Many birds at Selah’s Raptor House Rehab Center have new pens thanks to the volunteer efforts of a group of master hunters.

“It took us a while but it was a neat project,” said Dave Colby, one of six master hunters who took part in the task.”

A master hunter is a person who completed a program “designed to promote responsible hunting” according to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

“In addition to training, the program emphasizes safe, lawful and ethical hunting priorities while upholding the highest standards. The program offers an opportunity for conscientious, committed hunters who care about the future of hunting to assume a leadership role among their peers. Through their knowledge and conduct in the field, Master Hunters play a key role in improving relationships with landowners, thus ensuring continued hunter access to private lands,” according to the WDFW website.

The group of local master hunters decided to do the project for the Raptor House a little more than a month ago to fulfill the renewal requirement of 40 hours of community service on wildlife conservation projects for the Master Hunter Program.

Colby said the group of hunters were sitting around talking about what project they would undertake and decided they wanted a good community service project, that’s when the idea of creating pens for the Raptor House was floated.

He said each person put in approximately 45 hours into the project, five more than what’s required to renew their master hunter certification. Renewals are valid for five years.

The group created a total of 17 new pens for the Raptor House including seven large pens and 10 pens for hawks and eagles.
“They came out really nice,” Colby said.
He said projects directly benefiting the wildlife in Selah don’t come around too often so it was great to be involved in the project.