The BulleTin • SaTurday, april 10, 2021 A3
TODAY
It’s Saturday, April 10, the 100th
day of 2021. There are 265 days
left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
In 1947, Brooklyn Dodgers Pres-
ident Branch Rickey purchased
the contract of Jackie Robinson
from the Montreal Royals.
In 1912, the British liner RMS Ti-
tanic set sail from Southampton,
England, on its ill-fated maiden
voyage.
In 1932, German President Paul
Von Hindenburg was reelected
in a runoff, with Adolf Hitler
coming in second.
In 1971, a table tennis team
from the United States arrived
in China at the invitation of the
communist government for a
goodwill visit that came to be
known as “ping-pong diplo-
macy.”
In 1972, the United States and
the Soviet Union joined some 70
nations in signing an agreement
banning biological warfare.
In 1981, imprisoned IRA hunger
striker Bobby Sands was de-
clared the winner of a by-elec-
tion to the British Parliament.
In 1992, comedian Sam Kinison
was killed in a car crash outside
Needles, California, at 38.
In 1998, the Northern Ireland
peace talks concluded as nego-
tiators reached a landmark set-
tlement to end 30 years of bitter
rivalries and bloody attacks.
In 2005, Tiger Woods won his
fourth Masters with a spectacu-
lar finish of birdies and bogeys.
In 2015, the Apple Watch made
its debut.
In 2019, scientists released the
first image ever made of a black
hole, revealing a fiery, dough-
nut-shaped object in a galaxy 53
million light-years from earth.
Ten years ago: The House
Homeland Security Committee
examined Muslim extremism
in America during a hearing
punctuated by tearful testimony
and angry recriminations. Chair-
man Peter King, R-N.Y., accused
U.S. Muslims of doing too little
to help fight terror in America;
Democrats warned of inflaming
anti-Muslim sentiment.
Five years ago: Sir Ken Adam,
the British film production de-
signer behind the sets for some
of the James Bond movies and
“Dr. Strangelove,” died in Lon-
don at 95.
One year ago: The worldwide
death toll from the coronavirus
surged past 100,000. On Good
Friday, Pope Francis presided
over a torch-lit procession in
an otherwise empty St. Peter’s
Square, with nurses and doctors
among those holding a cross.
Today’s Birthdays: Actor Liz
Sheridan is 92. Football Hall of
Famer John Madden is 85. Actor
Steven Seagal is 69. Folk-pop
singer Terre Roche (The Roches)
is 68. Actor Peter MacNicol is 67.
Actor Olivia Brown is 64. Rock
musician Steven Gustafson
(10,000 Maniacs) is 64. Sing-
er-producer Kenneth “Babyface”
Edmonds is 63. Rock singer-mu-
sician Brian Setzer is 62. Olympic
gold medal speedskater Cathy
Turner is 59. Rock musician Tim
“Herb” Alexander is 56. R&B
singer Kenny Lattimore is 54. Ac-
tor-comedian Orlando Jones is
53. Rapper Q-Tip (AKA Kamaal)
is 51. Actor David Harbour is 46.
Blues singer Shemekia Copeland
is 42. Actor Laura Bell Bundy is
40. Actor Harry Hadden-Paton is
40. Actor Chyler Leigh is 39. Ac-
tor Ryan Merriman is 38. Singer
Mandy Moore is 37. Actor Shay
Mitchell is 34. Actor Haley Joel
Osment is 33. Country singer
Maren Morris is 31. Actor Daisy
Ridley is 29. Actor Audrey Whitby
is 25. Actor Ruby Jerins is 23.
— Associated Press
LOCAL, STATE & REGION
OFF THE WEST COAST
Giant sea turtles on a steep decline
BY GILLIAN FLACCUS
AND HAVEN DALEY
The Associated Press
MONTEREY, Calif. — Sci-
entists were documenting
stranded sea turtles on Cali-
fornia’s beaches nearly 40 years
ago when they noticed that
leatherbacks — massive sea
turtles that date to the time of
the dinosaurs — were among
those washing up on shore. It
was strange because the nearest
known population of the giants
was several thousand miles
away in the waters of Central
and South America.
Their mysterious presence
led researchers to a startling
discovery. A subset of leather-
backs that hatches on beaches
in Indonesia, Papua New
Guinea, Vanuatu and the Sol-
omon Islands were migrating
7,000 miles across the Pacific
Ocean to the cold waters off
the U.S. West Coast, where
they gorged on jellyfish before
swimming back. The epic jour-
ney stunned scientists.
