Page 8C
OUTSIDE
East Oregonian
Saturday, June 25, 2016
International professionals
descend on Eastern Oregon forests
BLOOMIN’ BLUES
East Oregonian
Photo by Bruce Barnes
Wood nymph
Look down for small
wood nymph lowers
By BRUCE BARNES
For The East Oregonian
Name: Wood Nymph or
Single Delight
Scientiic name:
Moneses unilora
This small plant is closely
related to the two plants in
last week’s article, and in
fact it once was included
under the same genus,
Pyrola, instead of Moneses.
It coincidentally is blooming
just a few feet from those
two Pyrola plants. They can
all still be seen blooming
within 3-4 feet of each other
in Emigrant Springs State
Park.
From the sign board by
the ranger’s ofice that is by
the parking area to the left
from the entrance, they are
about 50 feet uphill along
the trail. For the Wood
Nymph, look for the small
white spots near the ground.
The Wood Nymph is
found throughout Alaska
and Canada, and south to
California to New Mexico in
the west, and as far south in
the east as South Dakota to
Ohio, to Maine. The genus
name “Moneses” is from the
Latin “mono” which means
single or alone, referring to
the single lower on each
plant. The species name
“unilora” also means one
lower, so one could say
it’s scientiic name is a bit
redundant.
Unlike the other two
plants, which are up to a
foot high, the Wood Nymph
is about 3 to 4 inches tall.
The plant has only a single
lealess stem, which is bent
over at the top so the single
lower is facing downward.
At the base of the plant, are
3 to 4 round leaves usually
laying lat on the ground,
with toothed edges. The
lowers are about ¾ of an
inch wide, with spreading
petals.
As with the other two
related plants, they are best
left in place, as they will
usually die if picked, and
cannot be transplanted.
Moneses unilora has had
several speciic medicinal
uses, especially with the
more northern Indian tribes.
Several tribes used this plant
to treat boils, abscesses, and
blisters. They were also used
to treat colds and coughs,
and were applied to external
pains. One tribe used it
speciically for relief of sore
throats.
Camping limit aims
to reduce squatters
MEDFORD (AP) — Toni
Davis pulled her SUV and
utility trailer into her favorite
pullout next to Carberry
Creek Thursday to set up a
camp that will become her
latest temporary home, this
time next to two other long-
stay campers a stone’s throw
away.
Just as Davis set up her
elaborate camp, the other
campers broke theirs but left
the place a dirty, dangerous
mess.
“Not only did they leave
their garbage, they left a
sleeping mattress and they
left their ire going,” says
Davis, 59. “Not smoldering.
Burning. I almost had kittens
over it.
“Took me four buckets of
water to put it out,” she says.
“It irks me that they do this.”
Squatters like these
also have irked Rogue
River-Siskiyou
National
Forest oficials enough
that they have enacted a
new two-week maximum
camping stay in large swaths
of forestland covering both
developed and undeveloped
campgrounds as well as
unoficial spots like beaches
and meadows.
The new 14-day limit for
camping within a 45-day
period inside these “short-
stay corridors” is designed
to reduce the environmental
degradation
of
areas
associated with squatting,
as well to keep people from
hogging the best swimming
holes and camping spots.
The corridors encompass
a half-mile on each side
of long sections of the
Rogue, Illinois, Elk and
Coquille rivers, as well as
areas around the Ashland
watershed, Applegate and
Squaw lakes and several
inland spots.
These areas have been
identiied as popular, easily
accessed,
unmanaged
camping
areas
where
long-term use has risen
signiicantly in recent years,
leading to damaged soils
and vegetation as well as the
dumping of human waste
and garbage.
“It would prevent people
from just creating a long-
term camp to stay by the
river when it gets hot,”
says forest spokeswoman
Chamise Kramer.
“You can still stay longer
than 14 days on forest land,”
she says. “You just can’t stay
in the same spot.”
Enacted Monday, the new
rule means even nomads like
Davis can spend just 14 days
of any 45-day period within
any one of the zones. They
must then move out of all the
zones completely until the
45-day window expires, says
Julie Martin, the forest’s
program manager.
