The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current, January 03, 2019, Image 2

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The daily Astorian., January 03, 2019, Page A2, Image 2

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Newspaper Page TextA2 THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, JANUARY 3, 2019 Umatilla man brings burrowing owls back from the brink Lone biologist is their last hope Johnson builds his bur- rows out of plastic barrels, 5-gallon buckets, wire mesh and irrigation tubes. They don’t look like much — sort of a backyard DIY proj- ect. And when he buries his buckets in the ground, they look like just holes in the ground. But these burrows made of buckets are the last hope for a small population of owls. Burrowing owls are dis- appearing across North America at a rate of 2 to 3 percent each year. John- son has come to an unlikely place to do this work: a patch of wind-swept prairie sur- rounded by barbed wire and row upon row of concrete bunkers that once stockpiled America’s deadliest chemi- cal weapons. There is probably no one who knows as much or cares as much for these small little owls as Johnson, or “DJ,” as his colleagues call him. “People say I look like an owl, even before they know my connection to them,” Johnson says. Johnson is a self-de- scribed “owl person.” It started one moonlight-night in Minnesota when he was By IAN McCLUSKEY Oregon Public Broadcasting If it were up to David H. Johnson, he’d be out of the burrow-making business. Instead, he stands on a wind-swept prairie, shovel in hand. He wipes the sweat from his brow and surveys the sagebrush as it stretches across the rolling hills. His eyes scan for any ﬂ utter of small feathers. He doesn’t see anything and keeps digging in the loose sand. This wide-open stretch of sage and sand and shrubs was once riddled with burrows. For millennia, animals like badgers and prairie dogs pockmarked the Columbia River plateau with burrows. Johnson has been watch- ing those burrows disappear, one by one. And now, as he stomps his spade into the sand, he knows that there is not a single natural burrow left. He knows because he’s counted and tracked them for years. The only burrows around here are the ones he’s installed himself, one at a time. Nick Fisher/Oregon Public Broadcasting Burrowing owl populations are declining each year at a rate of 2 to 3 percent. just a boy. He was camping when an owl swooped down and perched on his tent. Sil- houetted by the moon, it called for some 20 minutes. Johnson listened, transﬁ xed. In those moments, he felt a deep and personal connec- tion with the owl. It was as if, he felt, the owl was calling just to him with a message he was supposed to hear. “And so I didn’t pick owls,” he says. “They picked me.” Johnson has devoted his life to researching and advo- cating for owls. After 41 years in the ﬁ eld, he’s the director of the Global Owl Project. His expertise is called on internationally. One of the most signif- icant calls came from an unexpected place — the Umatilla Chemical Depot. Since its construction in World War II, the Army base had been a top-security, off-limits stretch of sage- brush, dotted by massive concrete bunkers. Each concrete bunker is buried under several feet of earth. With their heavy cov- ering of dirt, thick concrete fronts, and massive steel doors, the bunkers look like they were designed to be air- craft hangars, camouﬂ aged and protected from bomb- ing raids by enemy planes. But these bunkers weren’t designed to withstand explo- sions from above; they were built to guard against explo- sions from within. Since World War II, they held the Army’s high explo- sives and munitions. During the Cold War, they held 12 percent of America’s dead- liest chemical weapons, like mustard gas and sarin. Today, all of the 999 bun- kers are empty except for one. Johnson uses this as his workshop. The Umatilla Chemical Depot called Johnson about a decade ago. Employees there had noticed that the burrowing owls had all but vanished. “When I came to the depot to work on the burrowing owl project, there were three or four pairs and we knew this was the last of them,” Johnson recounts. “And it’s really hard to recover from zero. So then the question is: what