A2
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
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51
52
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Today
Lo
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34
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41
48
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43
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51
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Fri.
Lo
24
28
41
37
42
25
31
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41
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sh
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pc
sh
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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
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Fri.
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38
38
41
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TOMORROW'S NATIONAL WEATHER
NATIONAL CITIES
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-14
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67
47
84
55
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47
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Fri.
Lo
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29
29
28
29
28
-26
71
30
27
38
48
35
68
36
44
39
26
41
33
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41
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Shown are noon positions of weather systems and precipitation. Temperature bands are highs for the day.
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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-
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