Usually the parking lot at Brookings’ harbor is filled with boat trailers, rusty pickup trucks and tourists.

But this day in late August is not a usual day. There’s a wildfire burning five miles from town – and the vehicles coming through are much, much larger.

Jesse Dubuque, a resource advisor for the Chetco Bar fire, directs the driver of a fire truck to a large shallow pool, about 6-inches deep with metal tracks leading in and out.

“Vehicles that have been up on the fire or going up to the fire, they come and they drive up on to it,” she says.

It’s called a weed wash.

“There’s a pressurized water system that sprays all the contaminants (and) dirt,” Dubuque says.

This is the front line in preventing the spread of sudden oak death, a plant disease that is killing trees by the thousands along Oregon’s south coast.

Tanoaks are the primary species affected, although there are dozens of the plants and shrubs that can be carriers.

Sudden oak death has had ecological as well as economic consequences for the timber and plant nursery industries. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has quarantined part of Oregon’s south coast to keep the disease contained.

The Chetco Bar Fire in southwest Oregon was by far the largest wildfire in the state this year. It’s burned just over 190,000 acres, but is now mostly contained. At its height, though, it was the nation’s number one fire priority, spreading to within five miles of the coastal town of Brookings – and right down into the quarantine area.

Lead fire resource advisor Linn Gassaway says this wildfire posed a huge challenge to keeping sudden oak death from escaping beyond Oregon and other states where it’s already become a problem.

“We have firefighters from Iowa and California and Washington, Montana – all over the place. We don’t want that to be moved to those locations,” she said.

The weed wash is one of the last stops for firefighters before they’re sent back home – usually after a 14-day on duty.

“They can’t leave the fire and get their paperwork process and ultimately get paid until they check this box,” Dubuque said.

But there’s another side to this story.

Scientists are looking at the possibility that the wildfire itself could actually help control the disease within Oregon.

That’s because the only real tool they’ve had to slow the spread of sudden oak death in the past is fire.  

“If you have tanoak affected in an infected area, you try to remove the tanoak by cutting and piling and burning,” said Steve Boyer, with the U.S. Forest Service in Gold Beach, Oregon.

Burning knocks back the spores and gets rid of host material.

Boyer said there were slash piles of infected tanoak still waiting to be burned up in the forest, right in the path of the Chetco Bar fire.

Based on fire maps, more than 20 sudden oak death sites burned in the wildfire — most along the Chetco River.  That’s less than one-fifth of the known disease locations, but it’s still something, said U.S. Forest Service plant pathologist Ellen Michaels Goheen.  

“I think it could be a reprieve from rapid spread.  But we’ll just have to see just how much of the tanoak there still is.  How hot it burned through,” she said.

This is especially promising because conditions this year were perfect for the moisture-loving disease.

“It was a really wet winter,” Boyer said. “We were going to start seeing a lot of positive trees popping up.”

Forest managers will begin to learn answers to these questions later this fall, once the Chetco Bar fire has finally fizzled out.

An Oregon ranching couple is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to revive their lawsuit against the U.S. Bureau of Land Management over grazing and water rights.

A ruling by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal of the case earlier this year, effectively allowing BLM to shirk its obligations, according to Jesse and Pamela White of Malheur County.

The dispute between the Whites and the BLM arises from the unraveling of a 1973 deal under which the ranchers allowed the federal agency to impair their water rights in exchange for providing them with additional cattle grazing on public land.

Under the agreement, BLM was allowed to build 20 reservoirs affecting the Whites’ water rights while increasing their allowable grazing by 1,400 animal unit months, or AUMS — a measure of the forage consumed by a cow-calf pair during a month.

Continued conflicts with BLM prompted the couple to try to enforce their water rights, leading the agency to decide in 2008 to remove or retrofit the structures affecting the Whites.

Meanwhile, the BLM would revoke the 1,400 additional AUMS as their water rights were restored.

While they initially agreed to this arrangement, the Whites later filed a lawsuit against BLM for completely withdrawing the 1,400 AUMs without fully restoring their water rights.

A federal judge dismissed their complaint, partly because water rights are under the jurisdiction of Oregon regulators, and the 9th Circuit refused to overturn that ruling.

