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OUTSIDE
East Oregonian
Saturday, June 3, 2017
Garden aims to attract monarch butterflies
BLOOMIN’ BLUES
College student leads
downtown Portland project
Photo by Bruce Barnes
Penstemon fruticosus, Woody Penstemon
Purple mountain majesty
has medicinal uses, too
By BRUCE BARNES
For The East Oregonian
Name: Woody
Penstemon
Scientific name:
Penstemon fruticosus
This Penstemon is
another very showy plant,
and is found from the
Rockies in British Columbia
to Eastern Oregon in
the Blue Mountains to
nearby Idaho. It is similar
to Barrett’s Penstemon,
which was featured last
week. Both species are
low-growing shrubs, with
blue to purple flowers facing
in one direction. The species
name fruticosus is Latin for
woody.
The plant grows to 16
inches tall, with stems
varying from flat on the
ground to upright, often
creating wide mats. The
leaves are narrowly elliptic,
about 2½ inches long,
toothed along the edges, and
smaller on the flowering
stems. The flowers are few
per stem, and 1-2 inches
long.
Northwest Indian tribes
had many medicinal uses
for this plant, depending
on how the plants were
prepared.
These uses included
treatment for headaches,
colds, itchy scalp, acne,
flu, toothaches, bladder
problems, rheumatism,
arthritis, sores, sore eyes,
ulcers, kidney problems,
and as a wash for the legs
of lame horses. The plants
were used in cooking with
onions. Leaves were placed
in moccasins for insoles,
and used as a dye for
baskets.
Where to find: It is
probably 2-4 weeks too
early to see this Penstemon
blooming. However, when
the time comes it is worth
seeing. I’ve consistently
found it east of Tollgate
along the road to Jubilee
Lake.
Once on the road, pull
over at the first major left
curve, where there is a
broad turnout on the right
for people to enjoy the view.
Get out and look down the
bank on the other side of the
rail and you will find large
patches of the plant just a
few feet away.
BRIEFLY
Sturgeon season
set for Bonneville
Fishery managers in
Oregon and Washington
have set the 2017 sturgeon
fishing season in the
Columbia River between
The Dalles and Bonneville
dams.
Anglers can keep
recreational white sturgeon
beginning Saturday, June 10
with a bag limit of one fish
per day and a size limit of
38 to 54 inches fork length.
Fishing for sturgeon will
remain closed from The
Dalles Dam downstream
1.8 miles from May through
July, since that area is
a designated sturgeon
spawning sanctuary.
Sturgeon retention will
be allowed in the Columbia
River estuary — from
the Wauna power lines
downstream to Buoy
10 — for three days a week
on Mondays, Wednesdays
and Saturdays beginning
Monday, June 5 through
Saturday, June 17. The bag
limit is one fish and size
restriction of 44 to 50 inches
fork length.
In addition to the
mainstem Columbia River,
Youngs Bay and all adjacent
Washington tributaries will
be open for sturgeon. The
lower Columbia River from
Bonneville Dam to the
Wauna power lines has been
closed to sturgeon retention
since 2014, although fishery
managers may look into the
possibility of reopening that
stretch of river later in the
fall.
The annual bag limit for
white sturgeon is two fish.
Any sturgeon previously
tagged in 2017 count against
the limit.
For more information,
check the 2017 Oregon
Sport Fishing Regulations or
visit www.dfw.state.or.us.
Spokane area man
killed in fall at
Palouse Falls
PALOUSE FALLS
STATE PARK, Wash. (AP)
— The body of a Spokane
area man who slipped off a
cliff at Palouse Falls State
Park has been recovered.
The Franklin County
Sheriff’s Office says the
fall occurred on Monday
afternoon at the eastern
Washington park.
The body of the
25-year-old man was
recovered on Tuesday
afternoon.
The Spokesman-Review
says the Franklin County
Sheriff’s Office will release
his identity.
KXLY-TV reports that
the man fell off a ledge
while taking a selfie with a
young woman with whom
he was visiting the park.
The woman told authorities
that he hit a rock as he fell
toward the water, and was
swept downstream.
Washington State Parks
has been concerned about
the safety of unmarked trails
at the falls in recent years.
Visitors are encouraged to
stay in designated viewing
areas.
PORTLAND (AP) — Vigor’s
60-acre shipyard at the tip of Swan
Island is a sea of steel and pavement,
where cruise ships, naval vessels and
ferries all turn to for crucial repairs that
can take months and cost millions of
dollars.
In the heart of the north Portland
shipyard and in the shadow of North
America’s largest floating dry dock
— which stretches more than three
football fields long and is as tall as
the White House — a series of raised
flower beds are starting to sprout tiny
green plants.
The manufacturer that can repair
ships weighing upward of 170 million
pounds is partnering with the Univer-
sity of Portland to create habitat for
a vulnerable creature that weighs no
more than a feather: the monarch
butterfly.
