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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, JUNE 2, 2017
Birds: Godwits travel thousands of miles on their migrations
Continued from Page 1A
“Most likely they got caught
in a weather system that trans-
ported them across the Pacific
and here instead of north into
Alaska,” Lowe said. “No one
really knows but obviously this
is unprecedented.”
Birders spotted four bar-
tailed godwits in Newport at
the end of April. “And we fig-
ured that was interesting,” said
Patterson. “At the time four
was a big deal.”
People kept reporting a
sighting here, a sighting there.
“By the time I finally found
them it was kind of, ‘Well, it’s
about time,’” Patterson said.
He has seen bar-tailed godwits
before, but never in the spring.
For these birds, being blown
off-course means they might
not make it up to Alaska in time
for the breeding season. They’ll
need to rebuild fat reserves,
Lowe said, a process that takes
weeks, assuming they can find
the right kind of food here.
“I suspect it would be way
too late and take too much
energy to breed this year,”
Lowe said.
The godwits travel thou-
sands of miles on their annual
migrations. They fly from New
Zealand to China, stopping
at the Yellow Sea’s tideland
Mike Patterson/Submitted Photo
Mike Patterson spotted 17 adult bar-tailed godwits on a stretch from Gearhart to the Peter Iredale shipwreck on Wednesday.
flats in March to fatten up for
a month, then proceeding on to
Alaska and then back to New
Zealand. Birds fixed with sat-
ellite tracking gear have logged
upward of 7,000 miles in a sin-
gle nine-day slog.
Throughout much of their
migration, “they’re lucky if
they see an island enroute,”
Lowe said.
‘Big as a chicken’
Bar-tailed godwits are fairly
large. Patterson describes them
as “big as a chicken” with
long legs and a very long bill
“that turns up at the end like
Bob Hope.” If you know what
you’re looking for, he says,
they are very distinctive even
when compared to other god-
wit species.
Lowe is used to seeing the
adult birds somewhere else
entirely — in China, on fragile
tidal wetlands along the Yellow
Sea between China and North
Korea and South Korea.
He has traveled there seven
times, since he retired from
the Fish and Wildlife Service
in 2015, as a volunteer with
Global Parks, a nonprofit group
made up of retired profession-
als with similar backgrounds in
parks, conservation and wild-
life and resource management.
With funding from the Paulson
Institute, he and others have
been working on wetland con-
servation with the Chinese.
The habitat in the Yellow
Sea is crucial for the bar-tailed
godwits, but it is an area where
they are quickly losing their
footing. It’s a familiar story to
West Coast residents, though
on a much more massive scale:
rapid development encroach-
ing on wetland habitat and spe-
cies getting lost in the mix. In
China, whole cities and ports
are filling up former wetlands,
Lowe said.
In their long travels back
and forth, the godwits need
these areas to build up fat
reserves.
“If they don’t have the Yel-
low Sea, they’re in real trou-
ble,” Lowe said. “We can do
great stuff in Alaska, but if
everyone else doesn’t do their
part, these birds can’t make a
go of it.”
Threatened wetlands
“The coastal wetlands
are the most threatened, but
least protected, ecosystems
in China,” stated a summary
of findings for a conserva-
tion and management plan for
the Yellow Sea and Bohai Sea
announced in Beijing in 2015.
In the past 50 years, the coun-
try has lost more than half of its
temperate coastal ecosystem
and the majority of its man-
groves and coral reefs due to
economic development.
Recently, a number of coun-
tries, including New Zealand
and Great Britain, and groups
like Global Parks, have started
working with the Chinese to
protect these areas.
Lowe and Patterson say
birders should get out on the
beach while they can; the god-
wits will not stick around for
long. But Lowe, a photogra-
pher in his spare time, has a
request to dog owners: Don’t
let them chase shorebirds.
To nonbirders, the different
birds on the beach all resem-
ble each other and dogs don’t
usually discriminate, at all. If
you could follow a godwit out
on the beach, you would soon
find out, as Lowe has looking
through his camera scope, that
dogs up and down the coast
are chasing shorebirds all day
long.
