Tag: climate change

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Conservation News, Spring 2021

by Ann Vileisis

Representative DeFazio Leads on SOWSPA!

I am pleased to report that, since the last Storm Petrel, the bill to protect the headwaters of Hunter Creek, Pistol River, the Illinois (Rough and Ready Creek), and North Fork Smith from the threats of strip mining — the Southwestern Oregon Watershed and Salmon Protection Act (SOWSPA) — has passed the whole U.S. House of Representatives as part of a larger public lands bill (the Protecting America’s Wilderness and Public Lands Act), thanks to a big
push by our Representative Peter DeFazio! If you’ve not yet thanked Congressman DeFazio, please send a quick note via the contact page on his website to express appreciation (and help to keep him engaged!): https://defazio.house.gov/contact/contact-peter.

Now it’s time to ask our senators to do their part! They have already introduced a different bill, the River Democracy Act, which — based on nominations from hundreds of Oregonians — would designate thousands of miles of new wild and scenic rivers throughout our state, giving clear guidance to federal land managing agencies to accord our wild rivers with a higher level of protection. But most important, we need our senators’ help to finish the business of passing SOWSPA, which remains crucial to protecting threatened headwaters from mining. As longtime KAS members know, SOWSPA builds on years of communities coming together — on both sides of the Oregon and California border — to advocate for protecting outstanding wild rivers, drinking water, salmon and steelhead runs, recreation opportunities, and other natural values. The initial impetus was a proposal for mineral exploration in the headwaters of Hunter Creek/Pistol River by a company that also held a large block of mining claims in the headwaters of the North Fork Smith River. The laterite soils (what we often call “serpentine”) are rich in minerals but are of low grade — so mining would require removal of massive amounts of overburden. Such strip mining, plus piling and leach-processing of rock, in our high-precipitation area would be like opening a Pandora’s box at the headwaters of our special wild rivers. Working for increased protections for our public lands is a long process that demands perseverance, but I know that all our local voices together — YOUR VOICES — have been absolutely critical in getting us this far. Please let’s press ahead together. I thank you for your help in keeping this ball rolling along!

ACTION NEEDED: Please send an email to Senators Wyden and Merkley thanking them for introducing the River Democracy Act and encouraging them to introduce and advance SOWSPA in the Senate. Here is the contact page for Senator Wyden:
https://www.wyden.senate.gov/contact/email-ron

Here is the contact page for Senator Merkley:
https://www.merkley.senate.gov/contact

Here is a sample message to help you with writing
your own note:

Dear Senator Wyden/ Senator Merkley,
Thank you for introducing the River Democracy Act.
I appreciate your listening to Oregonians and giving
federal agencies clear guidance to better protect the
rivers that flow through our federal public lands.
However, in southwest Oregon, we have some rivers
that need additional protection from the threat of
strip mining at their headwaters. To address this
issue, I urge you to please re-introduce the Southwest
Oregon Watershed and Salmon Protection Act
(SOWSPA). The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed this bill, and so your leadership is now needed on the Senate side to get this important act
passed into law. Please re-introduce SOWSPA soon!

Floating Offshore Wind Power: Coming SOON to a Coast Near Us

In late March, KAS along with the Oregon Audubon Coalition (OAC) hosted a webinar with planners from the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Manage-ment (BOEM) and the State of Oregon about current planning for future installation of floating wind tur-bines in federal waters off our coast. In short, BOEM is now preparing to identify potential leasing areas, called “call areas,” for wind energy development companies, and the agency wanted to “engage” with us to tell us what they are doing to address concern about impacts to birds.

Of course, we’re very interested to know. Our “beat”— Oregon’s South Coast — is seabird central! Oregon hosts one-half of the West Coast’s breeding bird colonies, and our part of the coast hosts more than one-half of Oregon’s colonies. We have millions of seabirds that come to breed here precisely owing to the wind, which churns the surface and causes upwelling of deep, cold water and nutrients that nourish the invertebrates and fish they forage on; it’s one of the richest and cleanest marine ecosystems on the West Coast. Moreover, these rich waters also attract nearly 100 species of pelagic birds from all across the Pacific, including albatrosses, shearwaters, fulmars, and more. I’ve never yet been out on a pelagic birding trip, but friends who have say that 25 miles out is where one starts to see many of these unique species. Of course, fish and wildlife, including whales and other marine mammals, depend on rich offshore waters, too. So what is BOEM doing? It is currently assembling and starting to analyze known data with the aim of identifying areas where presumably impacts to birds, fish, and wildlife can be minimized. I am grateful that BOEM is making this effort, but I have no delusions. This is the same agency that oversees offshore oil and gas leasing, and its process aims to expedite installation of industrial-scale energy production facilities by big energy companies. Though it sounds at first like BOEM’s planning will inform the site selection, actually the companies decide where they want to site facilities first, and then a public process follows from there. It is expected that BOEM will invite companies to propose sites for projects later this year (likely in November). Then there will be two opportunities for public input — the first in response to general siting of “call areas” and another with the NEPA-required public process — after areas have been leased and companies have put forth their specific plans, which is, of course, quite late in the game for making meaningful adjustments.

