10A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2016
Crab: ‘There’s no new toxin
in the water, we know that’
Afrika: Several dispensaries
are using his startup software
Continued from Page 1A
Continued from Page 1A
and the total value of Oregon’s
catch came to just $33.7 mil-
lion.
The price per pound in
Washington, particularly at
the start of a season, is identi-
cal to that set in Oregon. Pric-
es can change rapidly, often
rising or falling within days
of the opener.
it to launch a startup that of-
fers a point-of-sales software
system Afrika built for Ore-
gon medical marijuana dis-
pensaries.
‘Life-saving break’
‘I’m a Goonie’
Tri-state planning
7KH 'XQJHQHVV FUDE ¿VK-
ery remains closed in Cali-
fornia. If and when it does
open, Washington and Ore-
JRQ¿VKHUPHQZKRDOVRKROG
California crabbing licenses
will operate under a delay
and will have to wait a certain
number of days after the Cal-
LIRUQLDFUDEEHUVEHJLQ¿VKLQJ
EHIRUHWKH\FDQ¿VKWKRVHZD-
ters, too.
The three states, which run
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under a tri-state agreement,
plan to meet later this year to
develop a more streamlined
set of protocols for dealing
with future domoic acid relat-
ed closures.
“All the states agree that’s
needed,” Ayres said. “We just
need to let the smoke settle
for the current season open-
er.”
Natalie St. John/EO Media Group
A crab-laden boat arrived in the Port of Ilwaco around
10 p.m. Monday.
‘It could end up being a
little bumpy at the start.’
Dan Ayres
coastal shellfish manager with the Washington
Department of Fish and Wildlife
digs, popular in both Oregon
and Washington, were shut
down last spring after levels
of domoic acid in the clams
skyrocketed well above
health department thresholds
of 20 parts per million. Lev-
els remained high during the
fall and early December. But
currently, only one clam test-
ed by the state has come back
with levels at 19 parts per
million, according to Ayres.
Toxin details
Clams are a key dietary
OnMonday, Fish and
Wildlife also announced a item for Dungeness crab.
“There’s no new toxin in
tentative schedule for rec-
reational razor clam digs. the water, we know that,”
7KH¿UVWGLJLVVFKHGXOHGIRU Ayres said, later adding,
Thursday in Long Beach. The ³:H¶UH SUHWW\ FRQ¿GHQW LW¶V
not going to jet up to 110
parts per million like it did
last spring.”
But Fish and Wildlife will
still continue regular testing
as required by the state. Ayres
said that though it is unlikely
that domoic levels will jump
XSDJDLQLW¶VSRVVLEOH¿VKHU\
managers could still run into
a batch of clams that are hold-
ing onto the toxin at unsafe
levels. If that happens, the de-
partment will have to cancel
any digs and hope for another
round of clean tests.
“It could end up being
a little bumpy at the start,”
Ayres said.
Sea lions: Estimates have the California
sea lion population at more than 300,000
Continued from Page 1A
increasing numbers of most-
ly California sea lion males
migrating into the Columbia
WR IHHG RQ ¿VK UXQV ZKLOH
their traditional food network
along the California coastline
collapses under warm El Niño
conditions. Encapsulating the
migration into the Columbia
River was a single-day count
in March by the Oregon De-
partment of Fish and Wildlife
of more than 2,300 sea lions
Daily Astorian/File Photo
lounging in the Port’s East Seals and California sea lions are seen on the docks of
End Mooring Basin.
the East End Mooring Basin in Astoria in June.
/HW¶VEH¿UVW
Hunsinger started the sea
lion discussion in front of an
expansive whiteboard where
he wrote notes and drew
graphs detailing sea lion pop-
ulation growth, predation and
the animals’ effects on com-
PHUFLDO¿VKHULHVDQGWKH3RUW
Oregon and Washington
state biologists have no clue
what to do about sea lions or
how many more will come
this year, he said. “They don’t
know what’s coming next.
They know it’s going to be
bigger.”
Port staff claim more than
$100,000 in maintenance
costs because of sea lion dam-
age at the east basin, which re-
mains largely empty of boats,
except for two piers running
along a U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers breakwater lined
with larger vessels. Mean-
while, the Port’s West End
Mooring Basin has a waiting
list of more than 100 boaters
trying to get a slip.
Hunsinger said Astoria has
lost many of its commercial
¿VKHUPHQ WR QHDUE\ SRUWV LQ
Warrenton and Ilwaco, Wash-
ington.
“Are we going to let pred-
ators destroy our commercial
¿VKHU\"´KHDVNHGUHQHZLQJ
his calls for the Port to take
some sort of action against
the National Oceanic and At-
mospheric Administration.
