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About The independent. (Vernonia, Or.) 1986-current | View Entire Issue (June 8, 1994)
»age2ThalN D E P E N D E N T, June 8,1994 ».INDEPENDENT Serving the upper Nehalem River valley. Published twice monthly on the second and fourth Wednesdays of each month, by Public Opinion Laboratory Ltd., 1206 S ta te A ve nu e, V e rn on ia , OR 97064, as a fre e new spaper. E d itors and P ublishers, Dirk & Noni Andersen, (503) 429-9410. Have we neglected lessons of D-Day? Monday, June 6, was the fiftieth anniversary of D- Day, the start of the final effort to eliminate Nazism from the democratic countries of Europe. Monday, June 6, there was also a council meeting in Vernonia. One topic of discussion was Nazi graffiti in town. The coincidence was both distressing and thought- provoking. The distress was caused by renewed awareness that, not only has Nazism not been eliminated, it sur vives in the Nazi wanna-be’s of our own community. The coincidence was thought-provoking because of concern whether we, as a nation and as individu als, have become so complacent about those truly heroic efforts of fifty years ago that we have failed to pass on to younger generations the lessons learned at that time. Regardless of the reasons, our community can nei ther ignore nor tolerate such behavior. It must not be excused as childishness or the misdirected rebel liousness of youth. The responsible parties must be found and, while they must be required to make amends to |hose whose property they have abused, their sentence also needs to include thorough education about the m ost a b h orre n t b ehavior in the history of mankind—behavior that was presented as being both appropriate and necessary for the good of a “superior race”. Well, there’s nothing superior about Nazism, white power, racism or any of the other movements that can build themselves up only by destroying others. We must not forget the hard-earned lessons of fifty years ago. We must not forget the shock of the GIs who liberated the death camps. We must not forget the nausea we felt at the pictures of corpses piled like cord wood, corpses of old people, women and chil dren slain by men of a “superior race”. We must not forget all the brave men who died in that battle against evil. There is no way to equate vandalism and Nazism but, among the things we must not forget, is that many of the leading Nazis started out by painting graffiti on walls, passing out pamphlets, breaking win dows and bullying a few people here and a few peo ple there. Incidentally, they did most of those things in gangs because they somehow lost their “superiority” when they were alone. Memorial Day and the anniversary of D-Day are just a few days past. If we really mean to honor the many good people who lost their lives fighting the evil of Nazism, then we cannot ignore those who promote and glorify that same evil. We must remember the lessons of fifty years ago. But remembering is not enough; we must also teach our children what we learned. If we do anything less, we are honoring neither the past nor the future. •) • •v ¥ By Dale Webb, member Izaak Walton League, Nehalem Valley Chapter In this issue I will touch on several different topics to try and keep everybody up to speed on what’s going on in our area. To start with, our chapter will again be de ploying Hobo-temp monitors in the Nehalem River and Rock Creek to keep track of stream temperatures. It is vitally important that they are not disturbed. These $100 dollar instru ments look like fist-sized, white plastic con tainers made of two pieces; one piece has a ring with a large hole, which is used to attach a piece of nylon rope and a weight. Each of th e se un its has been spray painted ligh t brown and has a number on the cap. If you a ccid e n tly fin d one of the se instrum ents, please place it back in the stream exactly as you found it or return it to me. Even if it has been damaged, we can retrieve the data from the unit as long as we can recover the storage chip. These devices provided an interesting picture of both river systems last year, a year with a wet, early summer. They showed that the Nehalem River reached its top tempera ture somewhere around the Clear Creek area then, basically, maintained that temperature the rest of the way down to the ocean. Last year the high temperature was 74 degrees. By the way, Clear Creek runs cool into the Ne halem but lacks enough volume to cool the river. On the wildlife front, it looks like another major battle is brewing with the Saddle Moun tain elk. A copy of the proposed management objectives for the Columbia region, says of the Saddle Mountain unit: "Our population bench mark for the unit is 7,800 elk, and for the past five years we have estimated we are fifteen percent (on the average) above that level. Our proposal is to maintain our current benchmark by increasing antlerless harvest and trapping elk on agricultural lands. We will also maintain overall population control hunts in areas that allow hunter access." What this proposal means to the elk popu lation is 1100 fewer animals! This is very up setting news to a bull hunter, since harvest levels have already fallen by more than fifty percent from the harvest in the 1970s. The third year of the 3-point season has never even been approached since THEY (ODF&W) killed off 2,000 cow elk in 1980. Data show the bull harvest has fallen dramatically ever since THEY started killing off the cows. THEY will give all kinds of other excuses, but the fact re main^: No Cows = No Bulls. A graphic example of this equation can be seen in the Tioga unit in southern Oregon. It is a mirror image of the Saddle Mountain unit in size, land practices, stable populations and hunter numbers. It was odd to find that the Tioga unit hardly missed a beat when switch ing from spike hunting to the 3-point rule, while the Saddle Mountain unit’s bull harvest has fallen by more than half. Was the Tioga elk herd expanding? Not according to its biolo gists. Then what is the difference? The an swer is about 2,000 dead cow elk in one year, followed by many more years of excessive cow harvests. Our assistant district biologist even made the argument that “look at our cow hunter success rates; they haven’t fallen off.” That’s true, they haven’t fallen off, and fo r most hunters it doesn’t make a difference if a herd contains 10 cows or 20 cows, because they can take an animal and go home. Elk run in herds and herds are easy to find, so hunter success isn’t going to fall off until elk popula tions are seriously depleted. But there is a big difference between an elk herd with 10 cows and one with 20 cows!!! Another serious issue in Oregon is the ini tiative petition that would ban the use of dogs and bait to hunt bears and ban the use of dogs to hunt cougar. Personally, I don’t have a desire to take a cougar, but I respect the right to do so and the only effective cougar hunting method is with dogs. Hound hunting is a re spectable sport that, like most hunting sports, can be tainted by a few bad apples. That’s no excuse to punish all bear and cougar hunters. Bear and cougar populations in the state are actually increasing and there is no threat to the health of these populations. The people who sponsored this petition would do better to ban the unlimited harvest of bears by the tim ber industry. Speaking of bears, it has been rumored that a black bear has been visiting the Vernon ia Lake area. If so, this is a first since I’ve been alive.
