8A | SATURDAY, JULY 14, 2018 | SIUSLAW NEWS
CORMORANT from page 1A
“The extent to which we could ever
detect an impact to angler catch is hard
to say, given all of the other variable
sources of juvenile salmon mortali-
ty that occur during their juvenile life
stage,” Knutsen said. “Even a 5 percent
population impact could be significant
during periods of extended low salmon
population abundance.”
One of the techniques used by the
ODFW to protect growing fish is called
“culling.” This term usually refers to the
tracking and killing of bird species that
interfere or reduce the ability of human
anglers to catch fish.
The most frequent subject of this type
of population management is a com-
mon sight along the Siuslaw River — the
double-breasted cormorant.
The cormorant is an indigenous bird
and a talented swimmer that will often
submerge for a minute or two, bobbing
to the surface with a shiny, wiggling fish
squirming in its bill.
The birds grow a bright white crest
during mating season, which gives them
a very distinctive look. They are very so-
cial, often gathering to dry their feathers
on stumps and deteriorating poles and
trees along the river — and with the Siu-
slaw River Bridge as backdrop.
One of the main constituent segments
that the ODFW is working to include
in their decision-making process is the
state’s growing aquaculture industry.
The Oregon Aquaculture Association
and other trade associations have lob-
bied state representatives to aggressively
protect baby fish to increase the fish-
able numbers of adult fish. As a result
of these concerns, culling of cormorants
INTOLERANCE from page 7A
Organization
All of this would lead one to
believe that there is some master
plan by the white supremacists
that is being carried out with
precision. According to Michae-
lis, that’s far from the truth.
“Hammerskins were kind of
loosely organized,” he said of the
organization he helped create.
“There would be meetings and
picnics, but it was an excuse to
drink.”
Like Antifa, many of the white
supremacists didn’t have a typi-
cal hierarchy. They liked it that
way.
“I was never much one for ti-
tles and stuff, like ‘commander,’”
Michaelis said. “They just want
to act like they got their s--t to-
gether.”
In fact, particularly in his early
years, Michaelis said he was hos-
tile to any sort of leader.
“We had no hesitation beating
up anyone who tried to chal-
lenge our top of the heap. That
happened quite a bit,” Michaelis
said.
However, the Church of the
Creator was a bit more orga-
nized. Michaelis liked its ideolo-
gy and the money it put into the
movement. But even the organi-
zation’s recruiting was rag-tag.
“They would pick a town, tell
their followers to go there. They
would hand out magazines.
Those who were interested got
invited to a party, get them
drunk and have them hand out
more magazines. That’s really all
there was to it,” he said.
Michaelis likened it to a failure
of organizational culture.
“Our organizational culture is
hate and violence,” he said. “Go
figure, but that’s not going to
make for the most functional or-
ganization.”
Moving on
“When you hurt people, it
hurts you,” Michaelis said. “It
damages who you are. It trauma-
tizes you.”
The brutal beatings he doled
out — and took — wore on Mi-
chaelis. Doubts began to creep
into his mind. He had worked
with minorities, who had
“worked their a—off,” he said.
They would show up on time
and sober, things that Michaelis
couldn’t do.
A Jewish man hired Michaelis
and his friends, despite the fact
they wore swastikas.
“Over and over again, I see
people being better than we
were. Every day. I denied it and
would read a white power book
or blast my white power music,”
he said. “I was constantly fleeing
reality in order to maintain the
facade of white supremacy.”
And then there was the tele-
vision show Seinfeld. It was one
began a few years ago at locations on the
Columbia River. Under cover of dark-
ness. With no public notification given
as to times or locations of the hunts.
These nighttime kills were targeted
at adult cormorants that were living in
fertile fishing areas, so they would not
compete directly with human fishers.
This practice was the source of great
public concern and ODFW officials
were castigated for the program by
many non-fishers.
ODFW said the reason for the killing
was to ensure that baby salmon would
have the opportunity to grow and be
caught by recreational anglers, with-
out the danger of becoming cormorant
food.
Population management uses other
methods — such as “egging,” smother-
ing of cormorant eggs in corn oil, and
“hazing,” a non-lethal technique that
uses pyrotechnics to scare the birds
away — from an area that has young fish
populations.
It is possible that hazing is a tech-
nique that could be used in Florence in
the future.