The Whites disagree with this interpretation because the continued impairment of their water rights should trigger the reinstatement of the additional AUMs, over which Oregon water regulators have no authority.

The 9th Circuit found that BLM can’t be compelled to restore the AUMs or the water rights because these aren’t official “agency actions” under administrative law.

Under administrative law, courts can only order a federal agency to take an action when it has “ignored a specific legislative command,” but the Whites “do not identify any statute or regulation that requires the BLM to grant them additional AUMs,” the 9th Circuit said.

In their petition for review to the nation’s highest court, the Whites argue the BLM’s 2008 agreement is a final action that’s legally binding under administrative law.

It’s not enough for the BLM to say it will restore the couple’s water rights — the agency must actually carry out that decision, the Whites said.

“Under the Ninth Circuit’s interpretation, however, BLM can avoid judicial review by granting the relief but then failing to provide it,” their petition said. “Under this approach, it does not matter that the agency’s failure to provide the relief granted is equivalent to denial of that relief.”

Attorneys for the federal government have until Nov. 9 to respond to the White’s petition to the Supreme Court.

CHELAN, Wash. — Gaston Rocha worked swiftly, clipping Pinot noir grape clusters with his right hand and catching and dumping them into white, 5-gallon plastic buckets with his left.

He seemed oblivious to the beauty of the setting — perfect vineyard rows dropping sharply downslope to a placid Lake Chelan.

But time is of the essence while he’s working, not just because he’s paid by how much he picks, but because rain and cold may soon close the harvest window.

While the last 10 percent of California’s wine grape harvest was hit by wildfires and Idaho counts a light harvest from last winter’s frost damage, Washington’s crop appears to be near normal or slightly under last year’s record 270,000 tons.

The August crop estimate was 260,000 tons. That’s updated post-crush in November.

“It can be up or down. It’s gone both ways,” says Vicky Scharlau, executive director of the Washington Winegrower Association in Cashmere.

“We have some winter damage in older vines, but no drastic freeze damage,” Scharlau said. “Our heat units at the end of August were more like 2013, more normal.”

Cluster weight is down slightly, which will contribute to a bit lighter crop, she said.

Oregon had heavy smoke during the last two weeks of ripening. The affects so far are unknown.

But Shane Collins, vintner of Rocky Pond Winery, Chelan, which owns Clos CheValle Vineyard where Gaston Rocha works, said wine grapes so far are testing negative for wildfire smoke taint from the Columbia Gorge to Lake Chelan.

“It’s a timing thing,” he said. “There’s a 14- to 17-day window around veraison (when grapes accumulate sugar rapidly) that’s the critical time.”

Despite wildfires uplake, Lake Chelan smoke was nothing this year like it was in 2015, he said.

Smoke taint gives wine “an ashtray, gasoline taste,” he said. Nothing anyone wants but hard to detect because it develops over time, he said.

In 2015, wineries dumped it or sold it early, he said. “Karma Vineyards sold it as Bad Karma,” he said.

Freddy Arredondo, vintner at Cave B Estate Winery near George, said his 100-acre crop is lighter than last year, possibly from more of a January freeze nip than he originally thought. Mildew pressure was big from an overly wet spring, he said. Clusters are lighter, he said.

Washington has more than 53,000 acres of wine grapes, more than 860 wineries and is second to California in production.

Washington harvest normally begins in earnest right after Labor Day and ends in early November. It was about 80 to 90 percent done as of Oct. 17, Scharlau said.

Idaho is growing quickly and “stellar” in quality but is small compared to Washington, just as Washington is small compared to California, Scharlau said. Wine grapes tend to stay specific to AVAs and there are so many factors in buying wine “that it’s hard to draw any kind of conclusions” about one area’s loss benefiting another, she said.

Rocky Pond Winery owns the 30-acre Clos CheValle Vineyard on the south shore of Lake Chelan and the 90-acre Double D Vineyard 20 miles southeast at Sun Cove on the Columbia River. Plans call for adding 30 more acres at Double D and developing 50 acres of vineyard farther south at Skeels Road, Collins said.

Progress is being hampered by a lack of labor, he said.

TUESDAY, OCT. 17

FORT KLAMATH, Ore. — Blaring sounds of a car horn rattled the nighttime calm. Beacons of light sporadically swept across otherwise invisible fields. A massive bonfire torched flames into the blackness.

