Refuge staff assess toll of January flood

January’s flood event was the second time in two years the Julia Butler Hansen Wildlife Refuge for the Columbian White Tailed Deer experienced a major flood event and the third since 1996.

The high waters hit during the middle of the day, so many of the deer were observed leaving the refuge, said Refuge Manager Joel David. Many of the animals fled across the highway to higher land.

In February, refuge personnel surveyed the deer population using an aerial Forward Looking Infrared Camera (FLIR). The camera will pick up anything omitting heat.

Conducted by helicopter, it is a more accurate way of counting the deer, David said. The use of the helicopter is expensive, so FLIR surveys aren’t done as often as ground surveys, which are done annually.

David said that before the floods, there were an estimated 80 deer on the mainland refuge. Immediately after, the staff estimated 25 deer had left the refuge, and some of these returned later.

The population on Tenasillahe Island, which is part of the refuge in Oregon, is doing fine because the majority of the flooding occurred on the mainland because of the overflowing Elochoman River.

Flooding forced closure of SR4, and motorists began using Steamboat Slough Road. This created a stressful situation for the deer trying to find high ground on the dike.

“The only place they had to go, basically, was along the roadways,” said Biologist Paul Meyers. There was a lot of traffic and a lot of deer running back and forth. Meyers said he doesn’t believe any of the animals were lost due to the traffic detour; however, a few were killed in their attempts to return.

Other refuge residents didn’t seem to mind the rising waters. About 25 elk inhabit the refuge and when the waters came up, they were seen wading through the chest deep waters. “They just stood there all day,” Meyers said. At night, they would come onto the road to get dry. “Yeah, they’re tough!”

The refuge office itself didn’t sustain a lot of damage. The storage garage needed to be cleaned of mud and muck from nearly a foot of water, and the insulation in the main office needed to be replaced. Other than debris that floated in, there was minimal damage to the office building. The water took about a week to recede.

The good news, David said, is that the Army Corps of Engineers will be installing new tide gates this summer. The gates are hydraulically driven and will be added to some of the sloughs that don’t have them. If there is another flood, the water will go down a lot quicker, he added.

People driving through the refuge may notice blue tubes encasing the trunks of trees on the refuge. Over the next three years, 180,000 trees will be planted on roughly 200 acres of refuge grounds.

The blue tubes are placed to protect the trunks and roots from predators such as mice and voles. Sixty thousand trees will be planted this spring. The blue tubes are not permanent and will be removed in the next five to six years.