NOAA, through the Na-
tional Marine Fisheries Ser-
vice, oversees the protection
of sea lions under the Marine
Mammals Protection Act of
1972, passed when the sea
lion population dwindled to
fewer than 10,000. Current
estimates have the California
sea lion population at more
than 300,000, with no estab-
lished limit on their protected
status.
“Somebody has to be
¿UVW´+XQVLQJHUVDLGDGGLQJ
the federal government is pro-
tecting animals to the detri-
made around $100,000 knock-
ing out corporate reports, he
said.
Given their situation, how-
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to seem pretty compelling.
ment of the local community.
“Why can’t it be us?”
Knight,
silent
through
Hunsinger’s presentation and
public comment about sea li-
ons, said there seems to be
Love ’em or hate ’em
A full range of emotions two separate issues: protect-
regarding sea lions was on ing the Port’s property against
display during the public damage by sea lions, and what
comment period of Tuesday’s the Port’s role should be in
meeting. Fishermen lamented forming a permanent solution
over the revenue they have regarding sea lions in the Co-
lost from sea lions in the river lumbia River.
“Give me a little bit of time
ripping through their nets at
to check with our attorney on
taking their catch.
“We have a species over- what we can do,” Knight said,
SRSXODWLQJ´ JXLGH ¿VKHUPDQ adding staff can look at how
Jody Mather said. “All you to get grant money to install
have to do is manage the barriers for sea lions on the
population. Get the numbers Port’s property.
Port Commissioner James
down. Kill them.”
After Mather’s comment Campbell said the Port will
came Veronica Montoya of need the help of its top po-
the Sea Lion Defense Bri- litical representation. Com-
gade, who said she wants to missioner John Raichl added
make sure the group has rep- that the Port should have only
resentation on any sea lion a support role regarding sea
OLRQSUHGDWLRQRQ¿VK
committee.
Last year, the Port staged
“Hunsinger has a personal
vendetta against the animals,” creative — if sometimes com-
she said, adding he is behold- ical — potential deterrents
en as an elected public servant to sea lions at the East End
QRW MXVW WR ¿VKHUPHQ EXW WR Mooring Basin, including
the tourists who come to see beach balls and a fake orca
that capsized.
the animals.
Butch Smith, a Port of Il-
Tensions rose while Mon-
toya spoke about keeping waco commissioner invited
watch over the east basin by Hunsinger to Astoria to
from her house. Mather made talk about sea lions, said his
a vague threat from the back port has been heralded by
of the room, telling Montoya NOAA for its control of sea
to get a life and adding that lions.
Smith said Ilwaco joined a
he had taken down her ad-
dress and those of other sea hazing program sponsored by
lion supporter as they intro- NOAA, in which certain peo-
duced themselves for public ple are licensed to shoot sea
comment. Mather was then lions with rubber bullets, hit
quieted by Port Commission them with a pole or use oth-
er nonlethal, nonpenetrative
Chairman Robert Mushen.
“Suing the federal gov- measures to keep them off
ernment is a huge, costly docks. He said much of the ef-
endeavor,” said Jim Wells, fort around preventing sea li-
SUHVLGHQWRIFRPPHUFLDO¿VK- ons is in not allowing anglers,
ing advocacy group Salmon FRPPHUFLDO ¿VKHUPHQ DQG
for All, cautioning the Port. SURFHVVRUV WR GURS ¿VK SDUWV
“We sued the state (of Ore- in the marina.
“If the same thing that hap-
gon) and didn’t get much out
pened to the east end basin (in
of it.”
Astoria) happened in Ilwaco,
we would go broke,” Smith
Take a breath
Executive Director Jim said.
Then Kevin McAdams, the
Newly married and de- owner of Hi, hired Afrika to
scending into poverty, they be a budtender, one who could
shared a doob and discussed also help boost the business’
online presence.
their future.
“I looked at my wife and
“It was a lifesaving break. I
asked her: I was like, ‘So, don’t know how else to put it.
babe, we’ve been married for a It was literally a lifesaving op-
month and a half. We’re about portunity,” Afrika said. “I don’t
to be homeless. Let’s talk about know where we would be.”
it. What kind of life would you
Relieved though he was,
like to lead?’”
Afrika found an irony in this
Rather than remain in the unplanned career move.
big city, they came to the North
“You want to know what’s
Coast, and Afrika freely admits really funny about all of this?”
WKDW ³7KH *RRQLHV´ ² D ¿OP said Afrika, a black man raised
he saw 12 times in the theater LQ WKH ZKLWH DIÀXHQW WRZQ RI
and put Astoria on the map for Brookline in Greater Boston,
him — had a lot to do with that Massachusetts: “My whole
decision.
life, people were convinced
“I feel like a super-Port- that I was a drug dealer.”
land hipster nerd right now, but
He and his family may
there is it,” he said. “I was like, have landed on their feet —
‘F--- it, I’m a Goonie.’”
