WILLAMINA, Ore. — In rural Polk County, conservationists plan to shelter Oregon’s streaked horned lark and northern red-legged frog on land where rhinoceros and giraffes once roamed.
The Nature Conservancy recently completed purchase of a 470-acre plot near Willamina west of Salem that for nearly two decades served as a sanctuary for rare and endangered exotic animals.
The sanctuary is all but closed, but African antelope still roam the pastures alongside a mother elk and other native animals that have begun to repopulate the land.
So-called Noble Oaks Preserve isn’t a particularly large grab for the conservancy, but Dan Bell, the group’s Willamette Basin Conservation Director, says its location near two other tracts of protected land in the increasingly developed Willamette Valley makes it an important one.
“In the valley, something of that size is very significant,” Bell said.
He calls it a “habitat anchor” for the area’s wildlife, granting them an uninterrupted corridor between two adjacent conservation lands, and in close proximity to the Yamhill Oaks Preserve and Basket Slough National Wildlife Refuge.
The land also has a curious history.
Dick Noble was raised on a farm.
While owning livestock ceased to make sense when the now 78-year-old former lawyer went vegetarian back in the 1980s, he still enjoyed raising animals. So, Dick and his wife, Nancy, began dabbling in rarer species.
“Initially, it was miniature donkeys, special sheep and llamas,” Dick Noble said. “Then we decided we wanted to do something that was useful from a conservation standpoint.”
The pair joined the Association of Zoos &Aquariums and their property became a breeding farm for the agency’s species survival program. They began taking in endangered antelope, plus rhinoceros, giraffes, red pandas and other species you’d be shocked to find wandering the Oregon countryside.
“We started on a small scale, not thinking it would expand to the extent it did,” said Nancy Noble, 68.
The operation outgrew the Noble’s 50-acre property in Scholls, so they bought a defunct cattle spread near Willamina. To protect the animals from poachers and other dangers, the sanctuary’s location was kept secret.
At one point, the Nobles had 250 animals, including more than 20 species of antelope.
“The idea was to maintain captive groups of animals that are threatened or endangered so at some point they might be reintroduced into their native habitat,” Dick Noble said.
Twenty-five years later, the Nobles are ready to downsize. They began finding new homes for the animals a few years back, and are now down to about a dozen remaining geriatric animals. Most of them are functionally extinct in the wild.
The lifetime believers in conservation wanted their land to remain protected when they died, so they contacted The Nature Conservancy.
The agency closed on a $1.5 million purchase in October, using money from the Willamette Wildlife Mitigation Program, a fund created to fulfill the Bonneville Power Administration’s obligation to pay for wildlife conservation and restoration in the Willamette basin.
Preserving the land protects it from development in an area where large tracts are regularly converted into vineyards or parceled off for other uses.
“I would have hated to see the place divided up into five-acre plots or something like that,” Nancy Noble said.
Noble Oaks is among the last spots where the white oak savanna and upland prairie that once dominated the Willamette Valley continue to thrive. Hundreds of plant and animal species are associated with this dwindling habitat.
Work to restore the land has already begun, but it will be years before the public gets much access to Noble Oaks.
Under the deal, animals still remaining at Noble Oaks will be allowed to stay there until the end of their lives. The Nobles can remain in their home for the rest of Dick’s life, as well. Only after that time will the preserve be fully opened to visitors.
“We obviously can’t just open up the gates and let everybody in,” Bell said.
While they wait, The Nature Conservancy’s workers plan to re-seed pastures with native plants and thin the property’s roughly 200 acres of oak groves to give the trees more room to grow. They’ll remove invasive species that have begun to encroach, and they’ll develop a long-term plan for the property.
They’ll start opening the property to the public slowly, with guided hikes and volunteer outings.
Eventually, Dick and Nancy Noble hope to look out their window and see the antelopes and impalas replaced by elk, foxes, bobcats, birds and deer.
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