Cow Hollow hunting event scheduled
Thursday, October 8, 2009 11:14 AM PDT
Larry Meyer - Argus Observer
ADRIAN
Pheasant season opens Oct. 10 and the Cow Hollow Park Association and local farmers are again hosting pheasant hunters this year, making areas available for those hunters who buy permits to hunt to support the park.
“This is the 35th annual Cow Hollow pheasant hunt,” Vicki Price, a member of the park association, said.
The cost of the permits are $30 per gun for those 14 years-old and older and can be purchased at the Owyhee Grocery, at the corner of Oregon Highway 201 and Owyhee Avenue, and Sunset Market, at the corner of Lytle Boulevard and Janeta Avenue, just east of the Cow Hollow Park. The permits are available during the whole season. Camping at the park is free.
Permit buyers will receive a button that identifies them and a map that shows the 34 different hunting areas, totaling 3,000 acres. Locations include fields that still have crops in them, some that have been harvested, ditch banks and a “good stretch of Cow Hollow Creek,” Price said.
Youth under 16 will have the opportunity to hunt chukars on Mitchell Butte if they are accompanied by a parent or other adult who is carrying a gun.
Proceeds from the hunting program will go to support baseball teams, plus maintenance and improvements at the park. “We hope to get a soccer program going,” Price said.
The Cow Hollow Park was created in the 1930’s as a Civilian Conservation Corps camp to house unemployed men brought in to work. Later, the camp was used as a relocation camp for Japanese-American families who came to the valley to work during World War II. When the camp was gone, the site became a park, with ball fields, a play ground, picnic areas and restrooms added over the years. The hunting program was started to pay for the upkeep of the park.
With the recent exchange of ownership between the Bureau of Reclamation and Bureau of Land Management, the park’s status was up in the air, and the property was declared surplus by the General Services Administration. Malheur County officials, at the request of the park association, filed an application to have the county own the park and that process is near completion, Price said. The association is taking up the responsibility of maintaining it again.
