August 4, 2017 • Seaside Signal • seasidesignal.com • 3A
Golf course sees fix to elk hordes in trap, transfer
State says plan
would be costly,
not yield results
By R.J. Marx
Seaside Signal
One man’s natural wonder
is another man’s nuisance.
While representatives of
the Gearhart Golf Links don’t
want to rid the city of elk, they
would like to see the herd re-
duced. And after a dramatic
incident involving beachgoers
menaced by an elk cow, they
feel that the Oregon Depart-
ment of Fish and Wildlife —
the organization responsible
for the elks’ stewardship —
has not done enough to pursue
property protections and en-
sure public safety.
“We’ve been working on
getting the elk removed, the
herd size reduced for years
now,” Gearhart’s Russ Earl
said Tuesday, July 25, at a
meeting with Gearhart Golf
Links General Manager Jason
Bangild and Superintendent
Forrest Goodling. “We’ve had
(meetings with) four different
levels of Fish and Wildlife
people, up to the executive
director, and we’ve gotten ex-
actly the same results.”
If the herds had been man-
aged properly in the past, it
would not of been such a big
issue now, they say.
Their latest attempt to dis-
courage the elk — up to 100 in
the herd, they say — involved
the use of coyote decoys and
coyote urine, designed to re-
mind the elk of their preda-
tors. Landscape crews sprin-
kled the coyote urine on the
eight plastic coyotes strate-
gically placed on the perim-
eter of the 100-acre, 18-hole
golf course — the oldest golf
course in Oregon and one of
several area courses facing
the problem.
“They’ve basically said,
‘Put some signs up around the
golf course,’” Earl said. “That
didn’t help us at all.”
Safety at issue
While the course faces
tens of thousands of dollars
of damage caused by elk, the
risk to human safety reached a
head this month when an elk
cow protecting its calf charged
a bicyclist in Gearhart, days
after menacing beachgoers,
JEFF TER HAR/EO MEDIA GROUP
Making their way from the Gearhart Golf Links over to Gearhart Palisades, a herd of elk find food in residents’ yards in 2014.
children and dogs. The elk
was tranquilized and brought
to safety by police, firefighters
and officials from the Depart-
ment of Fish and Wildlife. The
elk calf was also tranquilized
and reunited with its mother
at God’s Valley in Tillamook
State Forest.
The incident stirred public
sentiment and led to a call to
action.
“You can tell from the
last two weeks of elk inci-
dents, someone is going to get
killed,” Goodling said. “There
are plenty of people pushing
strollers. If a bicycle spooks
that herd and it goes around
the corner, there’s no stopping
them. I’ve seen them jump
over a 6-foot concrete fence
one after the other.”
Bangild said the Gearhart
herd has at least “doubled or
tripled” in the six years he has
been here. “That’s way too
many for a small town,” he
said.
“I used to take my son
down to the estuary for walks,
but now I am much more
cautious. You are stuck out
there.”
Transport urged
Bangild, Earl and Good-
ling each said they don’t want
to kill elk — hunting is pro-
hibited in Gearhart — only to
move them out of the city to
reserves like God’s Valley or
Circle Creek.
“We are not seeking to
eliminate the entire herd, but
at least get the herd down to
R.J. MARX/SEASIDE SIGNAL
Jason Bangild, Forrest Goodling and Russ Earl
are looking for more involvement from the
state in managing Gearhart’s elk population.
where it is safe for the town
residents,” Goodling said.
But transport has its limits,
Dave Nuzum, acting wildlife
biologist of the Department of
Fish and Wildlife, said Tues-
day.
Nuzum has been coming
to Gearhart for several years,
meeting with city leadership,
the public and golf interests.
In 2014, the city asked the
department to come up with a
cost estimate for the transport
of 75 percent of the herd.
The total cost for trapping
was estimated at $14,000 for
a one-month effort, which
could bring in “an optimistic
number of 50,” more likely
30, Nuzum said.
One day of darting, which
would tranquilize the elk, is
$1,472 per animal. Fewer
than 10 elk could be darted
COLIN MURPHEY/EO MEDIA GROUP
Decoys designed to look like coyotes have
been deployed around the Gearhart Golf
Links facility to try to ward off of elk.
and transported per day.
A ‘suite’ of
responses
A public workshop and
subsequent meetings with
the department identified “a
suite” of responses, including
hazing, fencing and exclusion.
“Transplanting was part of
that,” Nuzum said.
What complicates matters
is the dichotomy of interests
between those who want to
get rid of the elk and “an even
more greater number of peo-
ple who love the elk,” he said.
“They don’t want anything
done.”
Trap and transplant, as
suggested by the golf course
officials, is a popular sugges-
tion, he said, but of limited
value.
