FLORENCE — The western snowy plover, a small shorebird on the government’s list of threatened species, is regaining 50 acres of open sand habitat eight miles south of Florence. The Siuslaw National Forest has started work on its largest plover habitat restoration project by using heavy equipment to remove vegetation along the beach between […]
Environment
Hatfield Marine Science Center’s ocean-themed film festival this month expands to 27 films and two venues
By DANA TIMS/YachatsNews A colony of horseshoe crabs struggling to survive in New Jersey’s coastal waters. Five French Polynesian surfers sharing their perceptions of the ocean. The effects of climate change on the planet’s most remote locations. Films on these just these three respective topics would make a full evening of fascinating viewing. In […]
Land trust, watershed council and Coos tribe unite to restore Siuslaw wetlands on former 200-acre dairy farm
By BRIAN BULL/Underscore News FLORENCE — Standing in the midst of an uneven, muddy expanse where excavators and trucks chug back and forth like giant doodlebugs, Jesse Beers doesn’t exactly look as if he’s surrounded by a dream. But for Beers and many other members of the Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua and […]
Off-season crabbers remove hundreds of derelict commercial pots from the ocean to protect whales, marine life and other boats
By GARRET JAROS/YachatsNews The morning sun casts orange peels across a blue-green sea as the Das Bug pulls alongside a buoy floating high above a commercial crab pot buried in the sand below. Finding the random pots lost at sea during the commercial crabbing season is akin to looking for a needle in a […]
View the Future and its supporters urge Oregon parks commission to buy 950-acre Yachats Ridge property
BY GARRET JAROS/YachatsNews NEWPORT – Twenty years of trying to end decades of clearcuts and neglect of the ridge that serves as a backdrop to Yachats and instead restore and preserve it found fertile ground Wednesday. Yachats non-profit View the Future, along with a big contingent of supporters, made a pitch to the Oregon […]
Struggling Oregon coast salmon fishermen finally getting some federal disaster relief, but it may be too late
By GRANT STRINGER/Oregon Capital Chronicle The federal government will dole out disaster relief to commercial Chinook salmon fishermen who have weathered a string of poor seasons on the Oregon Coast. But some fishermen say the help won’t be enough to rescue the fast-shrinking industry. Earlier this month, two years after a request by Oregon’s […]
Advocacy groups warn that clear-cutting near coastal watersheds threatens summertime supply to cities
By ALEX BAUMHARDT/Oregon Capital Chronicle By August, residents of Newport were put on mandatory water curtailment due to low stream flows. That same month, the city of Yamhill, 30 miles southwest of Portland, enforced water use restrictions on pools and lawns when Turner Creek, its primary water source, dropped to significantly low levels. The […]
Changing conditions in Arctic Ocean likely cause of three major gray whale die-offs, OSU researcher finds
By MICHELLE KLAMPE/OSU News Service NEWPORT – Dynamic and changing Arctic Ocean conditions likely caused three major mortality events in the eastern North Pacific gray whale population since the 1980s, a new study has found. During each of these die-offs, including one that began in 2019 and is ongoing, the gray whale population was reduced by […]
OSU researchers will lead federal study on coastal residents’ attitudes toward offshore wind farms
By ALEX BAUMHARDT/Oregon Capital Chronicle A team of Oregon State University researchers were recently awarded $2.5 million to study the attitudes and feelings coastal residents have about potential offshore wind energy projects. In August, officials from the Federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management identified two areas off the Oregon coast near Coos Bay and […]
Bend attorney goes back to his roots with purchase and big restoration project of 64 acres in upper Tenmile Creek
By DANA TIMS/YachatsNews Those bow hunting trips Roger Worthington took with his dad to the Tenmile Creek area south of Yachats decades ago planted seeds that are reshaping the landscape for perhaps centuries to come. Worthington, now a highly successful lawyer and founder of a number of Bend-area businesses, is the newest partner in […]