Juliet Grable

Restoration contractor Resource Environmental Solutions and area tribes will plant up to 19 billion native seeds as the Klamath Dams come out and reservoirs are drained.

Though tributaries like Horse Creek are far out of the spotlight, they are an integral part of the whole Klamath River ecosystem. Without these, it’s unlikely that dam removal alone will help coho and Chinook fully recover.

For four years, Jeanine Moy has led programming to restore, monitor and explore Vesper Meadow, near Ashland. One of her prime objectives has been to restore Latgawa Creek and set the table for the beaver’s return.

The order is the last major regulatory step before four dams can be decommissioned. It marks the start of the largest dam removal project in U.S. history.

The clarity of Crater Lake has remained uncompromised for decades. But other changes are afoot, many of them wrought by a warming climate. Some of these changes have profound implications for the lake’s ecology—and perhaps, for its iconic appearance.

The Southern Oregon Wildlife Crossing Coalition is attempting to create new structures and enhance existing ones so that animals can safely cross I-5 in the Siskiyou Summit region. The interstate bisects the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, which was designated for its diversity of wildlife, insects, and plant communities, representing a profound barrier to the many animals attempting to get from one part of their habitat to another.

While patrons of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival stayed away during the pandemic, others came, once the first waves of the public health crisis receded. Many were there to go mountain biking or on wine tours, or were simply passing through on their way to somewhere else.

The marsh is part of an innovative restoration project at Lakeside Farms. It’s a hopeful demonstration of cooperation in a region that has seen bitter fights between tribes, farmers, and wildlife advocates over who gets scarce water.

The project is being funded in part by a state initiative aimed at helping communities recover from the Labor Day fires of 2020. It’s also an experiment aimed at tackling multiple issues at once: rising material costs, a severe shortage of construction labor, and an urgent need for housing for working families and fire victims.

It’s Friday night in downtown Ashland. There’s a slight scrim of haze from wildfires to the east and west, but compared to the last few years, the skies are blessedly clear.

Black-tailed deer are becoming an increasingly common sight in Southern Oregon towns. Residents there are split over whether more hunting is the right option to control the growing population.