Meanwhile, with the Biden Administration’s big push to address climate change with green energy projects, there is now a rush to bring these facilities to Oregon to take advantage of substantial, time-limited federal subsidies. On the state level, in early April, the Oregon House Committee on Energy heard a bill put forth by our Representative David Brock Smith to expedite installation of three gigawatts of power — roughly 250 to 300 massive turbines — off our coast by 2025 or 2030. The initial bill called for a task force to expedite development and included no mention of birds, fish, wildlife, or ecosystems, but it was substantially amended to instead direct the Oregon Department of Energy to collect information about the benefits and challenges of connecting the offshore energy facilities with Oregon’s electric grid. The amended version includes a statement about minimizing impacts to ocean ecosystems and also, very fortunately, includes clear language about the need to plan for decommissioning of such facilities. This improved bill has bipartisan support, is expected to pass, and aims to give different economic stakeholders and the State of Oregon greater leverage in deciding where and how wind energy facilities might be sited — though to be clear, the primary permitting process will be federal.

In the past, land-based wind power on our coast had been deemed economically infeasible because the big BPA (Bonneville Power Administration) transmission lines stop at the California border and so could not carry electrons south to lucrative, larger markets seeking renewable energy. Now, however, a new model is being put forth — to tap Oregon’s offshore wind to supply power to coastal communities and then use our state’s existing grid infrastructure to also convey electricity into the Willamette Valley, freeing up other energy for energy-demanding metropolitan areas to the north and south. It is widely thought from a national perspective that wind power will help to reduce our dependence on polluting fossil-fuel energy sources, namely oil and gas, with an overall benefit of ultimately reducing impacts of climate change.

National Audubon has a policy of supporting wind energy development that minimizes impacts on birds — recognizing that the environmental stressors associated with climate change are already affecting birds, fish, and wildlife. The harsh reality is that we now live in a time of increasingly heartbreaking tradeoffs based on the tragic failure of past energy policy decisions.

One thing I have learned about reducing impacts of wind turbine arrays is that siting is supremely im-portant; wind generators are a good idea but are not suitable everywhere. With concern about potential impacts of industrial wind installations on birds, fish, and wildlife in the rich waters off Oregon’s coast, KAS and the OAC intend to engage to ensure that the expedited federal permitting process will not sidestep these concerns.

Honestly, when I listened to the state hearing online, heard our coast described as the “Saudi Arabia of Wind,” and saw that the initial bill to expedite energy development included not a single word about birds, it was hard not to worry about the gold-rush mentality of wind developers. It made me realize we’ll surely need to stand up for the albatrosses, petrels, and puffins, and hopefully be a force to make sure these potentially massive industrial facilities get sited in the least damaging locations and operated in the least damaging manner possible. Please stay tuned on this important emerging issue.

Administration Revokes Bad MBTA Opinion

In early March, the Biden Administration revoked the controversial opinion made by the former administration’s Department of the Interior Solicitor, the so-called “M-Opinion,” which in 2017 had weakened the Migratory Bird Treaty Act — one of America’s bedrocks for bird conservation. Reversing decades of legal interpretation, the “M-Opinion” declared that the Act did not prohibit incidental — albeit the predictable and preventable — killing of migratory birds by commercial activities. In addition, the Biden Administration started a public process that hopefully will also revoke the pending regulation intended to further codify the unfavorable-to-birds “M-Opinion.”

With ever increasing development along their migra-tory flight paths, our birds face increasing threats — from potential for collisions with tall buildings, wind turbines, and communications towers, to finding former wetland resting and feeding habitats reduced to crowded, disease-ridden, or polluted-by-industry sinks. Several industries, including wind energy, have made great effort to develop best practices and miti-gation measures to reduce incidental bird mortality, owing precisely to the “stick” of the MTBA. This bedrock law remains critically important as a tool for bird conservation into the future.

