DailyAstorian.com // FRIDAY, APRIL 21, 2017
144TH YEAR, NO. 211
ONE DOLLAR
Memo alleges threats against Port’s Knight
allegations against the “Man Cave”
being an “unlicensed speakeasy”
went public.
Executive director MORE ONLINE
Read the full memo online at www.dailyastorian.com
calls behavior
‘unconscionable’ Hunsinger of making threats against administration,
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
Jim
Knight
Jim Knight, the executive direc-
tor of the Port of Astoria, has
accused Port Commissioner Bill
him and his family in a pattern of
“unprofessional, threatening and
bullying tactics.”
In a memo to Hunsinger and
the Port Commission, Knight
described a phone call in late March
with Hunsinger, a critic of the Port
about the Clatsop
County Sheriff’s Offi ce investiga-
tion into retired dentist and aviator
Philip Bales’ hangar and clubhouse,
nicknamed the “Man Cave,” at the
Astoria Regional Airport. Knight
called for the investigation after
Commissioner Stephen Fulton’s
The memo
Knight wrote on April 11 that
Hunsinger, after expressing frus-
tration about being dragged into
the investigation, mentioned there
were “a lot of bad guys that are
See PORT, Page 7A
Bill
Hunsinger
Cat hoarder
struggled
with mental
problems
Woman was banned
from owning cats
By DIANA HEFLEY
Everett Herald
Submitted Photo
The Oregon Mandolin Orchestra performs in an outdoor concert. The group comes to Astoria for the first time Saturday.
Oregon Mandolin
Orchestra makes
Astoria debut
By ERICK BENGEL
The Daily Astorian
IF YOU GO
Where: Liberty Theatre, 1203 Commercial St.
Performance: 7:30 p.m.
Doors open: 7 p.m.
Tickets: Adults $18; Students, seniors and military $15
WARRENTON — A psychologist pre-
dicted last year that Kathryn St. Clare would
be back to hoarding cats if she didn’t receive
proper mental health treatment.
The former Lake
Stevens, Washington,
woman, who was con-
victed last year of ani-
mal cruelty for col-
lecting 111 cats in a
recreational
trailer,
was arrested Mon-
day in a Warrenton for
investigation of ani-
mal neglect. A police
offi cer allegedly found
Kathryn
41 live cats and a dead
St. Clare
one in St. Clare’s car.
A second cat later died.
The offi cer noted that the car reeked of
cat urine and feces.
St. Clare, 58, also was wanted on Sno-
homish County warrants. She failed to
appear for a hearing in April 2016 to deter-
mine how much she would be ordered to pay
Snohomish County for costs associated with
investigating her two years earlier.
There also were concerns that St. Clare
wasn’t following through with mental health
treatment, and prosecutors had received word
that she might be hoarding cats again, Sno-
homish County deputy prosecutor Michael
Boska said .
Tickets can be purchased online through http://bit.ly/2mDNaaH
Mental illness
St. Clare’s case highlighted the com-
plexities facing the criminal justice system
when dealing with people living with men-
tal illness.
A
century ago, the mandolin was the most widely
played string instrument in the United States ,
overtaking the banjo in the late -19th century and
usurped by the guitar around the Jazz Age. But the man-
dolin is experiencing a revival, as is the once-popular
mandolin orchestra.
At the Liberty Theater on Saturday evening, the Port-
land-based Oregon Mandolin Orchestra will make its
Astoria debut, the second stop in a three-day concert tour
that includes Portland and Ridgefi eld, Washington.
Now entering its eighth season, the 24-member orches-
tra will perform Mozart concertos, Brazilian choro and
pieces adapted from American folk tunes — a program to
help expand the mandolin’s profi le beyond, say, “The God-
father” theme and bluegrass ballads.
“So it’s not all snooty, and it’s not all sh--kicker, either,”
said Rick Bella, a board member and orchestra mandolinist.
Submitted Photo
Warrenton Police Department
See ORCHESTRA, Page 6A
The Oregon Mandolin Orchestra, which includes mandolin, mandola,
mandocello and mandobass.
Police re covered 42 cats from a wom-
an’s car, including one that was dead.
Another cat died later.
See CAT HOARDER, Page 7A
Too soon to know if killing
barred owls helps spotted owls
By ERIC MORTENSON
EO Media Group
Ray Bosch /U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Researcher Zachary Hanna of the Mu-
seum of Vertebrate Zoology and Califor-
nia Academy of Sciences collects tis-
sue samples from a barred owl killed in
a project to benefit threatened northern
spotted owls in the Pacific Northwest.
Federal wildlife researchers killed
737 invasive barred owls in the past
two years in an ongoing experiment
to determine if removing them will aid
the recovery of northern spotted owls,
the bird whose threatened status was
at the center of the Pacifi c Northwest
timber wars.
Spotted owl populations have con-
tinued to decline rapidly despite envi-
ronmental lawsuits, protection under
the Endangered Species Act and log-
ging restrictions in the old -growth
timber habitat they favor. Barred
owls, which are larger, more aggres-
sive and feed on a wider variety of
prey, have taken over spotted owl ter-
ritory throughout their range in Ore-
gon, Washington state and Northern
California.
Scientists with U.S. Fish and Wild-
life Service and U.S. Geological Sur-
vey, partnering with the Forest Service
and Bureau of Land Management,
agreed to an experiment: Kill hundreds
of barred owls in the Cle Elum area of
Washington, the Oregon Coast Range
and Klamath-Union-Myrtle areas of
Oregon and Hoopa Valley tribal land
in Northern California.
In Oregon and Washington, fi eld
crews shot 642 barred owls using
12 -gauge shotguns and captured one
owl alive, turning it over to the Ore-
gon High Desert Museum in Bend.
In Northern California, where early
research by the late Lowell Diller
of Humboldt State University docu-
mented that spotted owls reclaimed
nesting areas after barred owls were
removed, researchers killed 95 of the
competitors.
High stakes
Ranchers and farmers in the Pacifi c
Northwest have a stake in Endangered
See OWLS, Page 6A