A3 • Friday, March 8, 2019 | Cannon Beach Gazette | CannonBeachGazette.com
LISTENING TO THE LAND
A roadmap for saving the state’s coho salmon
By KATHERINE LACAZE
For Cannon Beach Gazette
The National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration
has developed a roadmap for
getting Oregon Coast coho
off the endangered species
list, but it relies on coopera-
tion from partners, including
community members, con-
servation groups, and timber
companies.
The purpose of setting
a goal for recovery is to
ensure “we have those spe-
cies around for future gen-
erations,” according to
Kenneth Phippen, the Ore-
gon Coast Branch Chief for
NOAA’s West Coast region.
On Feb. 20, he presented
on “Breathing Life into the
Oregon Coast Coho Salmon
Recovery Plan” as part of
the Necanicum Watershed
Council’s Listening to the
Land lecture series, hosted
in partnership with the Sea-
side Public Library.
NOAA’s long-term strat-
egy for de-listing coho
salmon — and keeping
them off the list — is out-
lined in the Oregon Coast
Katherine Lacaze
Kenneth Phippen, Oregon
Coast Branch Chief for
NOAA Fisheries, presents
on “Breathing Life Into
the Oregon Coast Coho
Salmon Recovery Plan” on
Wednesday, Feb. 20, at the
Seaside Public Library as part
of the Necanicum Watershed
Council’s Listening to the
Land lecture series.
Coho Salmon Recovery
Plan, which was fi nalized in
December 2016. The plan
builds on past and current
efforts to restore the coho
salmon, particularly with a
call for “continued actions
to repair the ecosystem pro-
cesses that infl uence the
health and stability of the
rearing habitats for juvenile
coho salmon,” according
to a plan summary. Using
the plan as a foundation,
the department can develop
focused annual work plans
with specifi c milestones.
Too often, Phippen said,
bureaucrats put together
plans that sit on the shelf
without leading to tangi-
ble action, when “they’re
supposed to be living doc-
uments.” Nine months
after the recovery plan was
approved, the Oregon Coast
Coho Salmon Workshop
Team worked to develop a
vision statement to ensure
the document remained tan-
gible and fresh.
Additionally, the plan is
supplemented by a Recov-
ery Implementation Strat-
egy, which includes excerpts
for each of the fi ve strata on
the Oregon Coast. Clatsop
County is in the North Coast
Stratum, which includes the
Necanicum, Nehalem, Tilla-
mook and Nestucca rivers.
What does a recovery
plan do?
Out of 28 salmon spe-
cies from the West Coast
currently listed as endan-
gered or threatened, the
coho is relatively the closest
to recovery, Phippen said,
adding there is still work to
be done.
While there are multiple
variables at play, he added,
“We really need to dig down
deep and fi gure out what we
as NOAA Fisheries can do
to implement the plan.” To
that end, the agency devel-
oped a ground strategy with
several proactive and spe-
cifi c goals, one of which is
managing the riparian area
along rivers and streams
and increasing the quality,
quantity and diversity of
winter and summer juvenile
rearing habitat.
Other goals include
establishing focused protec-
tion and restoration efforts
within forestry and agricul-
ture; promoting actions that
strengthen coho populations
along with sustainable local
community and economies
that rely on working lands;
and enhancing monitoring
programs and science.
“We’re actually mak-
ing very specifi c commit-
ments in our daily work in
association to our recovery
plan,” Phippen said, adding
the ground strategy does not
amend or revise the recov-
ery plan, but rather “identi-
fi es and prioritizes actions
NOAA will take unilater-
ally or in partnership with
others.”
For the fi rst time, he
added, NOAA Fisheries is
developing its annual work
plans alongside the agen-
cy’s Restoration Center staff
to ensure their work is com-
plementary and progressing
toward similar objectives.
As Phippen pointed out,
success is not measured by
merely getting coho salmon
de-listed as an endangered
species, but also through
creating the infrastructure
and environment for the
species to continue thriv-
ing so it does not become
re-listed a few years down
the road.
Making a difference
Phippen said they have
seen success in the state
when a couple smaller
watershed councils or other
conservation organizations
build a coalition and con-
solidate their efforts. His
agency can provide sup-
port through funding and
by helping groups identify
opportunities for working
together.
Additionally, community
members can contribute to
the recovery effort by shar-
ing detailed information at
the population level to help
develop and implement
strategic action plans along-
side the Oregon Depart-
ment of Fish and Wildlife
and other agencies and local
stakeholders.
“You know that ground,”
Phippen said, adding that
level of localized familiar-
ity is especially valuable.
“The bottom line question
is, are you going to con-
tinue this exciting journey
with us?”
The Listening to the
Land series runs through
May. Each lecture takes
place at 6 p.m. at the library.
In March, Jakob Shockey, a
wildlife biologist and the
owner of Beaver State Wild-
life Solutions, will pres-
ent on “Resolving Confl icts
with Beaver using Natural
Science and Design.”
Elk tracking: The traveling patterns of the local herds
By KATIE FRANKOWICZ
The Daily Astorian
There are several ways to
track elk in Clatsop County,
offi cial and unoffi cial.
Combined, these efforts
reveal just how much — and
how little — North Coast
residents know about ani-
mals they may see almost
every day. But the answers,
and questions, have gained
a new urgency as city lead-
ers struggle to address public
safety and property damage
tied to urban elk populations
in Gearhart and Warrenton.