Every 20 or 30 minutes Tom Collom pulled what looks like an old-fashioned television antenna and radio from his pickup, then slowly revolved it toward the forests flanking the eastern edge of the Sky Lakes Wilderness. He was listening for a beeping sound from the VHF collar placed around a 2-year-old female wolf, dubbed OR-54, on Oct. 7.

Appropriately, it was Friday the 13th, but this was no horror flick.

Collom, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Klamath Falls district biologist, spent Friday and Saturday nights camped in a large field northwest of Fort Klamath. Each hour or so he emerged from the large wall tent, one heated with a wood stove, into the sub-freezing night and early morning to listen for the telltale beep. Periodically, but irregularly, he honked the pickup’s horn, scanned the strobe light and fed the fire. A lantern was kept on all night to illuminate the tent, another way of broadcasting a human presence.

It’s all part of an effort to disrupt the patterns of wolves seen and heard on recent days and nights in the Wood River Valley, where upwards of 35,000 cattle graze each summer.

“We’ll see if we can alter their behavior a bit,” Collom explains of non-lethal measures being taken to prevent wolves from killing and eating cattle and, he hopes, keep them from feeling comfortable because of human presence in the Wood River Valley. “We’re here to intercept them and, hopefully, put a little pressure on them.”

Later Friday night and early Saturday, Collom heard a wolf howling “so I fired three rounds of cracker shells and the howling stopped.” Cracker shells are fired into the air and travel about 100 yards before noisily exploding. “It’s pretty loud,” he said. “The folks in Fort Klamath probably heard them.”

Efforts to put on pressure started after Mike Moore, an assistant Klamath Falls-based ODF&W biologist, last Wednesday viewed eight wolves in nearby cattle pastures, possibly lured by the unburied carcasses of two cows that had died of natural causes. Then, during his Thursday night vigil, when he awakened from a pre-dawn nap, the monitor that tracks and downloads the pack’s movements showed OR-54 and the pack had passed within 200 yards of the tent.

A year ago this month, four cattle grazing on the Nicholson Ranch not far from the campsite shared by Moore, Collom and John Stephenson, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wildlife biologist, were attacked and eaten alive by wolves that biologists believe were part of the Rogue Pack, a growing band of nine wolves that includes 54’s father, the legendary OR-7.

On Oct. 7, crews from ODFW and USFWS trapped a two year-old, 80-pound female. After being sedated, biologists took DNA and blood samples and named her OR-54. After being fitted with a VHF collar, which biologists will allow them to monitor the Rogue pack’s movement, she was released. But Collom and Stephenson have experienced problems picking up signals from her collar.

“We’ve got issues with that collar,” Collom said Monday, noting it is working only when OR-54 is with a quarter-mile. “We definitely have a problem.”

Earlier Monday morning, while trying to find a signal for OR-54, Stephenson saw the collared wolf with another about the same time the device began signaling. When he fired three cracker shells to scare them away, he spotted four more wolves.

Stephenson, who spent Monday and Tuesday nights with Jeanne Spaur, another federal biologist, said he and Collom will meet to determine if the overnight vigils will continue.

“We’ll continue until tonight and then we’ll reassess,” Collum said Monday. “We’ll see what tonight brings but we’ll probably keep at it. We’ve definitely altered their behavior.”

2018 health insurance enrollment starts Nov. 1: Enrollment help at Coast Community Health Center

BANDON — Start planning for an active, healthy year in 2018. Health insurance open enrollment starts Nov. 1 and ends Dec. 15. Staff at Coast Community Health Center can help individuals and families check eligibility and apply for private 2018…

BANDON - Start planning for an active, healthy year in 2018. Health insurance open enrollment starts Nov. 1 and ends Dec. 15. Staff at Coast Community Health Center can help individuals and families check eligibility and apply for private 2018…

SOUTH COAST – Oregon Deputy Superintendent resigned last week at the request of Governor Kate Brown.

VALE, Ore. (AP) — Officials of Farmers Fresh Mushrooms were not looking to expand beyond Canada, but as the saying goes, one thing led to another, and now they are looking to start up a farm outside of Vale, projecting employment of around 200 people.