And maybe, Lowe said,
those particular shorebirds
have just flown from New
Zealand.
Missing: Merrill ‘has access to firearms which were not recovered’
Continued from Page 1A
amount” of guns, and a smaller
safe containing ammunition
had been “totally destroyed.”
The burglars had also taken
coins and silver.
As he took in the scene, the
brother remembered that just
as he arrived, he’d heard two
male voices coming from the
property next door, before a car
started up and sped away.
The sniff test
Pacific County Sheriff’s
Deputy Rick Goodwin quickly
realized this burglary was dif-
ferent from the hasty “smash
and grab” crimes he usually
dealt with.
“The moment I walked in
the shop, I knew exactly how
they got into the safe,” Good-
win wrote in his report. A dis-
tinctive, familiar odor made
him instantly recall a long-ago
job, assembling trucks.
“The smell I recognized
was the smell of a grinder on
metal,” Goodwin said. He
found gouges from a grinder
and crowbar all over the safe,
and the blue tinge from a
torch on the damaged hinges.
Thieves had used a cutting
torch to destroy the smaller
safe.
Outside, Goodwin noticed a
mole hill that had been kicked
over and box of ammuni-
tion scattered on a small trail.
He followed the trail to an old
motor home on the neighbor-
ing property.
When the owner arrived
from Arizona two days later,
he discovered that financial
records, tools, knives and doc-
umentation for the guns were
missing, too.
The burglars had used the
man’s own grinder to break
into his safe.
The runaway lookout
A week later, a man named
Carter Strever called Goodwin.
Sounding panicked, Strever,
48, allegedly told the deputy
“the burglary was not his idea.”
Eventually, he explained that
he was supposed to act as a
lookout for the Ocean Park bur-
glary, but he’d gotten mad and
left. Strever reportedly said one
of the men who broke in named
was “Kurt,” and the other was
Richard Quartier. He said he
and Quartier, 57, had both pre-
viously lived in RVs on the vic-
tim’s neighbor’s property.
The neighbor, George
Kopp, told Goodwin that three
weeks before, Strever had sud-
denly given Kopp his motor
home, and asked for a ride to
the Astoria Bridge.
Around the same time, the
victim said when he went to
Kopp’s house to ask him about
the burglary, he saw his own
stolen powder horn hanging
on the wall. Kopp gave it back,
and said he’d found it inside
the motor home.
Guns on the run
The day after the raid on
Merrill’s home and businesses,
they served a warrant at his unit
at Pioneer Storage. They didn’t
find any guns.
A source told Sheriff’s
Office Detective Ryan Tully
that Jeffrey Walton, the man-
ager of the storage facility, had
covered up the surveillance
cameras, and moved the guns
to a different unit. Walton, 57,
initially denied having any-
thing to do with the guns, or
with Merrill, but later admitted
to knowing Merrill, according
to police documents.
The burglary investigation
stalled out.
Cutting torch
and incentive
In late April, deputies met
with a woman who claimed to
know Merrill very well. Facing
legal problems of her own, she
volunteered to work as a confi-
dential informant.
She alleged that Quartier
and Kurt Jones, 54, had done
the burglary, with help from
Kopp. But, she said, Merrill
had provided the men with
both a cutting torch and an
incentive.
According to the informant,
when they finally cracked the
safe, Jones and Quartier took
the guns to Kopp’s house. Mer-
rill allegedly came over the
next night, and bought the guns
for “$4,000 and some dope.”
Quartier and Jones split the
money.
She also said that shortly
after the April 4 raid, Merrill
had transferred a storage unit
to her name. She claimed Mer-
rill’s collection included the
Ocean Park guns, as well as
guns taken from other places.
Later, investigators learned
that when they searched Mer-
rill’s unit, the guns were actu-
ally close by, in the informant’s
unit. Walton and the informant
then allegedly moved them
again, to an empty unit.
In late April, Tully served a
warrant on units belonging to
Walton and the informant, then
did a basic search of all the
other storage units at Pioneer,
but didn’t find anything.
A failed gun sale
By early May, the guns had
been moved to a unit at Afford-
able Storage, the informant
said. She agreed to help the
cops get them.