“There are birds that go
farther, but they fly. There’s a
whale shark that might swim a
little further, but it doesn’t have
to come up for air. This animal
is actually pushing water all the
way across the Pacific Ocean,”
said Scott Benson, an ecologist
with the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration’s
fisheries service in Monterey,
who has studied the turtles for
decades. “It’s just a majestic an-
imal.”
But now, just as scientists are
beginning to fully understand
the amazing odyssey, the tur-
tles are disappearing — and
fast.
In less than 30 years, the
number of western Pacific
leatherbacks in the foraging
population off of California
Heather Harris/via AP
In the waters off Central California in 2007, scientists including Scott Benson, at far left, can be seen posing
with a giant western Pacific leatherback sea turtle as they take measurements and attach a satellite tracking
device to its shell.
plummeted 80% and a recent
study co-authored by Benson
shows a 5.6% annual decline —
almost identical to the decline
documented thousands of
miles away on nesting beaches.
About 1,400 adult females were
counted on western Pacific
nesting beaches, down from
tens of thousands of turtles a
few decades ago, and there are
as few as 50 foraging off Cali-
fornia, Benson said.
If nothing changes, scien-
tists say, the leatherbacks —
creatures that can weigh half
as much as a compact car and
have 4-foot-long flippers —
could be gone from the U.S.
West Coast within three de-
cades, a demise brought on by
indiscriminate international
fishing, the decimation of
nesting grounds and climate
Lawmakers can submit
proposals on how to
spend ‘rescue’ funds
BY CHRIS LEHMAN
The Oregonian
Oregon House Speaker Tina
Kotek and Senate President
Peter Courtney each sent all
members in their respective
chambers a two-question sur-
vey recently.
The questions: What would
you like to spend money on?
And how much?
The source of the cash is the
American Rescue Plan Act
signed into law last month by
President Joe Biden.
Oregon’s share of the money
is $2.6 billion. Legislative bud-
get writers said they will need
roughly $1.3 billion of that to
fund existing programs and ser-
vices, and they also plan to set
aside $520 million in a reserve
fund for future budget cycles.
That leaves a hefty $780 mil-
lion unallocated. No one expects
the 90 lawmakers to struggle to
suggest ways to spend it.
“There are a number of needs
out there, whether it’s wildfire or
infrastructure or housing,” said
Kotek, a Portland Democrat.
The survey asks lawmakers
to define a problem and pro-
pose a solution. The follow-up
question asks them to estimate
the cost.
Officials in Kotek and Court-
ney’s offices said Thursday they
were not able to provide exam-
ples of lawmakers’ responses.
Legislative budget writers ac-
knowledged last month that us-
ing rescue plan act funds to cre-
ate new programs could create
a budget crunch in 2023-25, as
Oregonians are likely to expect
those programs to continue.
Using the cash for one-time in-
vestments would prevent that
problem.
Kate Cummings/via AP
A leatherback turtle swims in 2017 in the Pacific Ocean near Moss
Landing, California.
change.
“The turtles were there, and
we finally started paying atten-
tion,” said Jim Harvey, director
of San Jose State University’s
Moss Landing Marine Labo-
ratories at San Jose State Uni-
versity and the study’s co-au-
thor. “We got into looking at
the story just as the story was
ending.”
The study provides critical,
but devastating, new popula-
tion information that doesn’t
bode well for the leatherbacks,
said Daniel Pauly, a fisheries
professor at the University of
British Columbia and an in-
ternational expert on reducing
commercial fishing’s impact on
marine ecosystems.
“If you find the decline in
one place, that might have a
number of causes, but if you
find the same estimate of de-
cline in two places that indi-
cates something much more
serious,” said Pauly, who was
not involved in the study.
“They are really in big trouble.”
NOAA launched an aggres-
sive initiative to save them
in 2015 and will now release
an updated action plan this
month to inspire greater inter-
national cooperation in reduc-
ing the number of eggs pillaged
on beaches and the number of
Pacific leatherbacks entangled
in commercial fishing gear.
“There is an opportunity
right now to stop the decline,
but we must seize that oppor-
tunity immediately and that
will require an international
effort by all the nations this
animals interacts with,” said
Benson.
“If nothing is done to reverse
this course, this population will
become, essentially, extinct in
the Pacific Ocean.”
The leatherbacks have likely
been foraging off the U.S. West
Coast for millennia. As many
as 60% of the leatherback tur-
tles that hatch in the western
Pacific Ocean make the trip
to California. Some go farther
north, to waters off Oregon
and even Washington state.