Andrew Truong, company project manager, confirmed that property just north of Vale has been purchased and officials are now working to finalize their plans, including going through the permit process and finalizing their financing package, which would include incentives provided by the State of Oregon.

Company representatives, including president and CEO Tan Truong, spent Friday in Vale holding conversations with a variety of state agencies, county and city officials, and utility representatives to discuss their proposed mushroom farm.

Andrew Truong said the company would be employing people in several positions, from pickers and warehouse workers to mid-management.

According to what Farmers Fresh Mushrooms presented to Oregon officials, wages will be at the top of the agricultural wage scale. To be eligible for the enterprise zone, at a minimum, the company must offer wages that are 130 percent of family wages in Malheur County, said Greg Smith, director, Malheur County Economic Development.

However, as is often the case, there will be a training wage for new employees, Smith said.

“They are the real deal,” Smith said.

“We didn’t know anything about Vale,” Andrew Truong said, when Smith, came knocking at the company’s door located in British Columbia.

Vale City Manager Lynn Findley said a person from Sysco Foods of Idaho mentioned to him that there was a company in Canada that might be interested in moving south and Findley passed that information onto Smith, who proceeded to contact Farmers Fresh.

“We were looking to expand in Canada,” Truong said, which it is doing, however, the company is now looking to expand to Vale, as well.

Tan Truong, an immigrant to Canada from Vietnam, said the company is projecting to start up its Vale operation in fall of 2019.

He visited Vale in 1999, on a visit to the now-defunct Oregon Trail Mushrooms. At the time, however, he was just operating a small farm himself, having just started his operation in 1995.

Oregon Trail Mushrooms has been closed for about 10 years, and the property was looked at, but Farmers Fresh officials concluded that was not going to work for them, Truong said.

They like Vale and the support the community is giving the company, but it is the incentives that will be important to them as they establish an operation in the United States, Andrew Truong said.

Smith said those incentives include being located within the county enterprise zone, which provides tax abatement, as well as likely support from the Special Public Works Fund for transportation issues and Strategic Works Funds. Those would be tied to creating jobs in Malheur County, Smith said.

Because of the exchange rate between the U.S. dollar and the Canadian dollar, Farm Fresh Mushrooms will be making less money from its mushrooms in coming to the U.S. Andrew Truong said.

However, he added, moving to a Vale location will help the company solidify its established market in the Northwest.

The company currently produces more than 40 kinds of mushrooms and mushroom products, the company website, says.

While the company is working to finalize the details of its financing packages and obtaining permits, president Tan Truong said he does not foresee any roadblocks.

MONDAY, OCT. 16

SISTERS, Ore. (AP) — Lightning started a forest fire one August afternoon near this Oregon tourist town, and it was spreading fast. Residents in outlying areas evacuated as flames marched toward their homes.

Just a few months earlier, the U.S. Forest Service and a group of locals representing environmental, logging and recreational interests arranged to thin part of the overgrown forest, creating a buffer zone around Sisters.

Workers removed trees and brush with machines, then came through on foot to ignite prescribed burns. That effort saved homes, and perhaps the community of 2,500 on the eastern slopes of the Cascade Range, by slowing the fire’s progress and allowing firefighters to corral it.

Scrutiny of the condition of the American West’s forests, and of policies that curtailed logging and suppressed wildfires, has intensified amid a devastating wildfire season that has burned a combined area bigger than Maryland and caused widespread destruction in California’s wine country.

Until the advent of aggressive fire suppression at the turn of the last century, forests were historically shaped by low-intensity blazes, with the flames clearing underbrush but not killing tall trees. Forests across the West are now so overgrown they’ve been called powder kegs.

The work by the Deschutes Collaborative Forest Project in central Oregon, where towns and subdivisions sit in a green ocean of Ponderosa and lodgepole pines, shows the potential of forest thinning. And it shows how loggers and environmentalists - normally bitter enemies - can join forces.

But it also highlights the challenges of replicating the forest thinning across the West, where a lack of timber workers and money are among the obstacles.

On a recent morning, Forest Service fire manager James Osborne drove into a section of the Deschutes National Forest outside Sisters that was thinned in May. Widely spaced Ponderosas were blackened to twice the height of a person. But higher up, the bark retained its normal orangey color. Needle clusters shone vibrant green in the sunshine. Four deer trotted through dappled sunlight. This part of the forest looked healthy, not despite of, but due to, the prescribed burn.

