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About Cannon Beach gazette. (Cannon Beach, Or.) 1977-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 23, 2018)
February 23, 2018 | Cannon Beach Gazette | cannonbeachgazette.com • 7A Findings concern researchers Stars from Page 1A “What we’re seeing is essentially a population still struggling to persist through this epidemic and only just beginning to recover,” said Eric Owen, the citizen science coordinator at the Hay- stack Rock Awareness Program. How and where the wasting disease strikes has always been patchy, said Sarah Gravem, a postdoctoral student at Oregon State University who has studied the disease since the first out- break. Part of what makes the disease so hard to research is its untraditional way of spreading. “The reason it is so hard to understand is be- cause the virus is in the water, and it can move so easily,” Gravem said. “It can survive in sea water for awhile, move with currents. We don’t have a smoking gun of why it pops up here or there, or why it went to California and Washington first.” Over the past two years, Gravem said the per- centage of sea stars affected by the disease at sur- vey sites along the Oregon Coast have settled at closer to 10 percent. The figures reported in Cannon Beach in Jan- uary are some of the earliest for the year, Gravem said, but could possibly be a worrisome indicator. “Some populations are recovering, but they aren’t out of the woods,” she said. “If another outbreak occurred, it’d be con- cerning for the survival of the whole species.” Many questions still remain about what aggravates the disease and why some areas are affected more than others. Historically, die-offs have been asso- ciated with warm ocean temperatures, but Melissa Miner of Left: Erick Owen, Melissa Keyser and Bonnie Neugebauer look for sea stars that have been decimated in recent years by a mysterious dis- ease. Bottom: Lisa Habecker uses a flashlight to locate sea stars during a survey by the Haystack Rock Awareness Pro- gram in Cannon Beach. MARINe — the Multi-Agency Rocky Intertidal Network — said the organiza- tion has not seen a correlation between higher water temperatures and sea star wasting. “Other localized groups who conduct surveys felt they saw relationship, but we don’t see that as the case on the broad scale,” Miner said. Haystack Rock, like many places along the coast, had a significant resurgence of sea stars in 2015. The drop in wasting in early 2015 could be a result of a massive reproduc- tion effort in response to the disease, Owen said. “Most of the sea stars surveyed during this time were very young recruits,” he said. “The subsequent spike in percent wasting may correlate with a resurgence of the disease as many of these juveniles then became infected as well.” While many Oregon sites have made a substantial recovery, Gravem said, the sea stars are smaller. The role sea stars play in the ecosystem is a “big mean predator,” she said, and their job is to eat prey like snails and limpets. If smaller sea stars are eating less, that could lead to an overabundance of snails and limpets, threatening the intertidal balance. “Their ability to eat stuff is their eco- logical importance. A big star can eat more than a little sea star,” she said. Overall, a higher population of juve- niles point the fate of sea stars in a pos- itive direction. But anomalies like Hay- stack Rock remind researchers there are still many unanswered questions. “We don’t know what 2018 will hold,” Gravem said. Oregon uplists marbled murrelet to ‘endangered’ status By Mateusz Perkowski Capital Press PORTLAND — Ore- gon’s wildlife regulators have “uplisted” the marbled mur- relet from a threatened to an endangered species, which will likely result in stricter log- ging limits on state forestland. The Oregon Fish and Wild- life Commission voted 4-2 to upgrade protections for the coastal bird at its Feb. 9 meet- ing in Portland. The change to endangered status means that scientists at the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, which is overseen by the commis- sion, must complete “survival guidelines” for the marbled murrelet by June. Those guidelines are ex- pected to further restrict log- ging in the bird’s suitable hab- itat, if existing protocols for state forestland are found to be insufficient. Though Oregon’s version of the Endangered Species Act only applies to property owned by the state government, some private forestland owners wor- ry the uplisting will effective- ly move Oregon toward more stringent regulations for all forests. Bruce Buckmaster, a com- mission member who voted against the change, said he shared their concerns. “They’re old enough to know it’s an ironclad law they will undoubtedly be affected,” said Buckmaster, a retired business owner. COURTESY U.S. FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission voted to put the marbled murrelet on the state’s endangered species list. Commission members originally considered ordering the agency to develop those survival guidelines without uplisting the species. This proposal, set forth by commissioner Bob Web- ber, would have had the ef- fect of creating a roadmap for the murrelet’s