The issue of how many birds is too
many birds is one that is constantly on
the table at ODFW. The numbers of
egrets, blue herons and cormorants in
Florence continues to increase as the
river re-establishes the food chain used
by all of the creatures that live along it’s
110-mile length.
There are numerous issues related to
the increase in bird populations which
will require decisions be made by the
leadership at ODFW, that many may
ultimately find unpleasant and even un-
necessary.
Historically, the Siuslaw River has
of his favorite shows at the time
and watching it every week was
one of his few joys.
His girlfriend worked on the
night it premiered, so Michaelis
taped it.
“But I couldn’t very well write
Seinfeld on the tape,” he said. “If
my white power buddies came
over and saw it on the bookshelf
I would be a race trader for en-
joying this essential Jewish hu-
mor.”
So he labeled the tape his
daughter’s second birthday par-
ty, knowing that no one would
ever ask to watch that.
His girlfriend was also a skin-
head, and his daughter was born,
in part, because they felt it was
their duty as white people to do
so. A year and a half after the
child was born, Michaelis said
he was exhausted and looking
for any excuse to get out.
“That excuse came in the form
of another friend of mine being
shot and killed in a street fight.
It was just a few months after I
became a single parent when my
daughter’s mother and I broke
up.”
So, he took his child and left.
“I felt a huge sense of relief and
freedom when I walked away
from them,” he said. “You believe
those things as long as you’re in
it and spending all the energy to
deny all the contrary informa-
tion. Once you stop expending
that energy, just the flaws of the
ideology become so glaringly
obvious that it wasn’t difficult for
me to set it aside.”
He spent some time trying to
forget, but he couldn’t handle it.
“My motivation to start talking
about my story was self-preser-
vation,” Michaelis said. “It was
destroying me to pretend it nev-
er happened. I just couldn’t do
it.”
So, he started to tell his story.
He helped form Serve 2 Unite,
healing many deep wounds.
He’s done work in preventing
this ideology from spreading to
the next generation. He has told
his story to millions of people
through books and cable news
appearances. And hopefully, he
said, he’s inspired some of those
whom he left behind to reach
out for a different life.
“I do regret hurting people
and doing so much harm,” he
said. “By accepting the regret and
processing it with compassion, I
can be at peace. I feel driven to
serve, to heal, to listen, learn and
connect. There’s a bit of atone-
ment still, but it’s incidental.”
When asked about how he
views the current state of affairs,
Michaelis said he was optimistic.
He holds a rock-solid faith in the
basic goodness of humanity, and
that the human condition today
is far better than what is was 50
years ago.
“I don’t believe there’s any
Cormorants can be seen sunning
themselves at various locations on
the Siuslaw River.
been used to transport hundreds of
thousands of logs from upriver in Ma-
pleton to the mills in town where they
were processed for sale. These millions
of board feet were than loaded onto
barges for transport to ports around the
country and the world.
Cormorants were considered a nui-
sance at this time and were routinely
shot on sight.
Anything that was even remotely
considered an impediment to develop-
ment was eliminated.
The Siuslaw also served as the watery
“road” used to move tons of canned fish
from packing companies in Florence to
large barges off shore that took the fish
to San Francisco and beyond.
The resulting debris and commercial
waste created by these endeavors pollut-
ed the river and the adjoining estuary
to the point where fish taken from the
water in the 1970s and ‘80s were often
unhealthy to eat.
Meanwhile, there have been many
changes in the way we humans inter-
act with the Siuslaw in the last 20 years.
One of these changes is the public’s atti-
tude towards sea-birds.
Most of the bird species that live along
the Siuslaw were previously hunted. The
birds were also severely impacted by the
widespread and often indiscriminate
spraying of DDT-based pesticides and
weed killers.
Fortunately, that situation has re-
versed itself over the last 30 years or
so, as the fiscal engine for Florence has
shifted from an industrial-based model,
MARK BRENNAN/SIUSLAW NEWS
to one primarily dependent on tourism
and recreation.
Knutsen said the numbers of cormo-
rants in the estuary has been estimated
for the past few years.
“ODFW surveys double-crested cor-
morants in 12 coastal estuaries (includ-
ing the Siuslaw) to document annual
abundance and to monitor abundance
trends over time. There have been ap-
proximately 100 double-crested cormo-
rants on average occupying the Siuslaw
estuary between 2012-17. Obviously,
there have been times when this num-
ber has been much higher as well as
much lower ... but the average has been
around 100,” he said.