For instance, hunters who
set up camps along Forest
Road 64 between Prospect
and Union Creek would
have to pull up stakes after
two weeks and head outside
the corridor, Martin says.
“There’s probably a lot of
dispersed camping that can
be found outside the river
corridor,” Martin says. “It’s
not a matter of availability,
it’s a matter of preference.”
A similar rule expired in
2011, and since then oficials
have seen a growing misuse
of dispersed camping areas
not suitable for long-term
stays, Kramer says.
Other areas included in
the restriction are around
Briggs Creek and Eden
Valley, Bear Camp west
of Galice, the entire lower
Rogue, the Elk River and
Coquille River corridors in
Curry and Coos counties,
and in some of the forest’s
more remote locations.
The restricted areas will
be signed, and visitors can
call the Forest Service about
speciic sites at 541-618-
2200.
A group of eight natural resource
specialists from around the world gath-
ered June 15 on the Wallowa-Whitman
National Forest to learn about how
restoration projects are making
Northwest forests healthier and more
resilient to ire.
The visitors came from India,
Nigeria, Taiwan, Malaysia, Spain,
Poland, Nicaragua and China to see
irsthand how the Eastside Restoration
Strategy — which aims to increase the
pace and scale of forest thinning in
the Blue Mountains — is improving
conditions in the Blue Mountains near
La Grande.
“We have a unique responsibility
to manage the public’s land for all of
the resources and services it provides,”
said Bill Gamble, La Grande District
Ranger. “Our job is to sustain the
natural resources and habitats, while
providing our communities forest
products and continued opportunities
to enjoy their national forests.”
The group was hosted by the World
Forest Institute through its Interna-
tional Fellowship Program. Members
arrived in Portland for six months to
learn about forest management.
Rick Zenn, senior fellow with the
World Forest Institute, said meeting
with experts in the ield is an important
part of the program.
Contributed photo.
A group of eight international natural resource professionals gathered
June 15 on the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest near La Grande.
“Also,
hands-on,
ield-based
experience is always one of the best
communication tools,” Zenn said. “We
had a great day.”
During the Eastside Restoration
Strategy tour, Gamble brought the
group to several sites where work has
recently been completed, including the
Sandbox timber sale in the Catherine
Creek drainage. Bill Aney, Eastside
Restoration Coordinator, said the
professionals were intrigued by the
ways the Forest Service is accelerating
forest restoration in Eastern Oregon
and Washington.
“Fire is really what the Forest Resil-
iency Project is all about — preparing
our national forest landscapes so that
we can better manage with ire, instead
of by ire,” Aney said.
Fading ishermen: A historic
industry faces a warming world
By PATRICK WHITTLE
Associated Press
SEABROOK, N.H. — The cod
isn’t just a ish to David Goethel. It’s
his identity, his ticket to middle-class
life, his link to a historic industry.
“I paid for my education, my wife’s
education, my house, my kids’ educa-
tion; my slice of America was paid for
on cod,” said Goethel, a 30-year veteran
of these waters that once teemed with
New England’s signature ish.
But on this chilly, windy Saturday
in April, after 12 hours out in the Gulf
of Maine, he has caught exactly two
cod, and he feels far removed from
the 1990s, when he could catch 2,000
pounds of the ish in a day.
Fishing along the coast of the North-
east still employs hundreds. But every
month that goes by, those numbers fall.
After centuries of weathering over-
ishing, pollution, foreign competition
and increasing government regulation,
the latest challenge is the one that’s
doing them in: climate change.
Though no waters are immune to
the ravages of climate change, the Gulf
of Maine best illustrates the problem.
The gulf, where ishermen have for
centuries sought lobster, cod and other
species that thrived in its cold waters,
is now warming faster than 99 percent
of the world’s oceans, scientists have
said.
For the ishermen of the north-
eastern U.S., whether to stick with
ishing, adapt to the changing ocean or
leave the business is a constant worry.
WAVING THE WHITE FLAG
Robert Bradield was one of the
East Coast’s most endangered species,
a Rhode Island lobsterman, until he
pulled his traps out of the water for the
last time about a decade ago.
He now works on a pilot boat,
guiding larger ships in and out of the
harbor. He is glad he’s still on the
water, but he misses lobstering and the
community of ishermen he used to see
in Newport.
