145TH YEAR, NO. 254
ONE DOLLAR
WEEKEND EDITION // FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2018
Oregon,
Washington to
sue over family
separations
States to challenge
Trump’s executive order
By LAUREN DAKE
and CONRAD WILSON
Oregon Public Broadcasting
Washington State Attorney General Bob Fergu-
son and Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum
plan to sue the Trump administration to ensure chil-
dren who were separated from their parents at the
U.S.-Mexico border are reunited.
After intense political pressure, President Donald
Trump signed an executive order Wednesday that
ends the separation of families by placing parents
and children together in detention centers together.
But the Democratic attorneys general said the
president’s move doesn’t go far enough.
“The president’s order says that children will be
held with parents ‘indefinitely,’ but where? Children
certainly do not belong behind bars — even with
their parents,” Rosenblum said in a statement.
The multistate lawsuit is expected to be filed as
early as next week.
The debate over the Trump administration’s
practice of separating children from their parents
has infiltrated politics at every level. The public out-
rage has also prompted the two candidates vying for
Oregon’s top job to call for the reunification of fam-
ilies and an end to what they both consider an inhu-
mane practice.
On Thursday, Gov. Kate Brown took on a famil-
iar role, blasting the Trump administration for what
she called the president’s “reign of terror.”
“THE PRESIDENT’S
ORDER SAYS THAT
CHILDREN WILL BE
HELD WITH PARENTS
‘INDEFINITELY,’ BUT
WHERE? CHILDREN
CERTAINLY DO NOT
BELONG BEHIND
BARS — EVEN WITH
THEIR PARENTS.”
Ellen Rosenblum | Oregon attorney general
“We’ve heard small children crying out for their
parents and relatives. Crying out for comfort, love
and safety. It’s appalling to me that these children are
being used as political pawns by the White House,”
Brown said. “And it’s abhorrent that the president
should promote his executive order as some sort of
victory. This shouldn’t happen here.”
Brown said she’s still hoping to receive more
information from the federal government as to how
many children separated from their parents are in
Oregon and where they are located.
“As you know, we have four youth here in Ore-
gon that we are aware of,” Brown said. “We are
working very hard to find out if there are any addi-
tional children or babies in the state of Oregon. We
want to make sure they are safe and we want to
make sure they have adequate services.”
Her GOP opponent in the gubernatorial race,
state Rep. Knute Buehler, also called on Trump
early to end the zero tolerance policy of splitting
families, calling it “un-American.”
Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife
Elk graze at the state-run Jewell Meadows Wildlife Area. An experimental fence on private
property next door could become a way to manage herd movements and reduce human-elk conflicts.
PROTOTYPE
FENCES COULD
KEEP ELK AT BAY
Double design
might make elk
reconsider
By KATIE FRANKOWICZ
The Daily Astorian
W
hen it comes to keep-
ing elk out of gardens,
backyards, fields or golf
courses, North Coast residents have a
couple of options.
They can barricade themselves
behind tall sturdy fences elk won’t
jump and can’t push over. Maybe
they startle the elk away with lights or
sounds, techniques that usually have a
short shelf life as the animals, like hor-
ror movie fans, get used to the scare
tactics. Or maybe they just move to
a land free of these large, determined
creatures.
But with growing concerns about
conflicts between elk and people in
cities like Gearhart and Warrenton,
state wildlife biologists are working
on another option: Double fences.
The system consists of two short,
wooden post-and-plank fences spaced
about 3 feet apart and parallel to each
other, with lines of barbed wire run-
ning down the track between them; the
type of barrier biologists hope might
make an elk pause and reconsider.
As far as wildlife officials can tell,
double fences have never been used to
manage elk movements before. The
only studies they found addressed reg-
ular-sized deer in Ontario, Canada,
and extra-large red deer in Scotland.
But a deer is whole different kind of
Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
A new type of fence built near Jewell is designed to ward off elk.
‘SO FAR THEY SEEM TO BE
AVOIDING IT ALL TOGETHER.’
Herman Biederbeck | biologist with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife
critter, wildlife biologists say.
“We just decided, well, if nobody’s
done any work on this, we’re just
going to build an experimental fence
prototype,” said Herman Biederbeck,
biologist with the Oregon Department
of Fish and Wildlife.
The state installed a double-fence
segment on a rancher’s land off High-
way 202 in March, down from the
protected Jewell Meadows Wildlife
Area and elk herd viewing sites.
There are about 280 elk in the
wildlife area itself, and around 350 in
the area total that could possibly come
in contact with the fence. But the true
number of elk crossing the fenced area
regularly is probably closer to 120,
according to employees at the refuge.
A typical elk fence is usually
around 8 feet tall and is often con-
structed with wood posts and wire,
giving off a whiff of prison camp. A
double fence may cost more but could
be made to look more decorative. If
the prototype in Jewell succeeds in
See ELK, Page 7A
See SEPARATIONS, Page 7A
Former riverboat host starts Astoria tour company
Walks, hikes and
bike rides on offer
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
Edward Stratton/The Daily Astorian
Bob Vinatieri will often start his walking tours
of downtown Astoria near the large anchor
outside the Columbia River Maritime Museum.
As a former host on the river-
boat SS Legacy between Lewiston,
Idaho, and Astoria, Bob Vinatieri
remembers local historians coming
aboard to lecture about the region’s
history.
“It was easy to get people inter-
ested in Lewis and Clark … but
there was not that much informa-
tion about the city of Astoria,” he
said.
When he moved to Asto-
ria in the spring, Vinatieri started
his own company, Astoria Tours,
offering guided educational tours
around the city.
Vinatieri takes groups for walk-
ing tours through downtown, bicy-
cle rides to historic filming loca-
tions and hikes from the Cathedral
Tree Trail to the Astoria Column.
“I’m doing this all as tours for
tips,” Vinatieri said.
The downtown walking tours,
his favorite, often start near a large
anchor in front of the Columbia
River Maritime Museum. Vinat-
ieri focuses his talks on people
who lived in the area, from Native
Americans before European colo-
nization and early settlers to the Ku
Klux Klan in the 1920s and how
people came together after a dev-
astating fire in 1922 to rebuild.
He studies books and visits
museums to learn more about Asto-
ria, regularly consulting local his-
torians such as Liisa Penner at the
Clatsop County Heritage Museum.
“I’ve been selling Astoria as a
tour operator out of Portland since
1993,” Vinatieri said.
He helped operate the Lewis
and Clark Explorer, a subsidized
passenger rail service that operated
around Astoria’s bicentennial cel-
ebrations, and worked for several
years on the SS Legacy.
Vinatieri advertises his tour
company at local hotels and on
incoming cruise ships. He still runs
a company, GroupActive, connect-
ing seniors with local tours.