Chinook salmon making their way back up the McKenzie River have found more places to lay their eggs thanks to years of work restoring floodplains throughout the watershed.
Each fall, partners work together across our region to include controlled ecological burning in areas where habitat restoration has been completed or is underway. Ecological burning in natural areas benefits native prairie, savanna, and oak woodland habitats while also reducing the potential for severe, high-intensity wildfires by removing built up fuels including dense shrubs and thatch.
Three years after the Holiday Farm fire burned more than 173,000 acres in the McKenzie River valley, partners are celebrating the completion of floodplain restoration work at Finn Rock Reach. Beginning in the summer of 2021, restoration activities have included reshaping nearly 90 acres of floodplain forest and returning the area back to aquatic habitat along the Middle McKenzie River.
A decade after McKenzie River Trust, purchased 217-acre Waite Ranch in the Siuslaw Estuary, partners are breaking ground on a large-scale restoration project. Led by the Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw Indians (CTCLUSI), the project will improve salmon and shorebird habitat, contribute to regional climate resilience, and provide a place for local Tribal citizens and families to celebrate and promote Indigenous culture on their ancestral lands.
Two and a half years after the Holiday Farm fire burned more than 173,000 acres in the McKenzie River valley, partners are breaking ground on the second and final phase of floodplain restoration work at Finn Rock Reach, a 278-acre conservation area owned by McKenzie River Trust.
In March of 2023, the Estergard family donated 85 of their original 300 acres of farmland on the North Fork of the Siuslaw River to McKenzie River Trust. The site, located a few miles upstream from the confluence with the mainstem Siuslaw River, provides important habitat for native species including Coho Salmon, lamprey, and waterfowl.
Our Winter Writers Series (2022-23) weaves stories of connection between people and place. From old log ponds and logging camps to kitchen windows that reveal a nation’s painful past, we are met with loss, connection, hope, and humor.
After a decade of habitat restoration and successful reconnection of the river to its historic floodplain, The Nature Conservancy has completed the transfer of the Willamette Confluence Preserve, a 1,305-acre natural area, to a local conservation organization, McKenzie River Trust.
From frogs to fish, beavers, and otters, our rivers are home to an incredible abundance of animals. Reconnecting our rivers to allow for water to slow and spread not only improves water quality and retention on the landscape but also provides important habitat for the beloved animals around us.
Working in collaboration with our partners, McKenzie River Trust protected Cape Foulweather in August 2022 as an interim landowner. We’ll hold the property until it can be transferred to the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians in the coming years.
McKenzie River Trust is collecting love letters to the lands and rivers of Oregon. We invite you to join us in reflection and appreciation of all our natural world provides. From the mountains and coastlines, rivers and swamps, lands far away, and birds in the backyard, join us in honoring all that our natural world provides.
In hopes of saving a species, Dr. Sarah Rockwell, a Research Biologist with the Klamath Bird Observatory, is set on finding out where west coast populations of Purple Martins overwinter.