Tens of thousands of years ago, Lake Malheur covered 900 square miles of eastern Oregon and vicinity.
These days, a shrunken but still substantial chain of lakes cradle the 187,000 acre Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. It provides an important resting spots on the Pacific Flyway for migratory birds in North America.
In 1908, Teddy Roosevelt issued an Executive Order that all the unclaimed government lands encompassed by Malheur and two other lakes would become a preserve and breeding ground for native birds.
Three-hundred twenty species of birds and 58 mammal species find solace in the Refuge. The unique Redband Trout also frolics in Lake Malheur.
The Refuge features both a salt sea and massive freshwater marshes in its closed drainage depression.
The Refuge borders some of the roughest and most beautiful terrain in Oregon and the scenery is in the semi-finals for prettiest in the USA. The immediate vicinity is generally high plains and rolling hills but Steen and Harney Mountains reach into the sky, to the south.
I’ve been near there years ago, when some anti-gold mining activists and I spied on a geothermal pumping station in the nearby uplands. We were looking for discarded toxic wastes and almost stepped on a rattler.
The high desert has a spare beauty with its small wildflowers and endless views.
We all know that scores of armed men have seized a closed building at the Refuge. “Misled” doesn’t do their cause justice. I don’t pray much but I’ll pray that needless violence will not taint this wonderful place, our government lands, that nurture endangered wildlife.
My source materials include Wiki and the Refuge’s web site.