VIEWPOINTS
Saturday, April 23, 2022
ANDREW CLARK
East Oregonian
A5
BARBARA CLARK
A SLICE OF LIFE
Bird-watching,
it’s fun, cheap
and available
W
hat is it about watching birds
that so many people enjoy?
For starters, birds are found
just about anywhere. In each different
ecosystem there is a great deal of variety.
Big ones like eagles and swans. Little ones
like finches, warblers, and hummingbirds.
Pretty ones like painted buntings and blue
jays. Plain ones like some of the sparrows.
Different ones eat bugs, or fish or seeds.
Some eat small animals or other birds.
Throughout the avian kingdom there
is something for everybody, predator and
prey alike. As a birdwatcher you always
are looking for small movement — in the
bushes and trees, or on the ground — and
because of that broad awareness you also
see lots of bugs, beetles, spiders, snails,
small mammals, reptiles, amphibians,
tiny flowers and all sorts of other living
things.
Different places in the world have
different birds, always interesting and
joyful. In our traveling (Barbara 56
nations, Andrew a puny 32 nations)
bird-watching weaves our adventures
together and part of the fun is meet-
ing other birders. In Kruger Park, South
Africa, we met a birder couple at a picnic
area having their tea. We had a conver-
sation and they invited us to their place
in Capetown when there. We were going
that way, stayed overnight at their place,
and next morning they took us to see blue
cranes and rockjumpers, species that we
never would have seen by ourselves.
And what a fairy-tale career that guy
had.
Since childhood he loved flying things,
thus the bird-watching. He got a degree in
microbiology, went to the U.K. for work,
was taking test samples of beans in a field
near a RAF base when there was a roar
and a Harrier jump-jet took off straight
up into the air. “I’ve got to do that,” so
he went to enlist in the Harrier program.
“Your chances of being in that program
are somewhere between nil and nonexis-
tent, son” was the recruiter’s reply.
Well, he got into the program and
eventually became the director. When
he retired and returned to South Africa,
Nelson Mandela himself appointed him
as commandant of the South African Air
Force — he showed us a photo in his home
office of himself and Mandela.
Another fun event was along a small
gravel road in South African ranching
country. A special bird we had never seen
— a bald ibis — was beside the road in a
pasture and behind was a large farmhouse
surrounded by lovely trees.
Barbara said, “Wouldn’t it be interest-
ing to see inside that old house?”
In another mile or so we stopped to
look at a small herd of beautiful red cattle
and a pickup driven by an older man came
along and stopped.
He asked, “What are you doing?”
“We’re looking at those beautiful cattle
— they’re really nice.”
“They’re mine,” he said.
We chatted a bit more. We mentioned
seeing the bald ibis in the pasture. He said
“that’s my place, and on the backside of
that hill over there is a cliff that is the only
bald ibis nesting site in southern Africa.
C’mon to the house and we’ll go see it.”
What a treat for birdwatchers, and
then we were invited to have supper and
stay the night in the house Barbara had
wondered about. In his office he had a
large collection of miniature cars with
three standing apart, including a Gull-
Wing Mercedes.
“What about them?”
“Oh, those are models of cars that I
have on another ranch in a climate-con-
trolled building,” he said.
Online today a Gull-Wing Mercedes is
$6.8 million.
Bird-watching is rapidly expanding
in the U.S., especially with older people,
because it is a gentle “sport” that can be
done anywhere — you need only binoc-
ulars. It also has significant economic
implications. In 2016, the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service reported 16.3 million
people did bird-watching trips that
accounted for $42 billion of economic
activity.
Our cold spring weather in Pendleton
this year has slowed normal migration,
but finches, blackbirds, thrush family
birds and towhees are coming through.
Hummingbirds are arriving, so get out
your feeders — or if you don’t have one,
they’re easy to buy in town — and enjoy
seeing these wonderful, beautiful crea-
tures all around us.
———
Dr. Andrew Clark is a livestock veteri-
narian with both domestic and international
work experience who lives in Pendleton.