Offi cial efforts include
things like annual helicop-
ter surveys state wildlife
biologists just completed of
herds in the larger Saddle
Mountain management unit.
Or the driving surveys park
staff and volunteers at Lewis
and Clark National Histori-
cal Park conducted last week
on public roads around the
park’s borders.
Unoffi cial efforts look
like a Facebook group for-
mer Warrenton resident
Lena Weil created in 2014
with traffi c safety in mind.
Though the group — Clat-
sop County Elk sightings! —
has since morphed into more
of a celebration of local elk,
Weil believes it gives the
community a sense of when
elk are on the move or near
roads.
But despite all the eyes
focused on elk, many ques-
tions remain, and under-
standing the movements
of the Clatsop Plains elk in
particular presents a unique
challenge.
Driving surveys
Early one morning in late
February, Carla Cole and
Corinne Bird pointed their
binoculars at a herd of elk
grazing on a hill on the other
side of Alternate U.S. High-
way 101 Business, not far
from the turn-off to Lewis
and Clark National Histori-
cal Park, where Cole works
as the natural resources proj-
ect manager and Bird volun-
teers. They tallied the num-
ber of bulls, cows and calves
they saw and recorded the
herd’s location.
Katie Frankowicz/The Daily Astorian
Katie Frankowicz/The Daily Astorian
Corrine Bird, left, and Carla Cole count elk during a survey of the herds around the Lewis and
Clark National Historical Park.
Photographer and naturalist Neil Maine watches a group of
elk graze in the dunes near Gearhart with a map he uses to
track their movements.
The information is just
another data point to show
where elk have been seen
around the park over the last
10 years.
For now, the park employs
two methods to track elk
herd numbers and move-
ments: driving surveys, done
at sunrise every other month
throughout the year on pub-
lic roads around the park’s
borders, and elk fecal pellet
surveys, done on foot in park
property by staff and volun-
teers willing to poke at poop
and bushwhack through
dense forest.
The driving surveys pro-
vide far less concrete data
than the elk pellet surveys,
but they are a low-effort way
to gather a little more infor-
mation. Park staff can say
with confi dence where they
have seen — at least from
the road — a lot of elk over
the years, where they have
seen only a few and where
both sightings and abun-
dance seem to be changing.
The national park’s
tracking work is, in part,
an effort to untangle anec-
dotal information and pin
it to data. Because, as Cole
said, “Everyone’s memory is
faulty.”
The journals of the
explorers Meriwether Lewis
and William Clark pro-
a busy highway.
“Most herds don’t freak
out if you fl y over them, but
if they do, they run through
fences or essentially stam-
pede,” said Herman Bieder-
beck, district wildlife biol-
ogist. “And that’s the last
thing we want to do in that
area.”
Like the national park’s
driving survey crews, state
trackers are limited by what
they can see from the road
and in open areas. Then, of
course, there is what they
hear from people who live in
Gearhart and Warrenton who
deal with the Clatsop Plains
elk regularly.
“We get reports of the size
of the Gearhart elk herd and
some people who don’t like
the elk all that much have
a tendency to give infl ated
numbers,” Biederbeck said.
He often relies on metic-
ulous observers, like former
vide a glimpse at what elk
abundance around the mod-
ern-day national park looked
like before European settle-
ment. But since then, War-
renton has undergone rapid
large-scale development in
areas that were historically
forests and fi elds.
Many of the conversa-
tions Cole hears now about
elk in the area — and what
constitutes normal herd sizes
or travel patterns — seems
to be set in a shorter, more
recent time frame.
“What people are remem-
bering is from their own life-
times and that’s not neces-
sarily the best indication of
what ‘normal’ is,” she said.
“There could be pretty wide
fl uctuations in both herd size
and abundance and distribu-
tion and pattens of use across
the landscape. Those are the
questions we’re really just
trying to get more informa-
tion on.”
Park staff are in the pro-
cess of refi ning the most
recent years of driving and
pellet survey data, and are
interested to see what trends
emerge when this data is con-
textualized within 10 years
of information. A plan to fi t
up to six elk in the park with
radio collars this year could
reveal even more detailed
information about how the
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animals use the park.
For now, Cole and Bird
will keep driving.
‘Reasonably
predictable’
Clatsop County’s herds
are folded into a large
group known as the Sad-
dle Mountain unit. The Ore-
gon Department of Fish and
Wildlife manages many of
the populations in the unit
for hunting, keeping an eye
on the ratio of bulls to cows
and calves to cows.
Though biologists use
helicopters — and have
experimented with drones
— to survey herds in some
parts of the unit, driving is
really the only way to sur-
vey the Clatsop Plains elk.
These herds inhabit a mix
of forested, agricultural and
increasingly developed and
urban lands crossed with
public roads and divided by
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biology teacher and nature
photographer Neal Maine, to
ground-truth the claims.
While there is pres-
sure on local city leaders
to address the elk herds, it
does not affect Maine. After
30 years of teaching biol-
ogy, he’s more interested in
looking at all the variables
and letting people decide for
themselves.
For years, he’s kept an
eye on the Gearhart elk and
his efforts to track them fall
somewhere in the middle
between offi cial and unof-
fi cial. He knows the herds’
usual routes, and believes
the community could fi nd
ways to better predict when
elk will pop up at places like
the golf course and use this
knowledge to plan ahead.
“They have patterns —
they break the pattern all the
time — but it’s reasonably
predictable,” he said.
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