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Oregon Duck Stamp goes on sale By MARK FREEMAN A flock of pintails and a lone mallard drake together will fetch more than $200,000 to help resident and migratory waterfowl in Oregon. A special painting of the pintails and mallard adorns the new Oregon Duck Stamp, which is on sale to hunters and art collectors. It commemorates the 15th anniversary of the Oregon Duck Stamp, which has helped raise money to restore thousands of acres of Oregon wetlands for waterfowl and other species. The stamp depicts a painting by California artist Robert Steiner, who is considered America's foremost duck-stamp artist. Steiner painted the current federal duck stamp as well as the stamps for Oregon, California, Washington and Alaska. Steiner's painting, which depicts the ducks in a Willamette Valley setting, was commissioned by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. He has painted the past four Oregon state duck stamps and has painted more state and federal duck stamps than any other artist. The face value of each stamp is $5. Hunters, who need the stamps to hunt waterfowl in Oregon, buy up to $200,000 worth of stamps annually. But art collectors and investors also gobble up the stamps as well as prints of the original painting. For more information on the artwork or stamp collecting, telephone the ODFW at 503-872-5260. For information on the limited-edition artwork, contact Steiner Prints at 800-225-3971 or visit your local wildlife art gallery. The oldest Ducks Unlimited chapter in Southern Oregon will hold its 25th anniversary banquet fund-raiser Saturday in Medford. The Medford DU chapter will head to the Reston Hotel for the dinner/auction. The doors open at 5 p.m., with dinner served at 7 p.m. Tickets can be purchased at the door or by reservation today and Friday. For reservations and more information, telephone Dwayne Rudisill, 779-7250 days or 776-3385 evenings. Elk hunters will start the first of two general seasons Saturday in the Chetco, Applegate and other hunting units of the coast range, and those lucky enough to bag a bull are asked to perform a little dentistry in the name of wildlife science. Researchers are looking for an incisor tooth from bulls taken this year during the Coast elk seasons. The first season opens Saturday and runs through Nov. 18, while the second season runs Nov. 21-29 for general-season bull hunters carrying rifles. A similar collection of incisor teeth has been held for bulls taken in the Cascades this year. The teeth will denote the ages of the bulls, and this information is needed as part of a study into whether next year's change in coast elk hunting seasons will have the desired effect of improving herds. Data collected from this year's coast hunts, as well as this year's Cascade hunts, will be compared to similar data collected over the next four years. Anyone who shoots a bull elk in the Cascades or coast ranges is asked to remove a lower incisor tooth, roots and all, and mail it in a special envelope to the ODFW. The incisors are the middle two teeth on the lower jaw. The ODFW also wants to know the hunters' name, address and telephone number and the unit where the elk was shot. The agency is supplying the envelopes, as well as written directions on the procedure. Later, the ODFW also will tell hunters age information about their bull. For tooth-removal directions and envelopes, call the ODFW office in Central Point at 826-8774. The Rogue Valley Chapter of the Oregon Hunters Association begins its annual holiday food-collection program tonight during the chapter's monthly meeting. The 6 p.m. meeting is at J.J. North's Grand Buffet, 1016 N. Riverside Ave., Medford. The program, called Hunt for the Hungry, began as a collection of wild game meat from OHA members to give to needy families, says Julie LaFerriere, a chapter member. It has since grown into a collection of perishables and nonperishables, including standard foods as well as wild game. Last year's effort put together large Christmas food boxes for 10 local families, LaFerriere says. Food will be collected during tonight's meeting, and again at the Dec. 10 meeting. If people would prefer to have donated food picked up, call Julie or Ed LaFerriere at 664-3064. Outdoor Journal main page Mail Tribune Copyright � interRogue & The Mail Tribune 1997, Medford, Oregon USA