The bird populations in and around
the Port of Siuslaw have been one of
the groups most positively impacted by
a cleaner, more animal-friendly envi-
ronment. Evidence of the popularity of
“birding” was the recent Vision Quest
“Get Wild’ educational forum at the Siu-
slaw Public Library and the following
day’s bird identification hike held at the
Siltcoos Recreation Area. Both work-
shops were full, and interest was high.
There remains some cause for con-
cern among birders and other residents
that live along the Siuslaw as the count-
ing of cormorants is ongoing and may
lead to change in strategy when dealing
with the challenge posed by the cormo-
rants.
Knutsen was reserved when asked
about the prospect of hazing or even
culling being employed in the future.
He said a greater concern would be
that double-crested cormorants from
large population centers, such as the
Columbia River or from other coastal
estuaries, would migrate into the Siu-
slaw estuary.
“ODFW does not have plans to cull
cormorants in coastal estuaries,” he
said. “Federal authorization through
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
would be required if this were ever to be
a management option in the future. We
will continue to monitor populations
along the coast for the foreseeable fu-
ture to develop a better understanding
of status and population trends.”
For more information, visit www.dfw.
state.or.us.
Compassion event gets
Rotary donation
The Florence Rotary Club
made a $500 donation to help
pay speaker fees for the up-
coming Serve 2 Unite event.
“Gift of our Wounds: Forgive-
ness After Hate” will be held
at the Presbyterian Church on
Sunday, July 15, at 6 p.m.
Ex-white supremacist Arno
Michaelis and Pardeep Kale-
ka, whose father was killed in
In June, Florence Rotary Club donated to help pay speaker a hate crime, say compassion
fees for the upcoming “Gift of our Wounds: Forgiveness After is our most effective tool to
fight hate.
Hate” event.
problem that can’t be solved if
we’re not terrified of each other,”
he said. “However, as it’s always
been in human history, it’s been
two steps forward, one step back.
There’s always going to be people
who are terrified of change. I be-
lieve that all human spirituality
is a means of finding peace with
change.”
But it’s not an easy task.
“I think that right now, we
have an opportunity to have the
conversation as a nation that we
needed to have for so long,” Mi-
chaelis said. “That’s the only way
we can heal and move forward.”
Michaelis, along with Kaleka,
will be speaking at the Presby-
terian Church of the Siuslaw,
located at 3996 Highway 101,
on July 15 at 6 p.m. for “Gift of
Our Wounds: Forgiveness After
Hate.” Pizza and refreshments
will be served at 5 p.m. The event
is free to anyone, but donations
will be accepted.
In the next installment of this
monthly series on intolerance,
the Siuslaw News will be reach-
ing out to local spiritual leaders
to discuss what intolerance is, if
it has a purpose, what they see of
intolerance in society now and if
there is a way through.
“We especially encourage
the youth in the community
to come hear this important
message,” said event organizer
Nora Kent, who received the
check from new Rotary Club
President Mike Webb.
Pizza will be served from 5
to 6 p.m. The event is free and
open to the public, but dona-
tions will be accepted.
Donations to help pay for
bringing the program to Flor-
ence will be accepted.
In Memory of Tehan, An Arabian Prince. 1983-2017.
Loved Forever
Western Lane
Ambulance District
Invites You to
Wine
Tasting
Party
Featuring Wines from Chateau Ste Michelle
Date: Thursday July 26, 2018
Time: Welcome wine poured at 5:00 pm
Food: Four course meal featuring Salmon with dill sauce, fennel,
and mushroom risotto as our main entrée
LEARN
CPR
CPR Certifi cations
Adult CPR - $50.00
Child Infant CPR Supplemental - $25.00
Total - $75 for both
2nd Saturday of every month
9am to 1pm at Western Lane Ambulance District
Cost: $110. Per couple
Reservations: required and accepted at 541-997-1940 Ext. 5
Limited to first 44 guests. We recommend signing up early as
this popular event will sell out
Wine: Available for purchase by the bottle or case
Call
541-997-9614
We look forward to a wonderful evening of wine, food, and FUN!!
www.westernlaneambulance.com