do you do?” Johnson discovered that the problem was a lack of burrows. Burrowing owls don’t dig burrows. In fact, owls in general do not build nests. Rather, they borrow. In the prairie, where there are no trees to perch in, these little owls adapted to what was once available and plen- tiful: thousands of burrows left by badgers and prairie dogs and the like. But as the populations of these animals were wiped out or displaced by human development, the burrows they once dug began to dis- appear. When the natural burrows began to disappear, so did the little owls that depended upon them. “Not enough nest holes, no reproduction. Boom, they decline,” Johnson explains. “So we put in artiﬁ cial bur- rows to rescue that.” Now, Johnson has cre- ated 182 artiﬁ cial burrows on the depot. “We put in the ﬁ rst bur- rows here as a rescue mis- sion and it quickly turned into an opportunity,” he says. FIVE-DAY FORECAST FOR ASTORIA TONIGHT FRIDAY SATURDAY 52 39 45 Breezy with occasional rain 49 45 Rain; breezy in the afternoon Periods of rain Tillamook 47/52 First Full Jan 13 Salem 43/51 Newport 47/51 Coos Bay 47/52 Last Jan 20 Jan 27 La Grande 31/40 The Daily Astorian Clatsop County wants public input about local agritourism. The county is review- Ontario 24/39 Bend 34/45 Burns 17/36 Klamath Falls 23/43 TOMORROW'S TIDES Astoria / Port Docks Time 5:48 a.m. 6:51 p.m. Low 3.3 ft. -0.4 ft. REGIONAL CITIES City Baker City Bend Brookings Eugene Ilwaco Klamath Falls Medford Newberg Newport North Bend Hi 31 49 52 53 53 42 44 51 52 56 Today Lo 21 34 45 41 48 23 29 44 47 46 W c c c c r pc c r r c Hi 35 45 53 51 51 43 46 50 51 52 Fri. Lo 24 28 41 37 42 25 31 39 41 40 W c c sh sh sh pc sh sh sh sh City Olympia Pendleton Portland Roseburg Salem Seaside Spokane Springfi eld Vancouver Yakima Hi 50 45 52 51 53 53 38 55 50 44 Today Lo 43 36 45 39 43 47 35 42 45 32 W r c r pc c r i c r i Hi 49 48 52 49 51 51 41 50 50 48 Fri. Lo 37 32 40 38 38 41 30 37 39 30 W sh c sh sh sh sh c sh sh c TOMORROW'S NATIONAL WEATHER NATIONAL CITIES W c pc s s s pc pc pc s s pc s s c pc c r pc sn pc s pc s r pc Hi 64 48 45 58 50 45 53 -14 83 48 53 56 67 47 84 55 57 47 50 49 50 37 56 52 52 Fri. Lo 42 36 29 29 28 29 28 -26 71 30 27 38 48 35 68 36 44 39 26 41 33 25 50 41 45 Shown are noon positions of weather systems and precipitation. Temperature bands are highs for the day. W r s s s s s s pc pc pc s s s r s r pc pc s pc pc pc pc sh pc of a town hall tour, part of a pledge by Wyden since join- ing the Senate in 1996 to hold an event in each county once a year. Wyden will visit McMinnville and Sherwood Friday; Lincoln City and Tillamook Saturday; Astoria and St. Helens Sunday; and Woodburn Monday. ing its land use regulations covering residential agricul- ture-zoned land. It is partic- ularly interested in hearing from residents who use land for agricultural activities and businesses to ﬁ nd out which uses they are interested in. An online survey through the county’s website is available at tinyurl.com/ Clatsopagritourism Domestic assault • Late Wednesday, the Clatsop County Sher- iff’s Ofﬁ ce arrested David Kurns II, 37, of Gearhart, for fourth-degree assault, harassment and coercion. A call from Westlake Lane came in around 10:45 p.m. from a female neighbor claiming she was being hit by a male. DUII • Late Monday, War- renton police arrested Ber- nardo Lozano Sanchez, 37, of Astoria, on charges of driving under the inﬂ uence of intoxicants and driving while suspended. Sanchez was pulled over near Ocean Crest Chevrolet and refused a blood alcohol test before his arrest. DEATH Dec. 28, 2018 GOODENOUGH, Gary Leonard, 54, of Gearhart, died in Gearhart. Caldwell’s Luce-Lay- ton Mortuary of Astoria is in charge of the arrangements. PUBLIC MEETINGS THURSDAY Astoria Design Review Committee, 5:30 p.m., City Hall, 1095 Duane St. LOTTERIES Weather (W): s-sunny, pc-partly cloudy, c-cloudy, sh-showers, t-thunderstorms, r-rain, sf-snow fl urries, sn-snow, i-ice. CLATSOP POWER EQUIPMENT , INC. SALES SERVICE RENTALS • government and listen to Oregonians’ ideas for what they want accomplished,” Wyden, D-Oregon, said in a release. “These open-to-all town hall meetings are part of what I call the ‘Oregon Way’ that focuses on con- versations and solutions.” The visit to Astoria is part ON