If you’ve got a good thing, why not make it better by making it bigger, especially if it improves public access.
In northeast Oregon, you’ll find the sprawling Minam River watershed.
Its timbered draws and open bunchgrass meadows supply critical migration and winter range for elk, mule deer and other wildlife. And its waters are among the most ecologically important in the state for bull and steelhead trout, salmon and Pacific lamprey.
In 2021, the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation worked with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and Manulife Investment Management Timber and Agriculture to cap a multi-decade effort by conserving and opening public access to more than 4,600 acres of wildlife habitat, which became the Minam River Wildlife Area.
Two years later, the partners added nearly 11,000 more acres to it. And in 2024, it grew by another one thousand acres.
Now, the 16,646-acre Minam River Wildlife Area is one of the largest wildlife areas in Oregon.
It links together the Eagle Cap Wilderness, Minam State Recreation Area and nearby U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management lands creating a swath of public land larger than Yellowstone National Park – all open to hunting, fishing, hiking and other recreational activities.
Since 1984 RMEF has opened or improved public access to more than 1.6 million acres.
To view the sites and boundaries of RMEF land conservation and access projects, turn on the RMEF layer and use the code RMEF when you sign up for your onX subscription to receive a 20% discount.