Land Trust might buy Whychus Creek ranch

The Bend Bulletin covers the Land Trust's recent option to purchase Whispering Star Ranch on Whychus Creek near Sisters.

Whispering Star Ranch is located on Whychus Creek near several other protected Land Trust projects.

A 450-acre ranch with wetlands, grasslands, forests and canyons along two miles of Whychus Creek could soon be protected, as the Deschutes Land Trust now has an option to purchase the property northeast of Sisters.

The goal is to prevent the land from being developed, said Brad Nye, conservation director with the Land Trust, and to create a corridor of fish and wildlife protection along the creek.

“It’s really a spectacular property from a natural resource standpoint,” he said.

The Land Trust now has six months to put together the funding to pay for the property and establish a fund for its maintenance, which the Bend-based nonprofit estimates will cost about $3 million. The Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board has tentatively committed $1.25 million, Nye said.

The effort to turn Whispering Star Ranch into a preserve has been in the works for almost a decade, he said. The site is surrounded on several sides by Bureau of Land Management land, he said, so protecting it from development creates a larger, connected area for wildlife.

“Part of what we’re trying to do is extend the protection offered by that federal land, for deer, elk, birds (and) bats,” he said, adding that if people built homes on the site, it would make the wildlife habitat on BLM-managed lands less valuable.

“It’s very strategically located in that regard,” Nye said.

The ranch is also just downstream of the Land Trust’s Camp Polk Meadow Preserve, and upstream of the Rimrock Ranch conservation easement — so adding another piece of protected land in the middle helps create a wildlife- and fish-friendly stretch along Whychus Creek.

“We’d like to protect, as much as possible, some big pieces of that Whychus Creek corridor,” he said.

If the purchase goes through, the organization is planning to work with the Upper Deschutes Watershed Council and other partners on projects like cutting out some of the small juniper or pine trees to protect stands of bigger, older trees, he said.

The groups are also considering projects to make the creek more habitable for fish — especially with biologists working to bring back runs of chinook and steelhead to Whychus Creek.

Ryan Houston, executive director of the Upper Deschutes Watershed Council, said he and others plan to visit the site soon, to figure out what’s in good shape and what could use some work.

“We bring hydrologists and biologists and a variety of folks out there to walk that site and conduct the assessment, and make a series of recommendations,” he said.

Adding more protected areas to Whychus Creek is an exciting prospect, he said, noting that it helps link the Land Trust’s existing conservation easement at Rimrock Ranch and Camp Polk Meadow Preserve as well as Wolftree’s Discovery Outpost on the creek.

“Every mile of that creek is important,” he said. “Those steelhead that are coming up to Sisters are going to swim up every mile.”

Whispering Star Ranch was an old homestead site, Nye said, and the property contains remnants of old buildings as well as a segment of the Old Santiam Wagon Road, complete with wagon wheel ruts.

The Land Trust is considering what kind of public access to allow on the property, Nye said.

“We’d like to look at potentially establishing a hiking trail connection down to Alder Springs,” he said.

Kate Ramsayer can be reached at 541-617-7811 or kramsayer@bendbulletin.com.