Protect Forests to Address Climate Crisis

President Biden’s first big action on the environment was to re-enter the Paris climate agreement, and his administration has hit the ground running with efforts to accelerate a transition to renewable energy. How-ever, there is another important approach that many in the conservation community would like to see advanced, too: protecting our forests.

Safeguarding current carbon stored in forests and in-creasing those stores is recognized by the Intergov-ernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as an essential strategy for addressing the climate crisis. U.S. forests already sequester nearly 12 percent of our nation’s annual carbon emissions, but they could do more if public lands forests were strategically managed to retain carbon.

Mature trees in old-growth forests play an outsized role in storing and sequestering carbon because they serve as a centuries-old bank. Intact, primary, or un-logged forests store 30 percent to 70 percent more carbon than logged forests. It will take quite a long time for newly planted trees to catch up — 100 or 200 years, of course. In addition, protecting mature forests would have the multiple benefits of also pro-tecting clean water and biodiversity.

For all these reasons, Kalmiopsis Audubon joined with more than 100 conservation and environmental groups in sending a letter to Biden Administration climate policy leaders, urging them to include protection of mature and old-growth forests as a key strategy to assure compliance with the Paris climate treaty. At a global climate summit on Earth Day, Biden announced an ambitious new goal of reducing carbon emissions by 50 percent by 2030 — signaling greater urgency and commitment to addressing the climate crisis. There is a lot of focus on new technologies, but let’s not forget the value of our trees and forests as tried-and-true carbon sequesterers.

KAS Supports ODFW Efforts to Protect Habitat

Earlier this year, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) submitted applications for “in-stream water rights” to ensure future flows for fish in more than 100 streams around the state, including in our area the Sixes, Chetco, and Winchuck. The flows of all our local rivers are pretty much already “fully-appropriated” for the low-flow summer months, which means that water users already have the rights to take all the water that is available down to a fairly minimal flow level, not always leaving enough as would be optimal for fish and aquatic life. Like most states in the West, Oregon’s water allocation system is based on the antiquated doctrine of first in time, first in right — established long before anyone could envision a scenario of scar-city and certainly before anyone remembered to leave some water in the river for fish.

Fortunately, many of our rivers already have some minimal in-stream water rights for fish, and in some cases, farmers or ranchers have worked with ODFW to allow their water rights to flow in-stream for the purpose of conservation — so the new ODFW applications were submitted as a kind of insurance policy, giving fish priority should any flows become available in the future. Nevertheless, Curry County’s commissioners decided to oppose the in-stream flow proposals, suggesting that they would preclude “future development” that would be more important. I honestly can’t imagine many local residents prefer-ring more development to rivers with insufficient water in the summer or fish in the fall. On behalf of KAS, I submitted a letter to the commissioners and also to the State Water Resources Department to back up ODFW’s applications for local in-stream flows, and I appreciate other KAS members from the specific watersheds who helped by sending addition-al letters. We also sent a letter to support ODFW in updating the state’s Essential Fish Habitat maps. These official maps determine where the many laws intended to protect salmon habitat actually apply — and affect activities such as mining and logging.

Port Orford Dark Sky Ordinance

Keeping Port Orford’s skies dark — for natural beauty, birds and wildlife, human health, and energy conservation — has been an issue championed by KAS for more than two decades with notable success, but evolving LED lighting technology has made an up-grade of the Port Orford outdoor lighting ordinance necessary. The public process has taken longer than expected, but we’re now getting close. At its March meeting, the City Council sent the latest version back to the Planning Commission (PC) with a request for some specific fixes related to enforcement provisions, street lights, and security lights. At its April meeting, the PC stated its intent to make the fixes in May and then to hold another public hearing in June. The ordinance will then head back to the City Council, hopefully for final approval. Please sign up for the KAS HOOT OUT to learn more about how you can help at the critical junctures. It will be important to show public support!

Interactive Map of Clearcuts and Sprays Across Oregon

If you haven’t done so yet, I’d recommend checking out the map created by Coast Range Forest Watch that compiles all the clearcuts and sprays planned so far in 2021. A zoomed-out view shows just how much forestry activity is planned in the Coast Range, and zooming in will allow you to see if activities may be planned in a specific area you care about. It also al-lows you to see which clearcuts and sprays are taking place within municipal drinking watersheds. You can view the map online at www.sprayfreecoast.org/sprays-across-oregon/ which also provides information about more of the map’s functions and how to use it.