In a May 10 meeting that
included an undercover detec-
tive from Oregon, she called
Walton and told him she had a
buyer who would pay $15,000
for the guns. He agreed to
make the sale.
The following day, they
sorted out the details: allegedly,
Walton would get $11,000, and
she would get $4,000 for acting
as go-between. She asked for
photos of the guns. According
to Tully’s report, the pictures
showed “assault rifles, pistols
and shotguns. One of the fire-
arms appeared to be a sawed-
off shotgun.”
That evening, a under-
cover officer and the infor-
mant went to Affordable Stor-
age, where they met two men,
Bryan Haberman, 37, and Jef-
frey Bean, 20. The men told
them the guns would be ready
in 10 minutes.
At that point, Tully arrived
with two deputies and arrested
Habermann and Bean. Inside
the facility, Tully said, “I
observed at least 20 to 30 fire-
arms laid out on the floor.”
parking, residential appear-
ance, garbage service, sep-
tic-sewer capacity inspections
and cesspool requirements not
required of other residents.
A summary of the ballot
initiative underwent changes
as a result of a decision issued
by Circuit Court Judge Dawn
McIntosh in May.
Petitioners are still working
to collect enough signatures to
qualify for the ballot.
Gearhart property owner
David Townsend, who has
fought the regulations, could
not immediately be reached
for comment. Jim Whittemore,
one of the appellants, said he
needed to review the decision
before commenting.
Proponents of the ordi-
New charges
Haberman, Bean and Wal-
ton face charges first-degree
trafficking in stolen property
and possession of stolen fire-
arms. Haberman faces an addi-
tional charge of heroin posses-
sion while armed with a deadly
weapon.
Quartier was arrested on
May 15. Kopp was arrested
on May 17, and was recently
released on bail. Strever was
arrested in Clark County in late
May, and transferred to Pacific
County Jail. He remains in cus-
tody, according to McClain.
Jones has not been appre-
hended yet, McClain said.
Quartier, Kopp, Strever
and Jones face charges of
first-degree burglary, theft of
a firearm and theft of a motor
vehicle.
Arrest and release dates,
cities of residence and bail
amounts were not available
for some suspects, because the
Pacific County Sheriff’s Office
has temporarily removed arrest
and booking information from
their website.
Merrill was released on
$250,000 bail several days
after his April 4 arrest. When
he failed to show up in May,
McClain sought a nationwide
warrant for his arrest. He asked
that bail be set at $1 million
this time, noting in his May 24
request that Merrill “has access
to firearms which were not
recovered.”
On top of the April drug
charges, Merrill now faces
charges of first-degree bur-
glary, theft of a firearm and
theft of a motor vehicle.
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Haberman and Bean
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Bean claimed he worked for
Haberman’s moving business.
He said he didn’t know until
he arrived at the facility that his
boss wanted him to help move
stolen guns.
Haberman said he knew
Walton because he had an
office at Pioneer Storage, for
which Walton had a key. He
claimed that Walton moved the
guns into his office after police
searched the first storage units.
Walton allegedly asked him
to help him find a new hiding
place for the guns, saying he
was moving them on behalf of
Gearhart: As of late May, city was looking
at 285 short-term rentals for all of its zones
Continued from Page 1A
“Tony.” Haberman allegedly
agreed to help in exchange for
three guns.
A Long Beach officer
arrested Walton at Pioneer Stor-
age. In custody, he allegedly
admitted Merrill had moved
firearms into his storage unit,
then transferred them to the
informant. Walton allegedly
admitted he moved them sev-
eral more times to keep police
from finding them. He was to
receive $4,000 for his trouble.
When the Ocean Park bur-
glary victim visited the Afford-
able Storage unit, he iden-
tified 12 of his stolen guns,
along with ammunition and
accessories.
nances argue the regulations
help maintain Gearhart’s res-
idential feel, while those who
want to change the rules say
the regulations discriminate
against rental-home owners.
As of late May, Brown said
the city was looking at about
285 short-term rentals for all
zones, equating to about 15
to 20 percent of total dwelling
units in Gearhart.
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