A little something for everyone as the year draws to a close.

Byline: Mike Stahlberg / The Register-Guard

THE FIRST year of the new millennium is fading at warp speed. Here, before 2001 disappears, is an update on some of the year's outdoor stories:

WALDO LAKE - Just last week, acting Willamette National Forest Supervisor Y. Robert Iwamoto issued a final "Decision Notice" on a new management plan for the popular Cascades lake east of Oakridge.

Iwamoto let stand the preliminary decision to adopt "Alternative III," which classifies the lake surface as a "semiprimitive, non-motorized" recreational opportunity zone.

The most significant aspect of the decision is that internal combustion engines will be banned on the lake following a five-year "transition period." Only electric motors will be allowed.

The decision also limits the creation of additional "dispersed campsites," those unofficial camp spots people carve out on their own.

The Waldo Lake issue drew a tremendous amount of public interest.

About 275 people took the time to respond in writing to the draft Waldo Lake Environmental Assessment, which was issued in September.

"Clearly the future of Waldo Lake is important to a lot of people," Iwamoto wrote in his decision notice. "While the management changes ... do not serve everyone's desires, they should allow the Forest Service to offer future visitors a Waldo Lake experience that most visitors have come to love."

Copies of the decision notice are available on the Internet at www.fs.fed.us/r6/willamette/mgmt/waldo.

A 45-day appeal period began Dec. 10.

POACHING - There's yet another chapter in the never-ending story of hunting's dark side.

Oregon State Police this week issued an appeal for public assistance in their investigation of the deaths of "five or more" elk killed over the past several months in the Whites Creek and London Road areas west of Cottage Grove Reservoir.

Some of the elk carcasses were found with only parts of the animal, such as the antlers, removed. The rest was left to waste.

Game law enforcement troopers are also investigating the unlawful killing of a large buck deer that occurred shortly after midnight on Thanksgiving along Cottage Grove Reservoir Road near Fox Lane.

In this case, three persons in a small blue car that fled the scene when a witness approached are suspects.

Anyone with information about any of the poaching incidents is asked to telephone Trooper Jeff Hagedorn at the OSP office in Springfield (726-2536, ext. 409).

The Oregon Hunters Association has a standing reward offer of $750 for each elk and $400 for each deer for information leading to the arrest of poachers.

DROUGHT - A severe shortage of water made a huge political splash last summer in the Klamath Basin. Farmers and federal marshals faced off over the headgates to the regional irrigation system after drought last winter and spring severely reduced the water running into Upper Klamath Lake.

But the lack of water caused little harm to waterfowl migrating through the region this fall, according to a report issued last week by U.S. Fish and Wildlife biologists.

The USFS counted about 1.6 million geese, ducks and other birds at the peak of the migration in late October and early November.

That topped the 1.3 million counted last year but was less than the 2.25 million counted in 1999, a good breeding year.

The most noticeable difference this year, biologists said, was that the birds left for wintering grounds in California's Central Valley earlier than normal.

SNOW BOWL - No form of outdoor recreation was harder hit than skiing by the aforementioned lack of precipitation last winter and spring. Downhill ski resorts in Oregon posted 20 percent or more declines in business last season.

This season, however, is off to one of the snowiest starts in recent memory.

Since Thanksgiving, for example, 125 inches of snow has fallen at Willamette Pass Ski Area.

That's exactly half of the 250 inches that fell there all of last season.

And winter doesn't even officially arrive for another week!

While ski area operators appear to be sitting pretty, they do need the snowfall to ease up a little so Christmas Vacation skiers aren't leery of driving in the mountains.

DISEASED DEER - Back in September, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife officials cautioned hunters to be on the lookout for sick or dying deer, citing an apparent outbreak of two deer diseases - deer hair-loss syndrome and adenoviral disease.

Bill Castillo, the ODFW's Springfield district wildlife biologist, said he received no diseased deer reports from hunters during the season.

"I did get a couple of reports (of hair-loss syndrome) during hunting season from landowners about deer on their property, but none of deer that hunters had killed," Castillo said. "So we did see some of the disease symptoms persist into the hunting season, which we hadn't seen in the past, but apparently it wasn't a high number of deer."

Mike Stahlberg is the Register-Guard's outdoor writer. He can be reached at [e-mail].