“Ponderosa pines are used to low-intensity fires,” Osborne said. “Every five to 15 years, a fire would come through. We’re trying to take it back to low-intensity fires.”

California’s situation is different because its wildfires have generally ignited in chaparral - brush that naturally grows densely packed, said Andrew Latimer, plant expert at the University of California-Davis. The temperate coniferous forests that burn in large wildfires elsewhere are historically less dense.

It is the goal of the Deschutes Collaborative, one of 23 projects in the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration program created in 2009 by Congress, to restore central Oregon forests to their natural state. Overcoming suspicions and stereotypes was one of its first hurdles.

Deschutes Collaborative member Marilyn Miller, an environmentalist, and former member Chuck Burley, who then worked for an Oregon sawmill, used to call each other names, Miller recalled during a recent tour of Deschutes Collaborative projects. But they got to know each other in Bend, home to more microbreweries per capita than anywhere else in America.

“I hate to say this, but beer really is a good conversation starter,” Miller said. “We would sit and talk. We learned we’re real humans with real concerns, and what we care about isn’t that far apart.”

Burley, who’s now employed with the Forest Service, said the Deschutes Collaborative made recommendations on where and how much to thin, and the Forest Service almost always adopted them.

“They had a consensus, a starting point,” Burley said in a phone interview.

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown, a Democrat, applauds collaborative efforts, including the Good Neighbor Authority under which states can organize restoration of federal lands. Under the programs, a mill removes the timber after agreeing to buy it at a certain rate. The proceeds stay local, helping finance more restoration.

“No. 1, it allows us to put Oregonians back to work in the woods, so there are good jobs,” Brown said. “No. 2, it provides product for the local milling infrastructure. And No. 3, it creates healthier forests. Do I think we need more efforts like this? Absolutely.”

Such groups understand some management is required to keep public lands healthy, said Amy Tinderholt, a Deschutes National Forest ranger.

But replicating the work across the sprawling reaches of the West poses several challenges.

“We really don’t have the capacity in most places to do the work at anything like the scale needed,” said John Bailey, an Oregon State University professor of silviculture and fire management.

There are no longer enough timber outlets such as mills and plants, he said. And things like equipment, trucks, drivers and infrastructure will take time and resources to ramp back up.

Also, smoke from controlled burns can surpass legal limits, though it’s much less than smoke from out-of-control wildfires. Some wilderness areas and habitats for endangered species could be off-limits.

Another challenge is money.

“All of those funds will take you only so far across the landscape, and we’ve got pretty large landscapes,” Tinderholt said.

Restored areas also would have to be thinned again after some years, unless fires are allowed to burn the vegetation that grows back.

In Oregon, many locals are proud of the Deschutes Collaborative’s work, and want to see more done in the state and other parts of the West.

“As it unfolded, the community has really come behind it. It’s amazing,” said Kevin Larkin, a senior Deschutes Forest ranger. “Scaling up, that’s our hope.”

Wildlife biologists set leg-hold traps for 13 consecutive days before finally catching a young female wolf from the Rogue Pack in the Southern Oregon Cascades and putting a tracking collar on it.

The pack’s movements haven’t been tracked since the collar worn by its breeding male, the famous OR-7, went dead in 2015. Trail cameras set up by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have captured images of Rogue Pack wolves, but the tracking collar will help provide location information that can reduce “conflicts” with livestock producers, according to an ODFW Facebook post.

The recently collared wolf is designated OR-54. It is not the mate of OR-7, which in 2011 dispersed from the infamous Imnaha Pack in Wallowa County and traveled diagonally across the state into California. It was the first wolf documented in that state since 1924; Northern California now has at least two wolf packs.

Although approaching old age for a wolf in the wild, OR-7 was seen on a trail camera about two weeks ago, ODFW spokeswoman Michelle Dennehy said.

TOKYO — Gov. Kate Brown last week led an Oregon delegation to Japan focused on doing business with the state’s top export market for agricultural products, but she said the Trump administration’s rejection of the Trans-Pacific Partnership has put a damper on any new business.

Brown told the Capital Press the delegation of Oregon businesses had conversations about the TPP with the Japanese business leaders it met, as well as with the U.S. embassy.

