Frank Moore is a fly-fishing legend—at least along Oregon’s North Umpqua River, which has been renowned for its summer steelhead since the 1930s when Western fiction author Zane Grey fished its waters. Moore is a D-Day veteran; he returned after the war to live beside the river with his wife, Jeanne. Together, they became among the North Umpqua’s most vocal and effective advocates. In 1966 they founded the Steamboaters, a group of local angler-conservationists who still zealously guard the welfare of the river and its population of wild and wily steelheads.
Now a coalition of fish conservation groups is seeking to extend the Moores’ lifelong contribution into the future with a Frank and Jeanne Moore Wild Steelhead Sanctuary that will protect vital spawning habitat. Beyond that, the effort may prove to be a viable alternative to more restrictive approaches (like wilderness or wild-and-scenic-river designations) in an inclement political era.
LINK (via: Sierra)