If you’re interested in helping to monitor forestry activity in a watershed near you, please contact teresa @kalmiopsisaudubon.org. – Teresa Bird

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Fall 2020 Conservation News

Port Orford’s Dark Sky, update

KAS has continued to participate in the City of Port Orford’s effort to upgrade its “Dark Sky” outdoor lighting code to account for changes in technology. The basic principle of “dark sky” lighting is to point lights down or properly shield them to reduce sky glow and light trespass into other people’s yards. However, new LED fixtures pose new challenges, requiring us all to learn a new language of illumination. Watts remain the energy required per second; lumens are the measure of light output (brightness); and kelvins describe a light’s “color temperature” on a scale, with 2700 kelvins (k) describing the warmest LED fixtures (the color of incandescent bulbs), to 3000k (cool white), to 3200k (florescent bulb-like) and beyond, with lights rated at 4000k and above having blue elements experienced as extremely cool and bright.

While LED fixtures are excellent for conserving electricity, lights that are too blue and bright can have unintended impacts to human health and wildlife. Reports from the American Medical Association (AMA) have raised concerns about possible adverse effects of shorter wavelength blue light that can adversely suppress melatonin during night. According to the AMA, recent large surveys found brighter residential nighttime lighting associated with reduced sleep times, dissatisfaction with sleep quality, excessive sleepiness, impaired daytime functioning and obesity. The AMA concluded that communities should be careful “to minimize and control blue-rich environmental lighting by using the lowest emission of blue light possible” and recommended using fixtures no higher than 3,000k. Beyond human health, studies have found impacts of excessively bright lights on birds, wildlife, pollinating insects, and more. The capacity for new LED fixtures to emit such bright, blue glaring light prompted KAS to urge a cap on kelvins.

This has particular relevance for the streetlights on Highway 101. ODOT has plans to repave and re-line Highway 101 through Port Orford and says it must now must apply national crosswalk safety standards. This will require 6 new pairs of lights mounted on 30-foot poles, taller than what we currently have (a motley collection from 20-28ft). The small town of Port Orford has low pedestrian use and low traffic at night. We’ve long had crosswalks without lights, and so many have questioned whether new lights are truly needed, worried that our main street will end up looking like a Walmart parking lot. ODOT’s answer is simply that all cross walks now need to meet national safety standards.

Other coastal cities have met the safety requirements by footing the sizable bill for greater numbers of low, decorative lights, but Port Orford doesn’t have the budget or inclination for that. Initially, the ODOT lighting design called for 3,000k lights. Fortunately, in response to strong public concern, ODOT’s engineer has now approved use of warm lights (2700k) with full cut-off fixtures to meet Port Orford’s  “dark sky” goals as long as lights can be mounted high on the 30-foot poles, but it remains unclear whether Coos-Curry Electric Coop will be able and willing to source these Dark-Sky compliant fixtures. They say not all fixtures can stand up to coastal conditions. KAS has pressed for use of warm colored lights and has also asked city council to urge ODOT to consider other options for pedestrian safety, such as lights that come on only when someone needs to use a crosswalk.

In August, the Port Orford Planning Commission (PC) passed its upgraded outdoor lighting ordinance and recommended it to the City Council (CC), which voted unanimously to pass it in September. But then, during a “second reading,” CC members decided to make some changes to address concerns about placement of security lights and how fines would be levied. Owing to outstanding questions related to the ODOT required lights on Highway 101, the CC has sent the code back to the PC and is now waiting for answers before considering a final version. A huge thanks to all KAS members who are helping to work on this issue. It’s not over yet, so if you want to help, please send me an email.

Salmon on the South Coast

ODFW is currently developing a plan to manage several fisheries on the South Coast. The public process has been limited this time primarily to angler stakeholders with the exception of the Lower Rogue Watershed Council, but KAS has participated to advocate for the local species that are not fished (threatened coho), for birds unfairly vilified (cormorants) because they are fish predators, and for stronger consideration of climate change impacts to our local fish runs. SONCC coho are a threatened species that has already been reduced to perilously low levels, and ODFW scientists have identified that our cherished rivers will come under far greater stresses with climate change, including lower flows and higher water temperatures.

