If anyone KNOWS a biologist or wildlife rehabilitator or even a zoologist, please rally their assistance in what we can do to keep the bears away from our street,” she continued. “I want no human killing of the bears—I seek a humane solution.”

And then, well, there’s the deer. Ashland became a sanctuary for deer long before it offered protection to undocumented immigrants. For years, deer have walked the town’s sidewalks and streets, lounging on front lawns and enjoying the flowers and vegetables. When I first arrived and wanted to add to the inviting garden that came with our house, I searched for “deer resistant” plants. The nursery person warned that, here, few plants were truly deer resistant. She was right.

Over the years, the “town deer herd” has grown exponentially, drawn by a never-ending food supply and the kindness of two-footed strangers. No doubt, the encroachment of housing into the nearby forests and the loss of forage to drought push the deer out of the wild as much as the town pulls them in.

In 2015, Ashland‘s mayor hosted a standing-room only televised town hall, a “Deer Summit,” to address “aggressive deer and what can be done about it.” Deer had stalked the mayor, chased a family down the sidewalk, and even stampeded a senior citizen in her carport. (“It leapt and knocked me over,” she testified at the deer summit. “I had one hoof on my foot and one on my thigh. If it would’ve been my heart, or my guts, as I say, I wouldn’t be sitting here now.”)

Generations of deer had roamed Ashland’s streets, summit participants acknowledged.  What had changed, they agreed, was that the deer had lost their fear of humans. The deer had turned the town’s generosity—handouts of edibles and laissez-faire attitudes—to their advantage.

“When deer don’t fear people, they come closer and don’t look at them as a threat and flee,” local wildlife biologist Mark Vargas explained. Instead of turning tail, a doe with fawns may go on the attack. In the breeding season, a family pet on a leash may unnerve an ornery buck.

Solutions aren’t simple, a report from the Oregonian noted. Birth control would be “absolutely impossible in a community like Ashland,” biologist Vargas explained. And a cull would require killing 40 to 60 deer a year, something that’s unlikely to gain political support from Ashland leaders or bureaucratic approval from the state.

“Are you serious?” said Stromberg, the mayor, when asked about an organized kill. “Have you ever been to Ashland?”

City officials did give residents permission to install 8-foot-high deer fences, and they reaffirmed a $475 fine for anyone who feeds deer. (No fines to date, though—just warnings.)

State biologist Mark Vargas had the last word, advising Ashland residents to toughen up around deer. (Note: An average of 55 deer a year are killed by motorists in Ashland.)

“Don’t befriend them,” he said. “Don’t let them know you’re a nice guy.”

The deer in our backyard, happily, have been courteous to a fault, except for the garden forays. They tolerate our cats and vice versa. Are we nice guys?

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I HAVE ALWAYS VOTED  straight Democratic, starting with George McGovern in the 1972 Presidential Election. Living in Rhode Island, which the Democratic Party has dominated since the Great Depression, I didn’t give it a lot of thought, though I often wrestled out loud over presidential primary candidates. State ballot measures almost always concerned bonds, which I invariably approved; Rhode Island does not allow the initiative and referendum process that, for better or worse, channels grassroots democracy in other states.

In Southern Oregon—I quickly learned when I saw campaign signs decorating front lawns six months ahead of the November elections—politics are lively, if not inescapable. Passions run deep, from the governorship and gun control down to races for municipal court judge and county sheriff.  I figured I needed a crash course on Oregon’s political landscape before the 2018 midterms, and in the two weeks since the election, I’ve been parsing the results.

Putting on a journalist’s hat, here’s what I learned, including the importance of digging into the divisions that mark most elections.

 

“THERE WILL BE NO OFFICIAL CARAVAN of goblins, ghouls and every other costume imaginable this Halloween in Ashland,” the local Mail Tribune announced in September 2011, under the headline, “Ashland cancels popular Halloween parade.” For years, the city’s annual parade had drawn thousands of onlookers.

According to the parade’s sponsor, The Ashland Chamber of Commerce, rowdy adult participants caused the cancellation. “The type of feedback that the Chamber of Commerce was getting from parents was that their kids weren’t having any fun in the parade … that children felt intimidated,” explained the Chamber’s marketing director.

Although the parade rules were clear—participants’ costumes could not include any nudity, profanity, lewdness, illegal drugs, violence, obscenity, racism or offensive content—too many of the costumes were not “appropriate for a family audience,” the Chamber said.

“Our only true intention is to provide kids in Ashland with the best Halloween experience possible” the marketing director told the Mail Tribune.

A week later, the Chamber announced it would reinstate the parade after being bombarded with letters and phone calls from sad or angry parents and children.

“We were surprised to find out how many people loved the parade, especially how many children loved it,” the Chamber’s Executive director said. “It was so great to see the community respond like it did.”

This year’s Halloween parade unfolded on a drizzly Thursday afternoon. “Don’t miss it!” my new friends here in Ashland told me. I didn’t.

The moment I reached the parade’s gathering spot, two huge inflatable dinosaurs approached me on their hind legs and offered me candy corn. Across the street, a seven-foot tall Count Dracula stood motionless; on close examination, I thought I saw him breathe. A cabal of chatting witches nearby asked, “What’s the scariest thing in the world?” Given the crowd, you may have guessed the answer: “Donald Trump!”

A dog dressed as a pirate got tangled in a stroller ferrying a princess. (Reportedly, 30 million Americans spent an estimated $480 million on Halloween costumes for their pets in 2018, with the pumpkin, the hot dog, and the bumble bee top picks.)

As the parade through Ashland’s downtown wound to a close, a five-ish-year-old boy wearing a stegosaurus on his bottom half waddled by.

“That’s the parade, Tonto,” he said.

 

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WILLOWS ARE SHORT-LIVED TREES. From my desk, I see a large redwood tree, 25 feet from our house, that may live 2,000 years (barring the end of the planet). The tall birch tree, whose white trunks fill our living room window, may last well into the 22nd century, unless it succumbs to the bronze birch borer. Willow trees, on average, live …

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