Barbara Clark is a teacher with a broad vari-
ety of experience internationally and domes-
tically at primary and secondary levels, Blue
Mountain Community College and Eastern
Oregon Correctional Institution.
Logging and carbon — another viewpoint
BRUCE
WILCOX
OTHER VIEWS
A
s a young adult out hunting, I
still can remember the sounds of
chainsaws and timber falling in
my favorite hunting area. I was upset,
why was my spot being logged. 45 years
later I can walk through this area to a
healthy stand of fire-resistant timber.
In January, I read an opinion column
by George Wuerthner, in the East Orego-
nian. I felt it was necessary to provide
the other side of the story on logging and
carbon. I reached out to Healthy Forests-
Healthy Communities, for help in writing
my column. This organization promotes
healthy timber management and through
their articles, people are educated so
they can develop their own opinions.
George Wuerthner should really see
the forest for the trees. Researchers have
consistently found that the use of active
forest management helps reduce the
intensity of wildfires. It also gives fire-
fighters better and safer opportunities to
contain fires before they gain strength and
destroy our forests and communities.
Thinning is a key management tool,
because reducing stand densities to sustain-
able levels helps promote the health and
resiliency of our forests, so they can better
withstand fires when they inevitably ignite.
The problem with such agenda-driven
“research” that Wuerthner shares is that
it fails to account for the carbon losses
and emissions that occur from the lack
of active forest management, and when
we choose not to plant, grow, harvest and
manufacture wood products here at home.
For example, the study cited by Wuerth-
ner doesn’t account for carbon emissions
that occur when we outsource our timber
harvesting and wood products to other
countries that don’t share our high environ-
mental standards. Would we really reduce
our carbon footprint by importing wood
from Brazil or Russia, rather than Oregon?
According to the University of Wash-
ington’s Forest Carbon Study, Washing-
ton’s private forests and forestry sector
are a “Below Net Zero” carbon emitter.
Although the processes associated with
manufacturing wood and paper prod-
ucts emit some greenhouse gasses, grow-
ing trees and using wood products store
more carbon than is emitted, reducing
Washington’s carbon footprint by 12%.
Forestry’s carbon footprint is further
reduced when we convert low-value
woody material into renewable energy.
Our western forests are facing what
one scientist calls an “epidemic of trees,”
where we have more trees than the land-
scape can support. The intense compe-
tition for sunlight and nutrients can
weaken trees and reduce their abil-
ity to withstand severe wildfires. It can
also result in insect attacks and disease,
which contributes to high tree mortal-
ity and more fuel for severe wildfires.
Thinning forests — yes that means
removing some trees — contributes
to the growth and vitality for remain-
ing trees and enables them to seques-
ter and store more carbon. When it
comes to thinning forests the only ques-
tion is why we’re not doing more of it.
Research also shows that trees are
dying at alarming rates, due to wild-
fires, insects, disease, drought and other
impacts of climate change. Dead trees
do not sequester carbon, they only emit
carbon and other greenhouse gasses over
time. Walking away from our forests
only serves to continue that trend.
One researcher found that wildfires
emit greenhouse gasses at a rate equiva-
lent to 48 cars per acre. In this scenario, the
researcher suggested we’d need to park 1
million cars for an entire year to account for
greenhouse gasses from a 21,000-acre fire.
Interestingly, the decay of the dead trees
following a wildfire is more significant in
affecting the climate than the fire itself.
If we choose not to manage our forests,
we may lose 100% of the trees to stand-re-
placing wildfires, and then we will lose
all of that stored carbon over time as
trees rot and decompose. The problem
is made worse when forests fail to natu-
rally regenerate after a severe wildfire,
and instead convert to shrublands that do
not sequester carbon at the same rates.
Dead trees don’t sequester carbon, only
vigorously growing trees do. Dead trees
and sterilized soils from severe wildfires
only serve to release carbon over time.
We have tried passive forest manage-
ment for the past 30 years, and it has
resulted in more severe wildfires, unhealthy
forests and more carbon emissions. There
is only one “guarantee” walking away from
our forests and choosing not to manage
them, will only result in more of the same.
