Environmental footnotes
Oregon legislators propose desert trail
By E G. WHITE-SWIFT
Of the Emerald
Sagebrush Hiking: Two
Oregon legislators have intro
duced a bill in Congress to study
the possibility of creating a desert
trail through the western United
States.
The study would include parts
of southeastern Oregon, as well
as arid sections of Arizona.
California, Nevada and Idaho. It
would focus on a route crossing
almost entirely public lands ad
ministered by state agencies or
the Bureau of Land Management
(BLM).
The proposed Desert Trail
would provide hikers a choice of
three border-to-border trail sys
tems in Oregon. The Pacific Crest
Trail along the timberline of the
Cascades is already completed.
The Oregon Coast Trail has one
completed section from Astona to
TiHamook Bay and is the prionty
project of the Oregon Recreation
Trails Advisory Council.
A desert trail would provide ac
cess to different terrain and
ecosystems, while offering alter
natives to hikers when the moun
tain trail is snowbound and the
coast trail waterlogged. It would
be relatively inexpensive to de
velop as it would utilize existing
trails, primitive roads and follow a
corridor of stone cairns across
open stretches of eastern Oregon
sagebrush.
The bill's sponsors include Sen.
Mark Hatfield and Rep. AJ Ulknan
It would authorize expansion of
the National Trails Act which now
designates the Pacific Crest and
Appalachian Trails as scenic
routes.
The study for the Western De
sert Trail would be added to 14
other potential new trails now
under review. Hatfield states that
none of the trails now being
studied for addition to the act
cross a predominantly desert en
vironment.
In Oregon the suggested route
would be from Homestead to the
lower edge of the Malheur Na
tional Forest near Drewsey, down
the Malheur River to Malheur
cave, across Diamond Craters
and into the Malheur National
Wildlife Refuge near Page
Springs. From there, the trail
would climb across Steens Moun
tain, drop to the AJvord Desert,
and proceed to Demo, Nevada.
Cuckoo Hunt: One of the pro
jects of the Southern Willamette
Ornithological Club (SWOC) is a
hunt for yellow-billed cuckoos in
ttte valley Last week Larry Mc
Queen, a Eugene ornithologist
and bird illustrator, invited me to
accompany him on one of the
hunts.
The cuckoo has been found in
Oregon before, but none have
been reported in the Willamette
Valley in five years. Its preferred
habitat is the thick riparian de
ciduous forest adjacent to
streams. As that type of dense
habitat is forbidding to the aver
age hiker and seldom inventoried
by birdwatchers, it is hoped that a
thorough search will turn up the
elusive cuckoo. A similar effort in
California last year produced sev
eral birds.
Armed with the weapons of any
good bird hunt, binoculars,
cameras, and a tape recorder, we
spent four sunburned hours
checking a 150-acre island near
the confluence of the Willamette
and McKenzie rivers. After wading
a slough and the Willamette, fight
ing through Himalayan blackberry
brambles that the Sasquatch
would find unbearable, and muck
Students, profs receive
Fulbright study grants
Seven University students,
along with a department head and
two associate professors, will
crown their studies with Fulbright
grants for research abroad during
the 1976-77 academic year
The students are Charles
Smythe, anthropology; Peter
Picerno, music; Jilda Warner,
comparative literature; Robert
Johnston, romance languages;
Mark Patterson, English; Kristine
Kaufman, German, and Gail An
drews, dance.
Their awards cover transporta
tion and cost of living allowances
for the grant year abroad.
Each of the students will pursue
individual research projects.
Smythe will study anthropology at
the University of Sydney, Au
stralia; Picerno will study music at
the University of Bologna in Italy;
and Warner will study compara
tive literature in Portugal. John
ston will study literature in Spain;
Kaufman and Patterson will go to
Germany to study German litera
ture and history, respectively.
Andrews will use her award to
study folk dance at the University
of Tampere in Finland. This is a
familar campus for her since her
father. University Mathematics
department head, Fred Andrews,
served as a visiting Fu (bright lec
turer there in 1969-70.
In addition to being mathema
tics department head. Andrews is
currently the acting head of the
University's computer science
department and also received a
Fulbright grant for the 1976-77
academic year. He will use the
award to teach and conduct re
search at the University College of
Cork in Ireland.
The two University associate
professors who also received Ful
bright honors are Roger Chicker
ing and Alan Kimball, both in the
history department.
Chickering will use his $9,000
award to spend the year in Bertin,
studying radical national organi
zations in Germany prior to World
War I. He was in Germany in
1970-71, gathering material for a
book on the pacifist movement in
Germany between 1892 and the
start of World War I.
Kimball, who has an $11,000
award, will be in the Soviet Union
studying social organizations and
public opinion in the capital city of
the Russian empire in the late
19th century.
ing across racoon-tracked mud
flats, we called it quits empty
handed.
Although the taped yellow
billed cuckoo calls did not arouse
any cuckoos, they were answered
by great blue herons, a valley re
sident. The great blue herons are
communal nesters, gathering in a
colony commonly referred to as a
rookery. We observed a large
rookery, with numerous adult and
immature birds sitting in the trees.
This rookery, one of the largest in
the valley, contains about 100
nests, each stick nest about three
feet across.
The most disturbing observa
tion of the wild cuckoo chase oc
curred while scanning the inha
bited river bank across from the
nparian island. One of the resi
dents. who probably paid a fancy
price for his house along the river,
was carefully sorting through his
garbage. A very careful polluter,
he selected only certain objects
from his trash to throw into the
river.
Briefs:
•Carroll Littlefield is the first re
cipient of the Alfred Cooper Shel
ton award offered by the Southern
Willamette Ornithological Club.
Shelton was a student at the Uni
versity from 1916-19, wildlife col
lector for the University’s Museum
of Natural History, and published
one of the first checklists of birds
of the valley.
Littlefield was awarded for his
study of the sandhill crane in
Oregon. His current investigation
involves determination of its
status as a possible endangered
or threatened species. His 1976
study will include population
counts, nest searches, reproduc
tive success studies, banding,
and fall migration counts.
•Spoke Folk, an informal as
sociation of bicyclers, is sponsor
ing a bike and camping trip Friday
and Saturday to Sharp's Creek;
for more information call Riley
McClain at 342-4878.
•Swimmers and canoeists can
begin posting "no motorboats”
signs along the Willamette River
from the Belt Line Bridge up
stream to the Highway 126 bridge
in Springfield. The state Marine
Board voted to ban motorized
water vehciles from that stretch of
river each year from May 15 to
Sept. 15.
•In 1950, the U S Army sprayed
the bacteria Serratia marcensens
along the Pacific Ocean near San
Francisco to study wind and water
currents. According to Prevention
Magazine, this is now blamed for
a sharp increase in a rare and
usually fatal heart valve disease,
acute bacterial endocarditis,
among residents of the Bay area.
The infection, which has been
noticed especially among drug
abuse patients, is occurring at
about three times the rate for any
other metropolitan area.
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