COAST WEEKEND: ASTORIA OPEN STUDIOS TOUR 2017 INSIDE
DailyAstorian.com // THURSDAY, JULY 27, 2017
145TH YEAR, NO. 19
ONE DOLLAR
Cashing in
on the total
solar eclipse
PROTECTING
PUFFINS ,
one sweatshirt at a time
Matthew Zalewski
Tufted puffins like this one photographed in
Seattle are an iconic bird in Pacific North-
west coastal waters, but are declining for
unknown reasons.
Expected crowds are
already boon for some
By ADRIAN SAINZ
Associated Press
BARTLETT, Tenn. — Millions of eyes
will be fi xed on the sky when a total solar
eclipse crosses the U.S. in August, and it’s
likely many of them will be safely behind the
special glasses churned out by a Tennessee
company.
American Paper Optics ramped up pro-
duction for this year’s eclipse and expects
to make 50 million paper and plastic eclipse
glasses. John Jerit, the company’s CEO and
president, said they began preparing about
two years ago. During his almost 27 years
making safety glasses, he’s only seen one
total solar eclipse, in France in 1999, but will
be going to Nashville for this one.
See ECLIPSE, Page 7A
AP Photo/Adrian Sainz
Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
Observers with the Haystack Rock Awareness Program keep a sharp eye on the tufted puffin population as numbers in recent
years have continued to dwindle despite research and educational efforts to revive the colony.
Population decline spurs fundraising, research
By BRENNA VISSER
The Daily Astorian
C
ANNON BEACH — John Underwood
has been coming to Cannon Beach with
his family for the majority of his life.
For the past 10 years, every time he and his
wife, Ann, would take a walk on the beach
they would approach the observer tasked with
counting seabirds on Haystack Rock and ask
the same question.
How are the puffi ns this year?
Every year, the answer he received was
grim. But this year, when the observer said
he’d seen only seven that day, Underwood
and his wife walked back to their house and
decided something needed to be done.
“I remember coming down to Cannon
Beach as a kid to look at the rock, and remem-
ber hundreds of puffi ns,” Underwood said.
“We can’t let this icon of Cannon Beach just
disappear. We felt like we had to get engaged,
to raise awareness.”
‘Protect our Puffi ns’
Haystack Rock still is home to Oregon’s
largest tufted puffi n colony. But research has
shown a signifi cant decline in the population
of the small, black bird with golden plumes on
Employees prepare solar eclipse glass-
es for shipping at the American Paper
Optics factory in Bartlett, Tenn. Staring at
the sun during an eclipse — or anytime
— can cause eye damage. The only safe
way is to protect your eyes with special
filters in glasses or other devices.
Deputy Queener:
New to the job
but not to area
Naselle grad dives
into law enforcement
By DAMIAN MULINIX
For EO Media Group
Submitted Photo
The Daily Astorian/File Photo
One of the first tufted puffins to arrive on Haystack Rock
in Cannon Beach in 2014. Puffin populations are on the
decline and researches want to know why.
its head and a bright orange beak .
After some brainstorming and a meet-
ing with Haystack Rock Awareness Program
coordinator Melissa Keyser, Underwood
decided to donate $10,000 to launch the “Pro-
tect our Puffi ns” campaign this summer.
Soon, visitors and residents will see “Pro-
tect our Puffi ns” sweatshirts for sale at local
businesses, Underwood said. All of the pro-
John Underwood, the
retired CEO of Darigold,
is selling sweatshirts
to help raise money for
research to protect puf-
fins.
ceeds will go to fund informational brochures,
research and an event next summer to raise
awareness of the “puffi n problem.”
“Hopefully it will have an impact on the
birds,” said Underwood, a Bainbridge Island,
Washington, resident and retired CEO of
Darigold. “Each of us need to contribute in
NASELLE, Wash. — When Ryley
Queener graduated from Naselle High
School in 2012, he was ready for something
new.
“For me, I had to get out of Naselle. I
was 18 and was ready to see the world,” he
said.
He soon soured on that idea.
“I saw the world and realized that it
sucked. Maybe that’s because I was 16
miles from Spokane?” he said recently.
“But in the process of doing it, I learned
that I don’t want to live outside of Pacifi c
County. I learned to value that more.”
Fast forward to last fall. Queener
returned home to Naselle, fresh off of
See PUFFINS, Page 7A
See QUEENER, Page 5A
Golf course sees fi x to elk hordes in trap, transfer
State says plan
would be costly,
not yield results
By R.J. MARX
The Daily Astorian
GEARHART — One
man’s natural wonder is
another man’s nuisance.
While representatives of
the Gearhart Golf Links don’t
want to rid the city of elk,
they would like to see the herd
reduced. And after a dramatic
incident involving beachgoers
menaced by an elk cow, they
feel that the Oregon Depart-
ment of Fish and Wildlife —
the organization responsible
R.J. Marx/The Daily Astorian
Jason Bangild, Forrest Goodling and Russ Earl are look-
ing for more involvement from the state in managing
Gearhart’s elk population.
for the elks’ stewardship —
has not done enough to pur-
sue property protections and
ensure public safety.
“We’ve been working on
getting the elk removed, the
herd size reduced for years
now,” Gearhart’s Russ Earl
said Tuesday at a meeting with
Gearhart Golf Links General
Manager Jason Bangild and
Superintendent Forrest Good-
ling. “We’ve had (meetings
with) four different levels of
F ish and W ildlife people, up
to the executive director, and
we’ve gotten exactly the same
results.”
If the herds had been man-
aged properly in the past, it
would not of been such a big
issue now, they say.
Their latest attempt to dis-
courage the elk — up to 100 in
the herd, they say — involved
the use of coyote decoys and
coyote urine, designed to
remind the elk of their preda-
tors. Landscape crews sprin-
kled the coyote urine on the
eight plastic coyotes strate-
gically placed on the perim-
eter of the 100-acre, 18-hole
golf course — the oldest golf
course in Oregon and one of
several area courses facing the
problem.
“They’ve basically said,
‘Put some signs up around the
golf course,’” Earl said. “That
didn’t help us at all.”
Safety at issue
While the course faces tens
of thousands of dollars of dam-
age caused by elk , the risk to
See ELK, Page 7A