———
Bruce Wilcox was raised in Eastern Oregon
and he has enjoyed recreating in the Blue
Mountain Forests, near Heppner, for more
than 60 years. He is very concerned about
the future of these forests, hoping they will be
around for several generations to follow.
Now is the time to promote growth at BMCC
CLARK
HILDEN
OTHER VIEWS
I
am very upset and sad at the direction
President Mark Browning is taking
Blue Mountain Community College.
I came to the college in 1969 and taught
geography and anthropology full time
for 30 years and have lived in Pendleton
since. President Browning, who has been
here eight months, is seeking to terminate
the employment of 10 full-time faculty
members who have a collective total of
152 years of service to the college.
These people have professional-level
jobs. They purchase homes here, pay
taxes here, buy goods and services in the
community, serve on local boards and are
active in the community in many other
ways. Their children attend our schools,
and many go on to the college, where
they and other students have, at minimal
cost, been able to complete the first two
years of a college transfer degree or to
seek training in a variety of vocations.
Browning intends to terminate my
successor, Linc DeBunce, who has taught
at BMCC for more than 20 years. Accord-
ing to the schedule for the spring term,
Linc’s five classes are full, with 123
students occupying a possible 125 spaces.
Also slated for termination is
Margaret Mayer whose three music
history classes are full, offers private
music lessons to students as well as
provides music for college events.
Another termination is full-time
instructor Ann Marie Hardin, one of
the most versatile faculty members. She
is teaching three math classes and one
physics class while serving as depart-
ment chair. Some of her classes have
lower enrollments but that is because
she was assigned higher level math
classes that have fewer students.
Other faculty positions at the college
being marked for elimination include
faculty in writing, chemistry, business,
criminal justice, industrial maintenance
technology and college prep. The termina-
tion of these 10 full-time instructors is our
loss, the community college district’s loss.
When I came to BMCC, my social
science department had six full-time
instructors. Browning’s plan will deci-
mate that department, leaving only one.
“We’re not actually offering fewer
classes,” Browning says. “We’re
having fewer people offer the classes
that we do currently have.”
Not true. DeBunce offers five
classes. His five classes are full, all
other social science classes are nearly
full. Fewer classes will be offered.
Where will these students go?
Over the years since I retired, the
social science department has lost full-
time positions in history, econom-
ics and political science. Recently, the
full-time sociology instructor was not
replaced upon her retirement. Over the
past few years, the humanities depart-
ment has lost full-time positions in
Spanish, art and theater. These losses
will further impact the college’s ability
to provide courses to transfer students
and to provide the enrichment that such
classes offer to all who take them.
Additionally, if higher level math
and science are cut, students interested
in STEM fields no longer will be able
to attend their first two years at home.
Browning’s plan may be to seek part-
time instructors from other areas to teach
online, Portland perhaps. This already has
happened in political science and econom-
ics. Is that what’s slated for anthropology,
geography, music, chemistry and calculus?
That, of course, means the money spent
on their salaries will be leaving our area. I
have heard the administration feels that the
Associate of Arts Oregon Transfer Degree
has been “privileged.” That contention
certainly doesn’t stand up to these facts.
I fear that Browning is seeking to turn
our comprehensive community college,
one that has been supported by our district
for 60 years, into a trade school. Rather
than seek ways to bring more students
to college, he is giving students more
reasons not to attend BMCC. I haven’t
yet seen a plan by President Browning to
bring more students to the college. What
a sad time this is for our communities
and to the instructors who have contrib-
uted so much to the teaching of our people
and to the well-being of our district.
I encourage the members of the
college’s board of directors to refuse to
allow this to happen. It’s time to begin
to look for positive ways to promote
the growth of the college rather than
to oversee the demise of the wonder-
ful place Blue Mountain Commu-
nity College has been for so long.
———
Clark Hilden, of Pendleton, is a retired
geography and anthropology faculty member
at Blue Mountain Community College.