“We are clearly right now in a no-person’s-land, where there’s a lack of clarity about federal policy,” Brown said of TPP. One of President Donald Trump’s first acts after he entered office was to reject the TPP, a trade agreement among 12 Pacific Rim nations, including Japan and U.S. He said he intends to negotiate one-on-one treaties with the nations involved.

Brown said her role as Oregon governor is to make sure that exporters are continuing to build relationships to ensure that the state’s products find lucrative markets.

But she said uncertainty over tariffs hinders trade on both sides.

“I certainly raised this issue when I was speaking to (U.S. ambassador to Japan William) Haggerty, letting him know that our agricultural products are very reliant on the markets in Asia, particularly in Japan, and that we need to make sure that we can get our products to market in a cost-efficient manner,” Brown said.

Headed by Oregon Director of Agriculture Alexis Taylor, the contingent of eight food and beverage exporters included Willamette Valley Fruit Co. of Salem, OFD Foods of Albany, Northwest Hazelnut Co. of Hubbard, Ponzi Vineyards of Sherwood, 2 Towns Cider of Corvallis, Bossco Trading Co. of Tangent, Weaver Seed Processing of Scio and Pacific Seafood of Clackamas.

One of the things the agribusiness side of the tour focused on was helping companies build additional relationships with importers if they are already exporters, or helping introduce them to the market if they are first-time exporters here, Taylor said.

To help build those relationships, organizers set up more than 36 meetings between the Oregon food and beverage companies and various importers.

“In Japan, relationships and introductions are very important,” Taylor said.

Among the newer Oregon products vying to come to Japan are hazelnuts and blackberries. “We’ve also done a lot of work with craft beverages,” Taylor said.

She said some Japanese food companies are also investing in Oregon and starting businesses there, so they can source the products that they are looking for directly.

“Also, what we have found is there are Japanese food companies that are investing in Oregon and then are finding that there is a market for them” in the state, Taylor said.

On a stopover in Hong Kong Oct. 9 before the four-day trip to Japan, Brown met with officials of Cathay Pacific Airways, which nearly a year ago began direct air cargo flights between Portland and Hong Kong.

The flights are important for the export of Oregon’s perishable ag products such as fresh cherries, live Dungeness crab and cut greens.

During the heavy Oregon cherry harvest season, Cathay Pacific added two shipments two its usual three a week.

“It’s enabling us to get very good Oregon products, from cherry to crab, to market expeditiously so the people of Asia can enjoy those products,” Brown said.

SOUTH COAST – Oregon schools received new ratings last week.

LANGLOIS - Dragonfly Farm will hold a Pumpkin Patch Party from 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 14. Dragonfly Farm is located two miles north of Langlois on at 49295 U.S. Highway 101.

LANGLOIS - Dragonfly Farm will hold a Pumpkin Patch Party from 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 14. Dragonfly Farm is located two miles north of Langlois on at 49295 Highway 101.

BREWER, Maine (AP) — An Oregon brewery is demanding that a Maine beer maker change the name of its signature India pale ale.

Mason’s Brewing Co., owned by Chris Morley in Brewer, says it received a letter from 10 Barrel Brewing demanding it stop using the name “Hipster Apocalypse.” The Bangor Daily News reports the Oregon brewery has brewed “Apocalypse IPA” since 2009.

Morley said Wednesday he plans to challenge the request, calling it “another great example of a corporation trying to keep the little guy down.”

Morley’s brewery has been in operation for less than two years. 10 Barrel was purchased by Anheuser-Busch InBev in 2014, a company that also owns Budweiser, Corona and Stella Artois.

Representatives from 10 Barrel and AB InBev did not respond to requests for comment.

BOSTON (AP) — Not everyone is celebrating the return of the wild turkeys.

After being wiped out from New England in the 1800s, the birds have stormed back in what’s considered a major success story for wildlife restoration. But as they spread farther into urban areas, they’re increasingly clashing with residents who say they destroy gardens, damage cars, chase pets and attack people.

Complaints about troublesome turkeys have surged in Boston and its suburbs over the past three years, causing headaches for police and health officials called to handle problems, according to city and town records provided to The Associated Press. It’s a familiar dilemma for some other U.S. towns from coast to coast that have been overrun by turkeys in recent years.