This new plan will deal with steelhead, coho, and cutthroat trout from Elk River south (2 other plans deal with chinook and rivers from Elk north) and aims to specify “harvest” levels and hatchery output, as well as some goals for habitat improvement. Some fish conservation groups are pressing ODFW to allow anglers to harvest steelhead only if there is sufficient monitoring and data to demonstrate that populations can handle fishing pressure. There has also been discussion about the need to evaluate both harvest goals and hatchery programs in light of climate challenges, recognizing that natural origin fish will have greater genetic capacity to adapt to new conditions. Planning ahead for how we will have resilient salmon and steelhead populations and fisheries into the future will likely require a more precautionary approach from ODFW.

If ODFW doesn’t take climate change seriously in all aspects of its work, it will be harder to ask individuals who own riverfront properties to actively engage in the river stewardship and restoration activities that will also be critical, such as conserving water if you tap into groundwater or river flows for irrigation or lawn watering, planting trees and native plants that can help provide shade to cool the water temperature, or allowing beavers to recolonize in tributary streams. If you are a riverfront property owner and want to help to do more to help our rivers prepare for climate change, contact Curry Watersheds Partnership ((541) 247-2755, ext. 0), to learn more. Also, if you are new to our area, you may not be aware that Curry County has a “Riparian Buffer Corridor Overlay Zone” (50-75 feet from rivers and streams, depending on flow) that prohibits permanent clearing of riparian vegetation, a policy that helps to protect water quality and fish habitat. It’s going to take us all supporting conservation policies and restoration of riparian habitats if we want to keep our birds and fish into the future.

Oregon’s Rocky Habitat Plan update

The state of Oregon is currently updating and revising its policies to protect rocky coastal habitat areas for the first time in 25 years. Rocky coastal habitats include offshore rocks and islands, tidepools, and headlands—features that provide natural beauty but also outsized ecological values to so many creatures that depend on them for food and shelter, from unique invertebrates to our beloved black oystercatchers and turnstones.

The Rocky Habitat Management Strategy will provide for three new types of protective designations—Marine Conservation, Marine Gardens (focusing on education), and Marine Research— to safeguard these unique habitats into the future.

To develop the new Rocky Habitat Management Strategy, the state of Oregon has asked citizens and communities to nominate rocky sites that deserve protection. At this point community groups have formed up and down the coast and are in the process of developing substantial, site-specific proposals based on input received earlier this summer. Full proposals, which will go to state agencies and decision-making bodies for review, are due at the end of the year.

On the South Coast, Shoreline Education for Awareness, South Coast Rocky Shores Group, Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans, based at Oregon State University (PISCO), the Oregon Kelp Alliance, and Oregon Shores Conservation Coalition have taken the lead to develop site specific proposals for Coquille Point, Blacklock Point, Cape Blanco, part of Port Orford Heads, Rocky Point, and Crook Point.

You can help support these designations by writing letters of support, sharing observations about proposed sites you regularly visit, and participating in community meetings to support the site designation process (currently being held online). To learn more about sites being considered for designations in our area, and how you can get involved, please contact CoastWatch Volunteer Coordinator Jesse Jones (503-989-7244, jesse@oregonshores.org). 

More information on the Rocky Habitat Management Strategy, which nests within the state’s Territorial Sea Plan, can be found at: https://www.oregonocean.info/index.php/tsp-rocky-shores-amendment. 

Shasta-Agness Project

In late July, the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest released the Record of Decision for its “Shasta-Agness Landscape Restoration Project,” a plan that will guide management of nearly 7,000 acres of public lands in the vicinity of Agness. The idea for this project started many years ago, with Forest Service planners and the Forest Collaborative aiming to find common ground on logging that could provide timber but also accomplish conservation goals, such as restoring oak savannas, while supporting recreation opportunities.

Owing to fire suppression, the landscape around Agness in particular has been shifting from oak savanna vegetation to Douglas firs. But the warming climate may now be making it harder for Douglas firs to thrive in thin soils. Already some have died owing to persistent drought. According to Forest Service, thinning in areas with encroaching firs, plus prescribed fires, could help shift the ecosystem back to white oaks; then revenues generated from timber could fund positive conservation actions such as replacing old culverts and decommissioning old logging roads that still spill sediment into tributaries. However, one controversial aspect of this plan is to log some firs in LSR (Late-seral reserve) areas that are now more than 80 years old –and so already well on the way to providing the kind of big tree habitat that is more resistant to fire and that is needed by some forest birds and wildlife. The plan includes 3,770 acres of commercial logging in oak woodlands, pine forests, and riparian zones.