recovery that wouldn’t be legally enforce- able. However, the motion re- sulted in 3-3 deadlock vote, after which Webber changed his mind and supported the uplisting. “I stated my preference but my least favorite option would be to do nothing,” said Web- ber, an attorney. The federal government listed marbled murrelets as threatened in 1992 and Oregon extended the same status to the birds three years later. Washington and California consider the species endan- gered. Marbled murrelets are known as the “enigma of the Pacific” because so little is still known about their life cycle, said Christina Donehower, strategy species coordinator for ODFW. “Actual nests for marbled murrelets are extremely hard to find,” she said. The birds forage for fish and invertebrates in the Pa- cific Ocean but lay their eggs in depressions formed on the branches of large conifer trees, typically found in “old growth” forests, she said. Nests are found as far as 50 miles inland along the coast, meaning the species must trav- el up to 100 miles round trip to feed its young. Large conifer habitat for the species in Oregon’s coast- al forests declined by 58 per- cent between 1936 and 1996, she said. Populations of the bird sharply fell in 1996 but the trend was stable to slightly positive between 2000 and 2015, when 11,000 marbled murrelets were estimated to inhabit Oregon, Donehower said. However, demographic models for the species project it has an 80 percent chance of extinction in Oregon within the current century, she said. The species is doubly chal- lenged because, apart from specialized forest nesting hab- itat, it’s vulnerable to fluctuat- ing ocean conditions. The bird’s reproductive po- tential is low to begin with, as it reaches sexual maturity rel- atively late and typically only lays one egg per year. If food sources in the ocean are inadequate for fledging murrelets, the adults won’t at- tempt to breed, as occurred in 2017. “They might not be as resil- ient as other species to chang- ing conditions,” Donehower said. Oregon State University is conducting a 10-year study of marbled murrelets that in- volves capturing the birds at sea, outfitting them with track- ing tags and monitoring their forest nests. Multiple woodland owners and timber industry represen- tatives urged the commission against uplisting the species until the OSU research sheds more light on its life cycle. Jim James, executive di- rector of the Oregon Small Woodlands Association, said the uplisting would be prema- ture before the science is better understood. “It’s not urgent that you make a decision today,” he said. “Murrelet populations are stable.” An uplisting will likely re- quire private landowners to submit plans for protecting the bird to state regulators, despite assurances the change will only impact state forests, said Rick Barnes, OSWA’s presi- dent. “We all know that’s not the way things work,” he said. Dining on the North Coast Excellence in family dining found from a family that has been serving the North Coast for the past 52 years Great Great Great Homemade Breakfast, lunch and pasta, Clam but that’s dinner steaks & Chowder, not all... menu,too! seafood! Salads! 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Torres’ research also found a “very strong statistical link between where the whales for- age and kelp.” “If you’ve ever seen gray whales here, they’re often tucked right into the kelp, feeding around the kelp beds,” Torres said. But, by lowering a GoPro camera on a stick and a plank- ton net into the ocean, the re- searchers discovered another popular Oregon coast habitat: The local gray whales enjoy areas where there are more amphipods, small shrimp-like crustaceans. “This was really surprising to us,” Torres said. “We aren’t able to prove they were eating the amphipods, but it certainly seems like they prefer the hab- itat where that amphipod was more abundant.” By understanding where whales congregate during cer- tain times of the year, scientists will know which habitats need to be protected, Torres noted. In the past four years on the west coast, occurrences of whales getting entangled in fish- ing gear – especially Dungeness crab gear -- have been increasing. Torres said. The entanglements endanger both the whales and the sta- bility of the Dungeness crab industry, which brings in $63 million a year to Oregon, she added. Several groups affected by the problem have organized the Oregon whale entangle- ment working group to devel- op ways to reduce the risk. Torres’ team also is exam- ining the long-term impact of ocean noise on whales. Pre- liminary data gathered by tak- ing fecal samples and analyz- ing cortisol, progesterone and testosterone hormones from healthy whales feeding in low noise levels and other whales living in high noise levels should be available in another year or two, Torres said. Congratulations Alaina Alaina Giguiere Owner/Principal Broker 503.440.3202 alainagiguiere@mac.com on being the #1 agent in Clatsop County for 2016 AND 2017 Coastal Advantage 219 N. Hemlock, Cannon Beach • 503.436.1777 430 Laneda, Manzanita • 503.368.1777 www.CoastalAdvantage.com “Real Estate standards for those with ‘Higher’ Expectations. above the crowd!”