Whether the garden project in the
heart of the Portland Harbor Superfund
site succeeds is anyone’s guess.
“If we even had one show up we
would all just be doing backflips,” said
Alan Sprott, Vigor’s vice president of
environmental affairs.
But it’s off to a positive start.
One year after first planting various
milkweed seeds, Vigor intern Gabe
Ablin will be one of 780 UP undergrad-
uates collecting a diploma this May.
He’s also among thousands of students
across the state who will be graduating
over the next six weeks.
Ablin says he knew next to nothing
about milkweed, which is crucial to the
distinctive orange and black butterfly’s
survival, when he started the project a
year ago.
“This is confirmation that it
worked,” he said of the first phase of
growth. The milkweed survived Port-
land’s worst winter in a century under
Ablin’s close eye. Buds are popping
out of the ground.
Sprott said this is a three- to five-
year project that will eventually see
thousands of milkweed and other
native plants installed along the river
bank and spread throughout the ship-
yard. The company said it will devote
2.25-acres to the project, a substantial
investment.
Butterflies won’t make Vigor any
money, but Sprott said it’s not about
that.
“We operate in the Pacific North-
west,” he said of the company’s 10
locations in Oregon, Washington and
Alaska. “The environmental ethos of
the people here is pretty strong, and
you’re either at the dinner table with
them or you’re on the menu. So, we’re
trying to be at the table.”
Bakersfield to Portland
Ablin, 21, arrived in Portland four
years ago from Bakersfield, a city he
described as the most polluted in the
country.
He and his older brother grew up
going to the Jameson Ranch Camp each
summer in the Sequoia National Forest
northeast of town, where he fell in love
with the outdoors and saw a career in
environmental work as possible. He
learned how to garden, weld and split
wood. His dad went to the ranch as a
child as well, and the years of summers
were affecting.
“There’s something beyond the
smog cloud. Literally, and metaphori-
cally,” Ablin said.
For college, he landed at UP and
pursued an environmental ethics and
policy degree.
During his sophomore year, Ablin
learned in an air pollution class about
an internship opportunity at Vigor,
which he only knew at the time as
“those boats you see off the bluff.”
In response to neighborhood
complaints to the Department of
Environmental Quality about paint
and other noxious smells wafting up
from Swan Island, Vigor decided to
investigate whether it was responsible.
Ablin was one of several paid interns
who canvassed the neighborhood and
took air samples as part of what would
become an 18-month study.
The Californian’s first job was at
one of Bakersfield’s oil companies so
he liked the idea of working for a big
company on environmental projects.
“I want to walk the line between
being just a total eco-hippie warrior
Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian via AP
In this April 27 photo, Gabe Ablin, 21, an Environmental Ethics & Policy
major at the University of Portland, stands near a series of raised flower
beds as part of a project that hopes to create a habitat for the monarch
butterfly in Portland.
Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian via AP
In this April 27 photo, Gabe Ablin stands near a series of raised flower
beds. One year after first planting various milkweed seeds, Vigor intern
Ablin will be one of over 700 UP undergraduates collecting a diploma
Saturday.
sitting in trees 40 hours a week and
just fully working for a company and
selling my soul,” Ablin said of his
calculus.
He saw that Vigor cared.
“It was super cool that a big indus-
trial company like Vigor was doing
something that they did not have to
do,” Ablin said.
The company shut down a waste-
water treatment plant that it determined
was responsible for some of the
complaints, and shifted practices to try
and boost air quality. Sprott said the
company wants to be a good neighbor,
and “walk our talk.”
Vigor had built a pipeline to UP. At
the end of his air quality internship,
Ablin pitched the company with a
larger habitat restoration project on the
island.
Vigor had another idea. The
company had seen a story in The
Oregonian/OregonLive about the
benefits of planting milkweed in home
gardens. Monarch butterflies lay their
eggs exclusively on the perennial,
but their numbers have been in steep
decline for 20 years as milkweed
vanished from the sides of roads, rivers
and gardens.
Sprott offered Ablin a solo project
starting a milkweed habitat at the
shipyard.
“We wouldn’t be able to go out and
hire an entomologist or botanist to do
this,” Sprott said on an April day as he
and Ablin overlooked the garden. “We
tap into, no offense, Gabe, cheap labor,
and the resources of the university to
guide it along.”
Threatened species
Monarch butterflies have distinct
migration patterns on each coast, and
both have been in steep decline for
years.
The pollinating insects can travel
thousands of miles, spending their
winters in Mexico or Southern Cali-
fornia.
Monarchs rely on milkweed. They
lay their eggs on the once ubiquitous
plant, and caterpillars depend on it
for food. Nectar plants help fuel the
butterflies on their lengthy road trips.
But milkweed is harder to find these
days, and the effects are indisputable.
According to a 2016 report from
the Xerces Society for Invertebrate
Conservation, the western popu-
lation’s numbers have plunged 74
percent in the past two decades.