Boston city officials say they received at least 60 complaints last year, a threefold increase over the year before. Nearby Somerville, Belmont and Brookline have seen similar upticks, combining for a total of 137 turkey gripes since the start of last year.

“Several years ago it was more of an isolated situation here and there,” said David Scarpitti, the wild turkey and upland game biologist for the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife. “Now it’s starting to spread into communities all around Boston.”

Often the grievance is little more than a wayward turkey blocking traffic, but in at least five cases turkeys became so aggressive that police said they had to shoot them as a matter of public safety. Some area residents have suffered minor injuries from the birds, including a 72-year-old woman who told police she was bruised in August after a gang of turkeys scratched and pecked her during a walk.

Turkeys in the wild are far stronger and faster than the ones that land on Thanksgiving tables, experts say. Males in particular are driven to show physical aggression as a way to climb the social pecking order, and they sometimes view humans as potential competitors.

“Turkeys don’t really mean to harm people — it’s just tied to their social dynamics within the flock,” Scarpitti said. “They lose perspective that humans are humans and turkeys are turkeys. They just want to assert dominance over anything.”

Even the earliest Americans picked up on that characteristic, with Ben Franklin famously writing that the turkey is a “Bird of Courage, and would not hesitate to attack a Grenadier of the British Guards who should presume to invade his Farm Yard with a red Coat on.”

In the town of Brookline, Tess Bundy has come to loathe the turkeys that roost behind her home and often come charging when she leaves. She called police in April after a big tom repeatedly launched itself at her and her infant daughter, backing down only after Bundy whacked it several times with a shovel.

“They’re terrible. Every year they’re worse,” said Bundy, a history professor at Merrimack College. “I really do think that they’re a menace to the town.”

The complaints have sent some cities searching for answers, including in Cambridge, where the City Council says it’s working on a plan. Officials in Brookline issued new guidance for fowl encounters in August, telling residents to “step toward the turkey and act confidently.”

Wildlife experts say much of the problem can be blamed on residents who leave out food for turkeys, which entices flocks to settle in and helps them survive winters.

Towns with similar problems in New Jersey, Iowa and Oregon have banned turkey feeding in recent years, and Montana enacted a similar statewide ban in May. But the idea hasn’t spread to the Boston area, where some residents say they enjoy the return of native wildlife.

Not far from two sites where turkeys were shot by police, Brookline resident Suzette Abbott says she’s had no problems with the turkeys that roam her block.

“I don’t think they’re dangerous,” Abbott said. “In the spring they look pretty amazing when the males are displaying their colors. I think they’re quite beautiful if you actually look at their feathers.”

A bill sponsored by several U.S. House members from the Northwest aims to overturn two recent court decisions on Columbia and Snake river dams.

Last year, U.S. District Court Judge Michael Simon rejected the federal plan for managing dams to protect salmon in the Columbia River Basin.

He then ordered federal agencies to spill more water through the dams to help fish and to consider removing Snake River dams.

A new bill in the U.S. House of Representatives would allow Congress to overrule those decisions. House Bill 3144 reinstates the rejected plan and cancels court orders for spilling water and analyzing dam removal.

At a hearing before the House Committee on Natural Resources Thursday, Washington Republican Cathy McMorris Rodgers, one of the bill’s sponsors, said the goal is to reassert congressional authority over the dams and keep hydropower affordable.

With Bonneville Power Administration already hiking electricity rates, she said, utilities are shopping for other options.

“Unnecessary litigation and unnecessary spill requirements by this Oregon judge only add onto the cost,” she said. “Dams and fish can co-exist, but we must get out of the courtroom and allow fish recovery to continue.”

Conservation groups say the bill would hurt already imperiled salmon and steelhead. They’re worried it will get attached to a must-pass bill in the coming months.

Liz Hamilton, director of the Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association, told the committee that the bill would lock in “an approach that isn’t working for fish.”

She said increasing the amount of water spilled for fish, which reduces the amount of hydropower produced, has produced positive results for fish in previous years.

“We know dams and reservoirs are the salmon’s main cause of human-caused mortality,” she said. “Spill is our most effective near-term tool. What we want are adult (salmon) coming back, and there’s overwhelming evidence that spilling gets adults back.”