Eugene weekly., June 12, 2014, Image 8

NEWS
Holy Cow is permanently closing its campus
location in the EMU on the UO campus as of June
30. “Deconstruction is in full swing and we cannot
afford to keep it open after business went down
50 percent due to construction,” says Kathee
Lavine of Holy Cow in an email. “We are open on
Willamette and our catering and products are
available as always.” Lavine adds, “It is perhaps
fitting that we are going out with the OUS system,
both of us ending our involvement with the UO on
June 30. The university has changed dramatically
in the 17 years we have had the café on campus.”
She says Holy Cow was the first all-organic
restaurant on a college campus anywhere. “We
are proud of leading the EMU in sustainability:
stewarding reusable plates, composting, cooking
with real, whole organically grown ingredients as
well as filtering water, supporting local farmers
and small businesses.” The restaurant’s off-
campus site is at 2621 Willamette.
H Boutique is closing its doors at 5th Street
Public Market and will reopen in the fall at Valley
River Center within the Harry Richie’s store. H
Boutique and Harry Richie are among a chain of
16 jewelry stores on the West Coast and Idaho
and the company was founded in 1956 by Harry
and Jerry Richie. Corporate offices are at 956
Willamette St. No word from the market on what
business might take its place.
In labor news, McKenzie-Willamette Hospital
workers go to the bargaining table at 10:30 am
Thursday, June 12, at the McKenzie Room at the
hospital in Springfield. Find more information at
the Eugene/Springfield Solidarity Network
website at wkly.ws/1ry.
Freelance writer and author Sharleen Nelson
and her husband have published a new book on
Oregon’s Festivals, Faires & Celebrations, listing
more than 90 events that take place around
Oregon on an annual basis. The book is published
by GladEye Press and will be available soon on
amazon.com. Email snelson858@comcast.net.
We hear Festival Latino held May 31 at
Sprout! Food Hub in Springfield was a big
success, drawing about 400 attendees and
raising more than $5,000 to support Huerto de la
Familia’s work with the Latino community. The
event aims to “promote cross-cultural
understanding and integration in Eugene/
Springfield,” according to Alex Macfarlan, the UO
master’s candidate in public administration who
coordinated the event. See huertodelafamilia.
org.
A SEA STAR DYING
FROM WASTING DISEASE
PHOTO: ELIZABETH CERNY-CHIPMAN
OREGON COAST SEA
STARS RAVAGED BY
WASTING DISEASE
Sea stars are known for their ability to regenerate
limbs, but a vicious disease now sweeping the Oregon
coastline is causing sea stars to rot and disintegrate much
more quickly than their powers of regeneration can han-
dle. If the die-off continues and we lose Oregon’s iconic
orange and purple sea stars, local extinctions could cause
long-term trouble for other marine animals.
“The way the rate has accelerated, I don’t think most
sea stars along the Oregon coast are long for this world,”
says Bruce Menge, a marine ecologist with Oregon State
University.
“They can pull their arms off, ending in disintegra-
tion,” Menge says. “We’ve seen their arms crawl away
from them.”
While sea star wasting disease was first observed in
Washington in June 2013, it didn’t spread to the Oregon
coast until April of this year, and since then, the disease
has ravaged Oregon sea stars at an alarming rate. Sea
stars are commonly called starfish, a term scientists don’t
use because sea stars are not a fish.
Menge says that his research team monitors purple
ochre sea stars at a dozen research sites along the Oregon
coast, including Cape Perpetua, Cape Foulweather and
IT’S ABOUT TIME
B Y D AV I D WA G N E R
“Guerrilla Funding for Small Business” is the
topic of an LCC Small Business Development
Center session at 6 pm Thursday, June 12, at the
Downtown Eugene Library. Speaker is Frank
Plaisted, an expert on financing small startups.
Call 682-5450. Also at the library at 10 am
Saturday, June 14, will be a free “Discover the
Info Hub” session focusing on online tools and
resources. Basic internet skills are a prerequisite.
The 50th anniversary of the McKenzie
Flyfishers will be celebrated from 6 to 9 pm
Monday, June 16, at Lewis & Clark Catering,
2210 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., next to the
Mercedes car dealership. Program begins at 8 pm
with members recounting the organization’s
conservation accomplishments and outings.
Free and open to nonmembers. Optional dinner is
$17. Call 913-0710 for more information.
A produce stand for FOOD for Lane County’s
Youth Farm is now open through October from 2
to 6 pm Thursdays at Sacred Heart Medical
Center at RiverBend, near the ER entrance, and
from 10 am to 2 pm Saturdays at the Youth Farm,
705 Flamingo Ave. in Springfield.
BULLFROG TADPOLE IN A
2-YEAR-OLD’S HAND
8
June 12, 2014 • eugeneweekly.com
Seal Rock. In early-to-mid April, less than 1 percent of
observed sea stars had the disease. By the end of May,
the numbers shot up to 40 to 60 percent at most research
sites. The disease can kill a sea star in a week or less, and
it is currently affecting 10 species of sea stars.
Scientists don’t have any conclusive explanations for
the disease. Researchers at Cornell think a virus might
be to blame, Menge says, but they “still don’t have the
smoking gun.”
Several ideas exist: If the disease is waterborne, it
could travel hundreds or thousands of kilometers in a
short amount of time, not restrained by the limitations
that airborne diseases face.
Another idea, Menge says, is that the sea stars harbor
a kind of virus or bacteria that is normally harmless, but
a shift in habitat conditions, perhaps caused by climate
change, has triggered the infective agent to become le-
thal.
Sea stars play important roles in ocean ecosystems,
preying on mussels in the rocky intertidal zone, and with-
out sea stars, mussels could gradually take over the lower
shore and squeeze other species out.
Menge says sea stars have experienced episodes of
wasting before, but it’s usually localized and doesn’t last.
In the ’70s, he says he observed a wasting episode in
New England, and the sea stars disappeared for a season.
“Fortunately for that site, a lot of juveniles survived it,”
he says. “We don’t know if that’s going to happen this
time.” — Amy Schneider
I
n the Willamette Valley the farmers markets
are flush with vegetable garden starts. Our
traditional vegetable season starts late
because of our typical cool spring but lasts
long into the fall. I harvest hot peppers in
October. I encourage supporting the local
organic farmers by buying well-rooted starts. For a
small garden, it seems to make more sense than
investing in starting from seed indoors. Only my peas
and beans are seeded directly into the ground, one
following the other.
We know the summer solstice is soon to arrive
when the rising sun shines through the windows on
the north side of the house. Alkaid, the star at the tip
of the tail of Ursus Major, the end of the Big Dipper’s
handle, is almost directly overhead at midnight.
People who follow the stars and people who follow
the sun are prepared for a celebration. As an old friend
was wont to say, “Logic today must take care of itself,
the sun’s in the hills living it up.”
Enjoy walking on the riverbank paths. Standing
under tall cottonwood trees listening to the murmur
of great blue herons tending to nestlings in the
rookery above is deeply reassuring. Play in ponds for
fun. What’s more fun than catching tadpoles for
children to see how the legs develop? Bullfrogs,
although predatory invasives, make great examples
of metamorphosis. Tadpoles may take two years to
develop into adults, so a big four-legged pollywog fills
the hand of a 2-year-old.
David Wagner is a botanist who has lived in Eugene for more than
30 years. He teaches moss classes and leads nature walks. He may
be reached at fernzenmosses@me.com.