“Of all the guys I ished with, I was
a lobsterman for 30 years, and there’s
maybe three left,” he said.
The number of adult lobsters in
New England south of Cape Cod slid
to about 10 million in 2013, according
to a report issued last year by an inter-
state regulatory board. It was about 50
million in the late 1990s. The lobster
catch in the region sank to about 3.3
million pounds in 2013, from a peak of
about 22 million in 1997.
Bradield, a father to three grown
children, said his decision was more
about economics than science. He is
glad he left the business, as painful as
it was to leave a piece of his identity
behind.
“There’s a saying: Behind every
successful isherman is a wife with a
good job,” he said.
HANGING ON, GETTING BY
David Goethel has spent most of
his life ishing for cod, and he doesn’t
want to stop now.
“I could catch the entire quota for the
Gulf of Maine in eight days,” Goethel
AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty
In this April 23 photo Elijah Voge-Meyers carries cod caught in the nets
of a trawler off the coast of New Hampshire.
AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty
In this April 23 photo David Goethel returns to the harbor in Hampton,
N.H. Fishing is in Goethel’s blood. He paid his way through Boston Uni-
versity by taking thrill-seekers out on ‘party boat’ ishing trips in Boston
Harbor, and segued into commercial cod ishing in 1982.
said in a bit of bravado he swears is not
an exaggeration. “I wouldn’t break a
sweat doing it.”
He operates a trawler that leaves
from New Hampshire. But the catch
these days is different; with cod in
jeopardy and catch quotas at all-time
lows, he tries to eke out a living by
supplementing cod with just about
anything else.
Retirement isn’t in the cards for the
62-year-old Goethel — at least, not
soon.
The challenges climate change
have brought to commercial ishing
are perhaps most noticeable in New
England’s cod ishery, which has dwin-
dled from more than 1,200 boats in the
1980s to only a few dozen today. In that
time, the catch of cod has plummeted
from more than 117 million pounds in
1980 to just over 5 million in 2014.
Goethel, also a marine scientist,
doesn’t bemoan the ocean’s changing
temperature as much as the rules he
must play by. Because of tight quotas,
he must avoid ishing around areas
where cod live, he said.
The changes have been dificult
emotionally for Goethel, whose
sons, Daniel and Eric, are a isheries
biologist and a tugboat captain. Old
traditions are hard to part with.
“Eric would get rolled out of bed
to go ishing,” Ellen said. “He did the
same thing to me.”
ADAPTING, COMMUTING
Michael Mohr harvested surf clams
for almost 30 of his 55 years, and his
desire to stay in the business takes him
far from his family.
About 10 years ago, he started
commuting from Mays Landing,
New Jersey, six hours each way to the
former whaling port of New Bedford,
Massachusetts. He has also switched
clam species; he got his start ishing
for Atlantic surf clams but now pursues
the ocean quahog.
“We’re inding clams in deeper
water instead of inshore water, where
we used to work 25 years ago,” Mohr
said.
Whether Mohr can make holidays
like Thanksgiving is “hit-and-miss,”
said his wife, Melanie.
Mohr is undaunted. Clamming
has been good to him, and if he has
to spend more time on the road as he
nears 60, so be it.
“It’s just a way of life,” Mohr said.
“You’ve got to go where the money is
at, and you’re happy. Right now, I’m
happy.”
New recreation fee permit proposed for boaters on Snake River
The Wallowa-Whitman National
Forest is proposing a new recreation
permit fee for boaters on the Wild and
Scenic Snake River.
A series of open house meetings
will be held July 5-8 to discuss the
proposal. The forest wants to collect
a fee of $5 or $10 per-person, per-trip,
depending on public feedback.
The proposed fee would be subject
to the Snake River from Hells Canyon
Dam to Cache Creek Ranch, spanning
roughly 70 miles. All new fee proposals
go before the John Day-Snake River
Resource Advisory Committee.
Public meetings are July 7 in
Clarkston, Washington; and July 8
in Joseph at the Joseph Community
Center. All meetings run from 6-8 p.m.
For more information, contact Lubera
at 541-426-5581.