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Southwest Washington Wildlife Reports
Brian Calkins, Acting Wildlife Program Manager

July 24, 2006

Game Management Division

Band-tailed pigeons at the Upper Kalama site.

Band-Tailed Pigeon Surveys: Surveys of band-tailed pigeon arriving at mineral sites have recently been completed in Region 5. Band-tails use mineral sites extensively during the summer months. Long-term trends in the use of such sites serves as an indicator of overall population. The survey protocol for band-tail mineral sites prescribes a single visit to each location during the period encompassing July 10-20. Surveyors count all arriving and departing pigeons beginning 30 minutes prior to sunrise and concluding at noon.

Biologist Holman conducted band-tailed pigeon mineral site surveys at the Cedar Creek and Upper Kalama mineral sites. A total of 228 pigeons arrived at Cedar Creek, while 327 pigeons visited the Upper Kalama site. Biologist Anderson completed a survey of the St Martins band-tailed pigeon spring in Skamania County. This years numbers totaled 242 birds. Cedar Creek, Kalama River and St. Martins all produced survey results similar to those of past years. Biologist Miller and WDFW volunteer Jarvis completed the mineral site survey at the Altoona site. This site has apparently become less valuable to the birds over time and just 5 band-tails were documented during the effort. Biologist Woodin conducted the mineral site survey at the Newaukum River site. The results of Woodin's survey are pending but the use of this site has been highly variable in past years, with as few as 200 and as many as 600 of the birds using the site. Please see the attached photos of band-tailed pigeons utilizing the Upper Kalama River mineral site.

Mt. St. Helens Elk Herd and Wildlife Area Plan Open House: The third and final open house event to review the Mt. St. Helens Elk Herd and Wildlife Area Plans was held on July 18th at the Red Lion Hotel in Seattle (Sea-Tac). The meeting was moderately well attended with approximately 24 members of the public on hand to discuss the issues. Acting Regional Wildlife Program Manager Calkins gave an introduction to the attendees, explaining the issues at hand, materials available for review and introducing biological Staff present at the meeting. Manager Calkins, District Wildlife Biologists Anderson, Miller and Davison along with Field Biologists Woodin and Holman represented WDFW at the gathering.

In general, this was the best attended and most productive of the three public meetings held to discuss these Management Plans. Plenty of good input was gathered from the group and the meeting was seen as positive and productive by both the attendees and WDFW. Public comments related to the Plans will be synthesized and the goal is to finalize each Plan prior to the end of 2006.