AWAY TO THE idAEUR BIRD REFUGE 
 
       A radio talk by Howard Zahniser, in Charge, Section of Current and

Visual Information, Division of Public Relations, U. S. Biological Survey,

broadcast during the Conservation Day program of the National Farm and 
Home Hour, July 9, 1937. 
 
                                  --101-- 
 
       How,-do-you-do, Conservalion Day Friends: IT'S a SUITABLE day in 
Washington, hot, hot enough for any kind of excursion, away from the humid

city, but not so hot that a trip in fancy will not prove suitable, I hope.

So while I am talking with you here in the studio, my good car, Sesame V

(I say, "Open, Sesame", and away we go), with you and me and a
few others, 
too, is purring along toward the great, transcontinental Lincoln Highway,

U S. 30. Then, it's only a step (on the gas) over the wooded mountains of

the Appalachian system, across the prairies and plains, through those rock-

crested mountains of the rest, across the Continental Divide, through 
southern Idaho, into Oregon, and then--watch out for Ontario, Oreg. There

we leave the Lincoln Highway, pick up Oregon Route 7, turn left, and drive

westward to Burns. Thirty miles more to the south, and here we are--the 
Malheur ivigratory Bird. Refuge. Hello, there, you Californianst You can
get 
here more quickly than we did. Take Oregon Route 28 north from Lakeview.

Heigh, there, you folks in Oregon and Washington! Take Route 7 from Bend

and come a ways east, or pick up Route 28 in Pendleton and come south. Well,

well, we've been planning this trip to the Malheur Migratory BirdRefuge a

long time, and here we are. Have a good trip? Tired? How do you like it 
here? 
 
       This area is one of those red stars on the map that Morse Salisbury

and I were talking about last month. It is one of the 13 I"super"
refuges 
that the U. S. Biological Survey administers for the benefits of wildlife.

There are more than 165,000 acres in this sanctuary, just about in the center

of this flat area of more than 600 square miles; elevation, 4,100 to 4,200

feet. Those mountains rise 8,000 to 9,400 feet above sea level--Steens 
Mountains to the east, Hart Mountain over there on the west. Three lakes

in the refuge-- Malheur, Mud, and Harney--and two rivers--the Silvies coming

in from the north there, and the Blitzen from the south. Donner and Blitzen

is the full name. Back in the days of 1864, during the Snake War with the

Indiahs, the troops of Col. Geo. B. Currey crossed the stream during a great

thunder storm, and gave it that good old German name for thunder and lighten-

ing. The Donner and Blitzen brings the major water supply to the refuge 
during years when precipitation is low, but when therb is heavy snowfall
the 
flow from the Silvies River from the north is greater. Wfell, so much for
a 
little touch of geography. 
 
       And, do you like history? I hope you do, for this is what is called

an historic area, too. Peter Skeene Ogden, of the I{udson Bay Company, left

the first written record. Long ago, in the winter of 1826, Ogden found 
here on the sandy shores of Harney Lake a large encampment of Indians, and

the bleached bones of many buffalo. During the 1870's, after miners on their

way from California to new rich diggings in Idaho had described this well-

watered valley, these grass-covered hills, and abundant game the stockmen

came, and among them Peter French. Amidst gunfights and constant struggle,

                                    (over)