THE RECORD Lakeview 23/41 Ashland 32/48 The Daily Astorian County seeks input on agritourism Baker 21/35 Forecasts and graphics provided by AccuWeather, Inc. ©2019 Source: Jim Todd, OMSI Hi 59 48 39 51 47 39 47 -2 82 42 47 52 66 49 83 50 66 47 34 48 45 30 55 53 51 John Day 34/44 Sen. Wyden visits Astoria Sunday U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden will be in Astoria Sunday. His town hall starts at noon at the Columbia River Mari- time Museum. “With the start of a new Congress, it’s important to throw open the doors of Roseburg 39/49 Brookings 45/52 UNDER THE SKY Today Lo 52 32 29 28 28 29 25 -22 71 26 25 36 45 44 71 44 47 35 25 33 28 20 43 46 37 Prineville 34/48 Lebanon 43/50 Medford 29/46 Tonight's Sky: Before sunrise low in the east, waning crescent moon and Jupiter within 3 degrees. Quadrantid meteor shower peaks. High 7.8 ft. 9.6 ft. Pendleton 36/48 The Dalles 34/50 Portland 45/52 SUN AND MOON City Atlanta Boston Chicago Denver Des Moines Detroit El Paso Fairbanks Honolulu Indianapolis Kansas City Las Vegas Los Angeles Memphis Miami Nashville New Orleans New York Oklahoma City Philadelphia St. Louis Salt Lake City San Francisco Seattle Washington, DC Cloudy with a passing shower Eugene 41/51 Sunset tonight ........................... 4:42 p.m. Sunrise Friday ............................. 7:58 a.m. Moonrise today ........................... 5:46 a.m. Moonset today ........................... 3:10 p.m. Time 12:29 a.m. 11:42 a.m. 46 37 Shown is tomorrow's weather. Temperatures are tonight's lows and tomorrow's highs. ASTORIA 45/52 Precipitation Wednesday ....................................... 0.00" Month to date ................................... 0.00" Normal month to date ....................... 0.69" Year to date ...................................... 0.00" Normal year to date .......................... 0.69" Jan 5 MONDAY REGIONAL WEATHER Astoria through Wednesday. Temperatures High/low ....................................... 50°/30° Normal high/low ........................... 49°/37° Record high ............................ 61° in 1981 Record low ............................. 21° in 1974 New 48 39 Mostly cloudy with a couple of showers ALMANAC SUNDAY OREGON Wednesday’s Pick 4: 1 p.m.: 6-8-1-4 4 p.m.: 8-7-4-8 7 p.m.: 0-0-8-8 10 p.m.: 2-9-4-0 Wednesday’s Lucky Lines: 02-07-10-15-FREE-19-21-25-30 Estimated jackpot: $34,000 Wednesday’s Megabucks: 03-06-19-26-29-30 Estimated jackpot: $6.3 million Wednesday’s Powerball: 08-12-42-46-56, Powerball: 12, Power Play: 2 Estimated jackpot: $53 million WASHINGTON Wednesday’s Daily Game: 2-1-4 Wednesday’s Hit 5: 03-10-17- OBITUARY POLICY The Daily Astorian publishes paid obituaries. The obituary can include a small photo and, for veterans, a ﬂ ag symbol at no charge. The deadline for all obituaries is 9 a.m. the business day prior. Obituaries may be edited for spelling, proper punctuation and style. Death notices and upcoming services will be published at no charge. Notices must be submitted by 9 a.m. the day of publication. Obituaries and notices may be submitted online at DailyAstorian.com/forms/obits, by email at ewilson@dailyastorian.com, placed via the funeral home or in person at The Daily Astorian ofﬁ ce, 949 Exchange St. in Astoria. For more information, call 503-325-3211, ext. 257. Subscription rates Eﬀ ective July 1, 2015 • Established July 1, 1873 (USPS 035-000) Published daily, except Saturday and Sunday, by EO Media Group, 949 Exchange St., PO Box 210, Astoria, OR 97103 Telephone 503-325-3211, 800-781-3211 or Fax 503-325- 6573. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The Daily Astorian, PO Box 210, Astoria, OR 97103-0210 DailyAstorian.com MEMBER OF THE ASSOCIATED PRESS 34912 HWY 101 BUS • ASTORIA 503-325-0792 • 1-800-220-0792 29-33 Estimated jackpot: $180,000 Wednesday’s Keno: 09-18-19- 20-21-23-24-25-26-29-37-40- 43-46-48-50-51-62-70-79 Wednesday’s Lotto: 01-02-04- 08-09-34 Estimated jackpot: $2.4 million Wednesday’s Match 4: 02-17- 18-24 The Associated Press is entitled exclusively to the use for republication of all the local news printed in this newspaper. SUBSCRIBER TO THE NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE MEMBER CERTIFIED AUDIT OF CIRCULATIONS, INC. 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