Mushroom-Picking Gets Violent
LA GRANDE, Ore. - Mushroom picking has become a lucrative, competitive business and some people are resorting to gunfire to control prime picking areas.
Union County Sheriff Stephen Oliver said there have been three shooting incidents in the past two weeks among morel mushroom pickers in the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest outside of La Grande.
No one was hurt or arrested, and law-enforcement officials suspect gun toters were bluffing when they shot over the heads of the pickers.
Not all the incidents have been harmless. Last year, a picker was shot to death in Winema National Forest in southern Oregon,
"Basically, these people think they own the mushroom patches and they try to run everybody else off," Oliver said. "People are being really territorial."
That's because mushrooms, grown in patches on the forest floor, can bring in big money - up to $95 per pound for matsutake mushrooms prized by the Japanese.
Pickers receive anywhere from $3 to $18 per pound for morels and chanterelles, and the market for those mushrooms is growing in Europe and North America.
Mushrooms grow well after fires, and commercial wild-mushroom picking took off in the aftermath of forest fires of 1986 and 1989.
The character of mushroom pickers has changed as the demand has increased, Oliver said.
Many pickers are hiding out from the law, hoping to earn untraceable cash income, he said.
"This thing used to be professional woodsmen who were responsible and who left a campsite the way they found it," said Matt Briggs, owner of Cascade Mushrooms in Portland, one of the nation's largest wild-mushroom dealerships.
"They didn't leave garbage, they didn't drive four-wheel drive vehicles in off-road areas, and they might have had a gun in the vehicle but they didn't wear it," Briggs said.
The Boise Cascade timber company deals cautiously with mushroom pickers who camp on company land.
"There's usually a very large dog tied up. I've instructed all my people to avoid confrontation," said Bob Weinberger, chief forester for Boise Cascade.
"Because of the money involved, some of the people are paranoid," Weinberger said.
Oliver hesitates to call this year's situation dangerous.
"No one's shot at anybody, they've just shot above their heads," he said.
One mushroom broker said the problems may be exaggerated.
"There are strange things that go on out there," said John Barnes, owner of Pacific Mushrooms in Eugene. "But you take a bunch of guys that have been out in the woods for a week, camping out where the mushrooms are, sitting around the fire and drinking a few beers; when they get to talking, pretty soon what somebody else is doing is worse than it is."