Think Out Loud

Laurie Marker has spent nearly half a century with cheetahs. Her career began when she moved to Oregon in the early 1970s to open the third winery in the state. She began working at Wildlife Safari in Winston, OR to help support her business. This move would start a decades long career working with cheetahs. She eventually found the Cheetah Conservation Fund and moved to Namibia to create a dedicated wildlife reserve and research center for these large felines. Today, cheetahs are considered to have a vulnerable status, with less than 7,000 in the wild. Marker joins us to share more on her life and work with the fastest mammal on the planet that is racing to extinction.

On Tuesday, the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation signed an agreement with Fred Mitchell to acquire his vast collection of Columbia River Plateau tribal artwork and artifacts. The collection includes 15,000 stone points and tools, 1,250 historic photographs, 800 beaded bags and pouches, baskets and other items. Mitchell is a retired former mayor and firefighter from Walla Walla, Washington who started collecting arrowheads when he was 5 years old and amassed other tribal items over the past seven decades.  The Fred L. Mitchell & Family Collection also includes objects collected by Mitchell’s parents and other relatives, according to Bobbie Conner, a member of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation and director of the Tamástslikt Cultural Institute. The museum has featured several temporary exhibits in recent years with items loaned by Mitchell, including one that showcased beaded depictions of horses made by Columbia Plateau tribes. Conner joins us to discuss the cultural and historical significance of the items within Mitchell’s collection, including Native American cradleboards, or infant carriers, that will be featured in an exhibit at TCI in June.

Last spring the U.S. Forest Service cleared out a large number of people living in the forest south of Bend in an area known as China Hat. More than 100 vehicles and numerous personal effects were left behind. According to a new story from Investigate West and FORJournalism Lab, the Forest Service may have fallen short of constitutional obligations to give China Hat residents a “reasonable” opportunity to retrieve their belongings. David Dudley, a special project reporter with the Homelessness: Real Stories, Real Solutions FORJournalism, joins us to discuss the story.

California condors, the largest land bird in North America, almost went extinct in the late 1980s. But successful breeding programs such as the one at the Oregon Zoo have helped raise their worldwide population from a low of 22 birds to roughly 600.    Since 2022, the Yurok Tribe has partnered with Redwood National and State Park to release condors bred in captivity into the wild. A pair of those birds are believed to be tending the region’s first egg in more than a century. The nest is too remote for wildlife managers to see the egg itself, but they say the birds’ behavior is consistent with nesting and incubation.   Marti Jenkins is the lead keeper at the Oregon Zoo’s Jonsson Center for Wildlife Conservation, which hosts its condor breeding program. Chris West is the manager of the Northern California Condor Restoration Program and a senior wildlife biologist with the Yurok Tribe Wildlife Department. They both join us to talk about the significance of returning California condors to the Pacific Northwest.  

Low snowpack and high temperatures have jeopardized ski resorts across the region this year. While some resorts have held on, most have been facing closures or abnormally short seasons. Skiers are cancelling trips, and seasonal workers have had to shift their plans for work during this abnormal winter. Mountain towns are facing major economic uncertainty – some offering major sales on gear, or pivoting to warm-weather recreation. Mt. Hood Meadows is the latest ski resort to announce its closure - it will officially wrap up this year’s operations on April 12, as it announced in a recent blog post.    Greg Pack is the president and general manager at Mt. Hood Meadows. He’ll join us to discuss the weather’s impact on this year’s ski season.  

President Trump signed an executive order Tuesday that instructs the U.S. Postal Service to only send mail-in ballots to people who have been deemed eligible by the administration. Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read has vowed to challenge the order in court, along with other secretaries of state.    Meanwhile, the Supreme Court appears poised to overturn a Mississippi law that allows mail-in ballots that arrive late to be counted as long as they’re postmarked on or before Election Day. Oregon has had a similar law in place since 2022.     Read joins us to talk about what these changes could mean for Oregon’s vote-by-mail system.  

Kent Thornburg is a Professor of Medicine Emeritus at Oregon Health and Science University. But he is far from retired. He’s actively promoting the research he and others have done into the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease. Thornburg coined the phrase “the 100 year effect” to describe how “early life environment” before and during  pregnancy can affect the lifetime risks of chronic diseases — and how those effects can actually be traced to not just  not just to both parents, but grandparents as well.   A new documentary about both the research, and Thornburg’s unconventional campaign meant to galvanize people and communities to spread the word about this research premiered at OHSU on March 20. The date was chosen in conjunction with the National Future Generations Day. “The 100 Year Effect” is now available to view free of charge by request for individuals or community screenings on the film website. Thornburg says the only way anything will change is if young people and community leaders get energized and motivated. That’s where people like Kelsey Mueller Wendt come in. She is herself a young mother and the coordinator for the Nutrition Oregon Campaign Hub in Klamath Falls. Mueller Wendt and Thornburg join us to share more about larger education campaign and the film, which is both a showcase and an invitation into the larger effort to eliminate chronic disease.

When Greta Jarvis was 16 years old and on her high school’s lacrosse team, her menstrual cycle completely stopped. When she went to an OBGYN to discuss the issue, doctors told her this symptom was completely normal for female athletes.   Nearly ten years later, she learned that her period loss, or amenorrhea, was abnormal and actually dangerous. In fact, it’s the body’s response to too few calories, too much exercise, and extreme stress. It’s also extremely common among young female athletes, and intensified by scarce targeted education on nutrition, body image and hormone health within women and girls'sports.   Now, Jarvis coaches the same team she played on in high school, and she wants to provide the education that she didn’t have when she was growing up. She founded the Center for Active Women, where she organizes workshops for teams, schools and sports organizations to equip women and girls with the skills to develop healthy relationships with body, food, and exercise. She joins us to discuss her work.  

According to Multnomah County, nearly 3,000 more people are living unsheltered in the county than there were when Wilson took office. The Mayor says that data doesn’t match what he’s seeing, and that disconnect doesn’t help when the city and the county share responsibility for the region’s homeless response. OPB’s Alex Zielinski joins us to talk about her latest story.  

 After taking home the title in the statewide civics championship earlier this year, the constitution team from Portland’s Grant High School will represent Oregon in the national "We the People: The Citizen and the Constitution" finals kicking off in Maryland on April 17. The three-day competition features hundreds of students from around the nation demonstrating their knowledge of the U.S. Constitution, government and Supreme Court decisions by arguing historical and contemporary constitutional issues.   Sophie Durocher and Caspian Green are two members of Grant High School’s constitution team, and Angela DiPasquale is the team’s advisor. We’ll speak to them ahead of their travels to the national championship.