This project, like all public-lands projects, has gone through a NEPA public process designed to identify environmental impacts and consider different options. (NEPA is the National Environmental Planning Act.) KAS has submitted comments through the entire public process. We supported thinning of plantations (already logged areas that are now thick and fire-prone) and all actions related to stream restoration. We supported restoration of oak savannas but urged a cautious approach, especially with regards to hazards of invasive plants taking over in the wake of logging, questioning the feasibility of how prescribed burns could actually be implemented, and asking for more explicit plans for how restoration will actually be accomplished after logging is done and underscoring the need for adaptive management, since this type of restoration is new to this area. We questioned the need for commercial logging in riparian areas and serpentine pine areas, where mineralized soils already create a mosaic of habitat. In addition, we asked for more careful consideration of how recent wildfires affected the larger landscape of southwest Oregon, pointing out that the forest habitat still standing in the vicinity of Agness may now be all the more important for birds and wildlife, including the coastal marten, that have dispersed from the large areas burned in the Chetco Bar and Klondike Fires.

With the Final Record of Decision, we were disappointed that our main concerns were not adequately addressed. We submitted objections raising concern about several aspects of the project: commercial logging in Riparian Reserves and serpentine pine areas, the likely increase of invasive species in oak savanna restoration areas; and the short timeline of the project over a large area, which precludes the ability to actually apply the promised “adaptive management” approach. In short, it’s hard to shift gears and adapt management to new information after all the trees have been cut. Objections were considered at a meeting in late October. In early September, the coastal marten was designated as a federally threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. We hope this will require the Forest Service to make some adjustments to its plan. The last major timber management plan in our area, “Coastal Healthy Forest Treatments,” focused on plantation thinning and has guided the direction of local timber sales for over ten years. This plan has scheduled timber sales over the next 4 years.

Protecting forest waters

Over the past several years, Teresa Bird has headed up KAS efforts to help local citizens and communities better understand and find out about aerial spraying on nearby private timberlands. As we’ve come to learn, Oregon’s Forest Practices law is weak, with only narrow buffers from logging and spraying to protect fish-bearing streams and no buffers to protect smaller non-fish bearing streams, even those that flow into drinking water sources. Earlier this year, we hosted an online training to help volunteers learn how to monitor for spraying through the state’s aerial spraying notification program (FERNS).

I am pleased to report a positive outcome from these efforts. Through monitoring of the Hubbard Creek watershed, which supplies drinking water for the city of Port Orford, Teresa identified an upcoming timber sale and spray in the North Fork. She alerted the local Port Orford Watershed Council. The Council was then able to reach out to the landowner to request that the logging company leave a buffer around the stream and avoid aerial herbicide spraying. Because this stream is both non-perennial and non-fish bearing, there are absolutely no requirements to leave buffer trees or to avoid spraying, even though it flows into a public drinking water supply. In the end, the company agreed with a handshake to leave a 20-foot buffer and to use only manual application of herbicides. The Chair of the Port Orford Watershed Council went out with the company to flag the buffer zone. Kudos to the Port Orford Watershed Council for negotiating this positive deal for Port Orford’s water drinkers!

In the absence of meaningful reform of the Oregon Forest Practices Act, continued vigilance by citizens will be needed to protect the streams that flow through Oregon’s private timberlands, many of which are now owned by real estate investment companies. If you’d like to help us monitor for local aerial sprays, please contact Teresa at teresa@kalmiopsisaudubon.org

Marbled Murrelet Surveys Continue by Teresa Bird

This summer I continued to look for murrelets in our nearby coastal forests with the help of Max Beeken. The most exciting surveys this year were along the South Fork Sixes River, where Max and I both saw an amazing amount of murrelet activity on both sides of the river! I also heard many of the murrelet’s distinctive keer! calls from all around me during a survey about a third of the way up the Humbug Mountain trail. While we usually focus our survey efforts in the forest surrounding Elk River, this year we also helped Coast Range Forest Watch survey a proposed timber sale on the Board of Forestry lands in the Elliott State Forest. The many combined murrelet sightings from our surveys in the area effectively confirmed that the area was being used by murrelets, and the timber sale was halted by the Oregon Department of Forestry. Thanks to the National Audubon Society for a grant that helped to fund this survey effort!