DQG$IULND PD\ KDYH IXO¿OOHG
a long-held dream of living
on the coast — but he knows
‘In survival’
But the Afrikas were home- it could have easily turned out
less. They stayed in local mo- otherwise.
“What I learned through
tels and lived out of their car
this experience is that there
one night.
³:H ¿JXUHG RXW SUHWW\ are a lot of homeless people.
rapidly that we weren’t going This town has a huge transient
to survive that way,” he said. population of people passing
through who are not half as
“Scary characters abound.”
They visited the employ- fortunate as we were,” he said.
ment department and turned “We were almost one of them,
to Clatsop Community Action, and it was a really near miss.”
which gave them resources and
information.
‘Third eye’
“I had never been destitute
Afrika’s forehead bears
with a wife and child before. a blue, intricately patterned
I’d been a backpacking bum “third eye” (or “inner eye”)
before; that’s different ... When — the center of creativity and
you’re abroad on a walkabout, intuition in Eastern spirituality
you’re not a bum; then you’re that he wanted to “open up.”
a traveler,” he said. “It was a
The tattoo — which also
really stressful time. Because symbolizes his respect for all
when you’re homeless, you’re life — is a memento from his
not vacationing — you’re in 2001 trip to Montreal, Que-
survival. We didn’t know how bec. During that summer, he
it was going to turn out.”
hung out with a Reggae band,
Afrika was preparing to smoked a lot of high-quali-
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$10 an hour. The job, which he took a “marvelous journey of
saw advertised on a laundro- self-awakening.”
mat wall, would’ve been quite
A man averse to rigid struc-
a comedown from the years he tures, Afrika had dropped out
of Morehouse College, a his-
toric black college in Georgia,
DQGJRWDQRI¿FHMREGRLQJWHFK
support as a temporary assis-
tant.
“I could, like, breeze in,
save the day, step out,” which
he called doing his “Batman
impression.” On his ample
off-time, Afrika read self-help
books at Barnes & Noble. “It
was a good time, my college
dropout years.”
‘Buffet spiritualist’
Professionally, he was very
successful, but the traditional
path of the “genius computer
kid” meant less and less to him.
“At the end of the day, I was
desperately afraid that I was
going to wind up in an IBM
dungeon somewhere banging
out code, code-monkey-style,
for the next 20 to 30 years,” he
said. “That’s my personal ver-
sion of hell.”
Eventually, Afrika became
DFHUWL¿HG\RJDDQGPHGLWDWLRQ
instructor. Though a practic-
ing Buddhist, Afrika considers
himself a “buffet spiritualist,”
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across the faith and wisdom
traditions.
“I kind of take what works
for me and leave what doesn’t,
and I’m very happy that way,”
he said.
‘Pot sells itself’
At Hi, Afrika does for mon-
ey what he once did for free:
Tell folks how much he enjoys
marijuana.
“Pot sells itself. I’m mostly
just here to chat the people up
who come in and help them
pick pot,” he said. “But, if I
wasn’t here, if we had a vend-
ing machine, people would still
come in and buy pot.”
Meanwhile, his startup soft-
ware — designed to keep pace
with the rapid changes in Or-
egon’s marijuana regulations
— is making money and in use
at a Cottage Grove dispensary.
Several other dispensaries are
testing it out, including Hi.
“I feel like we’re sitting on
something really big,” the yo-
gi-vegan-entrepreneur said. “I
don’t think I’ve grasped myself
what we’ve done.”
The Liberty Theater Presents...
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a la c A
kind!
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....one p
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THE $99 ART “a la cARTe” SALE
A FABULOUS FUNDRAISER FOR THE LIBERTY THEATER .
SATURDAY, JANUARY 16, 2016: 2 to 3:30pm
at the historic Columbia Maritime Barbey Center.
Each original piece is created by local NW artists and
from across the country. Participants include well-
known artists like N OEL T HOMAS , E RIC W IEGARDT ,
D ARREN O RANGE , C AROL R ILEY , G IN L AUGHERY , D ON
N ISBETT and some yet to be discovered newcomers to
the art scene.
Astoria Visual Arts, Artist-in-Residence Program ,
will be participating this year at Art ala cARTe.
TICKETS ARE ON SALE NOW FOR $15 AT THE LIBERTY BOX
OFFICE , WHICH IS OPEN WEDNESDAY TO SATURDAY FROM 2 TO
5 PM . LAST DAY TO PURCHASE TICKETS IS JANUARY 15, 2016.
S PONSORED BY : US B ANK , T HE D AILY A STORIAN , T HE
B ANK OF THE P ACIFIC , AND C OLUMBIA B ANK