Dog Teams Search For Missing Starbuck Man

STARBUCK - Starting at dawn on Tuesday, three teams from Idaho Mountain Search Rescue made one final attempt to find Bob Bulota, the 64-year-old Starbuck resident who has been missing from his home since March.

Using three cadaver dogs specially trained to pick up the scent of humans, dead or alive, the teams of two volunteer rescuers each fanned out along the bushy Tucannon River west of Starbuck with one team starting at Bulota's cabin on First Street.

Columbia County Sheriff's officials, who requested the aid of the rescue teams in their last push to find the well-traveled bachelor, said the teams planned to spend Tuesday and Wednesday searching the Tucannon west to the Snake River, south down Kellogg Creek, along State Route 261 and by the Little Goose Lock and Dam Airport, where he liked to hike.

As of late Tuesday, rescuers had not turned up anything, but that wasn't the only point of the search effort, Sheriff's Deputy Don Foley said.

"It's a healing thing, even if we don't find anything," said Foley, the sheriff's lead on the missing person investigation. "Now everything that could have been done has been done."

Bill Bulota, Bob's older brother who lives in Stevenson, Skamania County, and believes his brother ended his own life in the canyon lands around Starbuck, said he welcomed the sheriff's call for aid but noted it could have been issued sooner.

Starbuck Mayor Darcy Linklater agreed.

"The sheriff was just slow in getting things done," said Linklater, who telephoned the property owners along the search route to alert them about this week's effort. "Finding the remains will bring up people's spirits a lot."

In a previous interview, Sheriff Walt Hessler said he felt that a search for Bulota, who was an avid hiker and could have walked for miles in any direction, was like finding a needle in a haystack.

One of the rescue volun- teers, Ronda Bowser from Clearwater County near Lewiston, said unless the search area is well defined,the effort can be challenging. Clad in orange vests and equipped with radios, each team consisted of a handler and an assistant. The dogs included a giant schnauzer, a German shepherd and a black lab/blue heeler mix from Idaho and Nevada. The giant schnauzer, which was first deployed at the miss­ing man's cabin, was aptly named "Watson." To coordinate the effort, the Columbia County Sher­iff's Office set up its mobile Incident Command center across the street from Darv­er's Tackle Shop, the unof­ficial heart of Starbuck. The teams poured over detailed topographical and aerial photo maps to prepare for the search.

Veteran rescue coordina­tor Rod Knopp said it's easi­est to find human remains within a week of any fatal accident. After a month or more, the scent becomes harder to detect. Still, ca­daver dogs have been known to find bone fragments and are trained to distinguish between human and animal remains. Foley said if any human remains are found they will then have to be identified. Enough pre-Columbian and settlers' history exists around Starbuck to produce the re­mains of other humans.

Their location would ini­tially be isolated and treated as a crime scene, he said.