Law keeps park help from being tripped up
Workers get
immunity from
some lawsuits
By Katie Frankowicz
EO Media Group
City workers in charge of
maintaining public parks will
get immunity from liability un-
der a new state law.
The law, signed by Gov.
Kate Brown in June, was one
of the top priorities of the
League of Oregon Cities for
the legislative session. “It’s ex-
actly what we asked for,” said
Scott Winkler, intergovern-
mental relations associate with
the league.
A previous version of the
statute appeared to leave city
employees legally vulnerable
if someone hurt themselves
while using city parks — if
they tripped on a crack along
the Astoria Riverwalk, for in-
stance.
Last year, the Oregon Su-
preme Court ruled that while
cities have immunity from lia-
bility on the recreational lands
they own, city workers or vol-
unteers responsible for main-
taining public parks do not.
The ruling stemmed from
a review of a 2009 lawsuit
brought against Portland by a
legally blind jogger. She sued
DANNY MILLER/EO MEDIA GROUP
Erosion and storm damage is visible along the Astoria River-
walk in December 2015.
the city and city maintenance
workers after she stepped into
a hole at a city park and injured
herself.
The Supreme Court main-
tained that the Oregon Pub-
lic Use of Lands Act, which
shields from liability public
and private property owners
who allow public recreation on
their lands for free, did not spe-
cifically extend this immunity
to employees — a worrying
development for cities across
the state.
There were also concerns
that this lack of immunity
would lead to higher insurance
costs for cities.
The League of Oregon
Cities and others pushed to
change the statute so it would
once again recognize rec-
reational immunity for city
workers. “The words on the
bill were pretty simple, but
the impact around the state
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was profound,” Winkler said.
Astoria parks
In Astoria, the uncertainty
before the new law was passed
did not halt any park activities
or close down any sites.
City Attorney Blair Hen-
ningsgaard was not convinced
the ruling put the city at a high-
er legal risk.
“We make every effort to
operate our parks safely,” he
told The Daily Astorian last
year. “I don’t think that it cre-
ates a greater degree of liability
in either the city or employees
than existed beforehand.”
Other cities, however, shut
down parks, worried about
what it would mean if their
staff and volunteers were not
covered. In total, 12 parks
around the state closed after the
Oregon Supreme Court ruling.
Redmond only last week-
end reopened a popular climb-
ing bridge, which had been
closed after the court ruling,
according to Winkler.
Though Astoria parks didn’t
close, the city was concerned
about getting the bill through
the Legislature, said City Man-
ager Brett Estes. City officials
wanted to make sure there was
coverage for city staff.
Though a simple bill in the-
ory, it was hard to get through
the system, Winkler said.
“The votes were there on
the floor, but getting it through
the procedural process was a
challenge,” he said.
Some legislators in the
House had reservations about
moving the bill forward and
there were conversations about
possible amendments. The bill
was up for its final reading
multiple days, but kept getting
carried over.
“We’re gratified the votes
were there,” Winkler said.
“Population
control
through trap and removal has
been widely shown not to
work for any species causing
trouble anywhere, whether
it’s Canada geese, urban deer,
whatever,” Nuzum said. “And
of all the methods discussed,
it is by far the most expen-
sive.”
Elk are baited, usually us-
ing alfalfa hay, before being
trapped in a flat-paneled cor-
ral. The traps are remote-trig-
gered and the panels then
drop a canvas covering so the
animals don’t get spooked by
anyone walking by.
It would be impossible to
remove all the elk, Nuzum
said.
A realistic number might
be 30 before trapping be-
comes ineffective.
“Thirty elk is not going
to make that much of a dent
in the population,” he said.
“If you were able to remove
a higher percentage, they
breed. You would be back in
the same boat in a very short
amount of time.”
And in a city like Gearhart,
where elk occupy an almost
mythic role, residents may
tamper with traps.
“Inevitably your traps are
going to get vandalized by
folks who are opposed to it,”
Nuzum said. “Somebody al-
ways has to mess with them.”’
‘Stalag 17’
Fencing is the only “100
percent sure way” of keeping
elk out of any area, he said,
whether a dairy pasture, or-
chard or a golf course. “The
downside of that is aestheti-
cally, you don’t want the place
to look like Stalag 17.”
There are a number of
ways to make fencing more
attractive, but exclusion has
consequences, he added. “Say
you were to put up an impen-
etrable fence around the golf
course — problem solved.
Well, there are still elk going
around town.”
Nuzum’s response may not
satisfy Bangild, Earl or Good-
ling, who say they have been
down this path before.
“I can’t believe it’s up to us
to come up with a plan,” Ban-
gild said. “We’re trying to run
a golf course. I spend more
hours than I ever thought I
would coming up with a solu-
tion.”