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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2017
Seaside Aquarium
Humpback whales were spotted in Seaside Saturday.
Humpback whales
spotted in Seaside
Submitted Photo
By R.J. MARX
The Daily Astorian
Two elk were killed after a collision with an aircraft at Nehalem Bay State Park on Saturday.
Pilot hits elk during landing in Nehalem
The Daily Astorian
NEHALEM — A pilot
landing his single-engine plane
Saturday at the Nehalem Bay
State Park airstrip hit and killed
two elk.
Oregon State Police said the
pilot was Todd William Rud-
berg, 49, from Shoreline, Wash-
ington. Valerie Anne Villacin,
43, of Seattle, was a passenger.
The plane was totaled in the
crash, according to state police,
but Rudberg and Villacin were
not injured.
State police said Rudberg
had landed his 2003 Vans Air-
craft RV8 at about 5:15 p.m.
and was slowing down when an
elk ran in front of the plane. The
pilot, according to state police,
tried to speed up and fly over
the elk, but struck the animal
with the propeller and right side
landing gear. Another elk was
hit by the left wing of the plane
before the aircraft spun around
and stopped.
The Federal Aviation
Administration is investigating
the crash.
Associated Press
PORTLAND — State offi-
cials say more than 1 million
fish are being evacuated from
the Cascade Hatchery because
of the threat of debris from a
wildfire burning in the Colum-
bia River Gorge.
The Oregonian reported
that the Oregon Department of
Fish and Wildlife said about
1.65 million coho salmon
and 132,000 spring Chinook
salmon would be evacuated.
Officials say rain in the
Columbia River Gorge over the
coming days could cause mud-
slides and increased debris in
the water that could clog screens
on the hatchery’s water intake
and cut off water to the fish.
Submitted Photo
About a million coho
salmon will be moved to the
Leaburg Hatchery where
they will remain until they
are released into rivers next
spring. The remaining fish
will be sent to the Leaven-
worth National Fish Hatch-
ery, Willard National Fish
Hatchery and Sandy Fish
Hatchery.
New wood products may impact
forest management, wildfires
By ERIC MORTENSON
EO Media Group
Could a revival of Ore-
gon’s timber industry reduce
the fuel load in public forests
and ease the blistering wildfires
that choked much of the state in
smoke the past few weeks?
At this point it’s an intrigu-
ing question without a simple
answer. But it arises as univer-
sity researchers and industry
officials explore advanced wood
products such as cross-lami-
nated timbers — called CLT
— and mass plywood panels,
which can support multistory
wooden buildings, even mod-
est high-rises. Only two west-
ern Oregon mills and a hand-
ful of others nationally make
the products, but they appear to
hold promise.
For one thing, the massive
beams and panels can be made
with small-diameter logs, the
very type crowding forests and
contributing to the explosive
growth of the Eagle Creek Fire
in the Columbia River Gorge
and the much larger Chetco Bar
Fire in the Kalmiopsis Wilder-
ness in the southwest corner of
the state.
A recent report by Oregon
BEST, a quasi-public entity that
funds clean technology startups
and links entrepreneurs to uni-
versity researchers, said CLT
and related mass timber man-
ufacturing could create 2,000
to 6,100 direct jobs in Oregon.
Income generated from those
jobs would range from $124
million to $371 million a year,
according to the report..
Oregon BEST said Oregon
and southwest Washington are
“poised as a manufacturing hub
for the emerging Cross Lam-
inated Timber market in the
United States.” Pacific North-
west forests could easily and
sustainably supply the wood
needed for production, the
report said.
People working in the field
issue a cautionary, “Yes, but.…”
“In theory, it makes a lot
of sense, but it requires for the
forests to be actively managed
in that way, and an outlet for
that wood to be taken up,” said
Timm Locke, director of forest
products for the Oregon Forest
Research Institute, an organiza-
tion founded by the state Leg-
islature to enhance collabora-
tion and inform the public about
responsible forest management.
Locke said the public for-
ests most in need of restoration
and thinning work are east of
the Cascades, where much of
the milling infrastructure has
“disappeared.” It doesn’t make
economic sense to move poor
quality trees from Eastern Ore-
gon to mills in western Oregon,
he said.
SEASIDE — Humpback
whales were spotted Satur-
day feeding on bait fish for
hours in Seaside Cove, the
Seaside Aquarium reported.
Humpbacks are not
unusual to the Oregon Coast
but they tend to stay offshore
for the most part, said Tiffany
Boothe, of the aquarium. The
whales come into the cove
when bait fish are plentiful,
usually during the months of
July through September.
This year there have been
reports all over the Ore-
gon and Washington coasts
of humpbacks feeding near
shore, Boothe said. They can
One of the elk killed after a collision with an aircraft at
Nehalem Bay State Park.
Fish moved due to Gorge fire
“We need to be thinking
about what’s stopping us at this
stage,” Locke said. “What are
the issues there?”
One of them, he said, is a
lack of trust between indus-
try and the public land agen-
cies — principally the U.S. For-
est Service and Bureau of Land
Management. Mills that once
depended on logs from public
forests were “burned” when the
timber harvest was drastically
reduced due to lawsuits and pol-
icy and regulatory changes over
threatened species.
travel in groups but for the
most part they are very small
groups two to six animals.
Humpback whales endure
the longest migration route
of any mammal, she said.
Humpbacks seen along the
Oregon Coast travel 3,000
miles between their feeding
and breeding grounds. They
have been known to com-
plete this journey in as little
as 36 days.
Alongside the whales
were brown pelicans, harbor
seals, California sea lions,
harbor porpoises, west-
ern gulls, terns, grebes and
sooty shearwaters. They are
feasting on anchovies and
the birds and the sea lions
are following the fish —
not the whales. “The fish is
the important part,” Boothe
said. “Without the fish none
of the activity that we saw
today at the cove would be
happening.”
Whales, birds
drawn to Cove
by bait fish
Coast Guard rescues two
from boat off Coos Bay
Associated Press
COOS BAY — The Coast
Guard rescued two people
Sunday night after a fish-
ing vessel took on water near
Coos Bay.
The Coast Guard says it
dispatched a crew from Sta-
tion Coos Bay after getting a
JOIN US
FOR THE
request from mariners aboard
the Car Tanya that the boat
was losing power.
The Coast Guard crew
delivered a dewatering pump
to the 58-foot fishing vessel
and provided an escort until it
lost power.
The crew then towed the
vessel 13 miles back to Coos
Bay. The Car Tanya lost radio
communications during the
tow, so the Coast Guard pro-
vided it with a hand-held
radio.
A post-rescue inspection
found the fishing vessel to
be in bad shape. It has been
ordered to remain in port until
repairs are made.
PATRIOT HALL
GRAND OPENING
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19th
5 PM TO 8 PM
FREE
W A NTED
Alder and Maple Saw Logs & Standing Timber
N orth w es t H a rdw oods • Lon gview , W A
Contact: John Anderson • 360-269-2500
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