Sarina Jepsen, director of endan-
gered species at the Portland-based
nonprofit, said the numbers are “star-
tling.”
In 1997, estimates put the butterfly
population in the West at 1.2 million.
Today, the count is as low as 200,000.
In the eastern U.S., Jepsen said, the
use of the chemical giant Monsanto’s
Roundup weed killer and Round-
up-ready crops are likely to blame for
the precipitous decline in monarchs.
“We are not as certain as what’s
causing the decline in the West,” she
said.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
is evaluating whether the insects
should be listed as threatened under
the Endangered Species Act. A deci-
sion is expected in 2019.
In a good year people can see
monarchs flying around Portland,
Jepsen said, but the city is just outside
of the historic range of the butterfly.
Vigor consulted Xerces about its
project, and Jepsen said the nonprofit
is supportive of planting native habitat.
“They are not the only threatened
pollinator, threatened insect, that we
have,” she said, citing bees and other
butterflies. “there is a whole suite of
other species that will benefit from
this project.”
Vigor sits in the heart of the Port-
land Harbor Superfund site, an area of
documented environmental hazards
that dates back decades.
A Vigor subsidiary, Cascade
General, is one of the dozens of
responsible parties that is trying to sort
out costs for the roughly $1.05 billion
cleanup. Sprott said the company will
be coping with the cleanup for the next
15 years, just as it has been bracing for
the plan for the past 15.
The milkweed project is separate
from that cleanup. It’s a small thing,
but it’s been a hit with employees,”
Sprott said. “Most people in the
Northwest are. That’s why we live
here.”
For Ablin, now that his internship is
finished, he still sees the possibility of
more work with Vigor. There’s a great
chance for “full-scale habitat resto-
ration” on the island. He envisions
more partnership with the university.
As with thousands of students at
Oregon colleges and universities set
to graduate, he is excited for the next
chapter. He hopes that includes a job
at Vigor.
Study finds that wolf attacks give cows ‘PTSD-like’ symptoms
By ANDREW THEEN
The Oregonian/OregonLive
Cows whose herd comes under
attack by wolves remember the
experience and show symptoms
similar to post-traumatic stress
disorder, Oregon researchers say.
That’s according to a study from
Oregon State University and publi-
cized Thursday.
Reinaldo Cooke, an associate
professor and animal scientist based
in Burns, conducted the research,
which appeared in the Journal of
Animal Science.
When wolves attack a herd of
cattle, Cooke said in an interview
Thursday, the surviving animals’ life
experience is “completely altered”
by the event. Animals become
jumpier around humans and pets,
the cows give birth to smaller calves,
and the animals are more likely to
get sick.
It doesn’t take much to trigger the
memories of the wolf attack. “Those
cows are grazing out there, man,”
Cooke said, “and they know what
wolves can do.”
“Every time they hear wolves
howling, even if it’s two miles away,
they go through the stress process,”
he said.”Every time they do that,
they don’t eat, they’re always on
alert.”
The fact that a wolf attack would
be traumatic to an animal isn’t a
novel idea, Cooke acknowledged,
but said henow has scientific
evidence of its effect.
Cooke’s study was paid for by
theOregon Beef Council, an industry
group based in based in Portland that
represents ranchers.
Oregon Wild, a nonprofit environ-
mental advocacy and conservation
group, criticized the use of PTSD
to describe nature. “PTSD is a very
serious condition afflicting millions
of Americans,” Oregon Wild said
in a statement. “It is incredibly
disrespectful for it to be used by an
industry association to make a point
that should be obvious to anyone
who has ever seen a nature docu-
mentary: prey don’t like predators.”
OSU took 10 cows from a
commercial herd in Idaho that
survived a wolf attack to Burns for
the project. They also gathered 10
Burns-based animals that had never
seen a wolf.
The animals were separated into
different pens scented with wolf
urine. Wolf howls were piped in
over a stereo.
Three trained dogs that resemble
wolves — two German shepherds
and one collie-Alaskan malamute
— paced outside the corral during
the 20-minute study period.
“The cows from Burns couldn’t
care less,” Cooke said in an inter-
view.
In the news release about the
study, Cooke said the Oregon cows
“showed no signs of agitation and
actually approached the dogs.”
“They also didn’t have biolog-
ical signs of PTSD, according to
PTSD-related biomarkers evaluated
in their blood or brain tissue,” he
continued.
But the Idaho cows did seem
affected. Their blood work showed
biomarkers indicating extreme
stress. None of the Idaho cows
had been wounded or attacked by
wolves directly.
Cooke said the study’s results
are normal, and simply document
a fact of life in the wild. “We have
to think of the welfare of the cows,
the wolves, and the producers,” he
said, citing the cattle owners.
“The wolves deserve their
space, the cows deserve their
space,” Cooke said, “We just
need to know what’s going out
there.”
The study comes as state wild-
life officials are considering some
changes to how the threatened
canine is managed in Oregon.