[Born to be Wild]

How was it?

How may participated? What took place? Were eyes opened?

<font size="2" face="verdana,arial,helvetica">

Did the tour take place?

After all the discussion before hand I am curious of the results.

<font size="2" face="verdana,arial,helvetica">Yes the tour took place. It was a great tour and missed opportunity for many.

Probably around 30 folks participated and out of that only 4 ifisher's. One of the four might not have been an ifisher. Kenny Bell is Rusty's (rebell) Dad and I’m not clear if he is a participating member of ifish but was there. A few Tillamook locals were there that found out about the event through Jerry Dove and also the local newspaper and radio. One Willamina resident that was a former Tillamook resident still subscribes to the Tillamook paper and found out about it that way.

Rusty (rebell) had to work 16 hours on Friday and worked Saturday (physical inventory) and could not make it against his will. GSA could not make it because his 81 year old mom was arriving at his house Saturday and I believe I heard the Pilar's were sick. :depressed: I do not know what happened to the rest of the ifisher's. Jerry Dove, Jeff (Barviewrocks) and I were there representing ifish. David Moskowitz was there representing the “Wild Salmon Center” and the “Rainforest Coalition”.

"What took place?"

<font size="2" face="verdana,arial,helvetica">First of all we sat and watched a 19 minute video; "Sea Of Green" - The Story of the Tillamook State Forest at 9:00AM, (Which I obtained a copy of and am open to share with ifisher's). An excellent video of the history of the Tillamook forest.

Then we loaded up in the vans provided by the Oregon Dept. of Forestry (ODF) and headed for the hills.

The first stop was Stuart Creek a trib of the Miami River for introductions of the group and to show an old log stringer bridge crossing that was vacated and a bridge removed and some rather large logs that were placed in the stream. The logs came from the old bridge.

The next stop was on the Miami where in the past the anchor system was used (using cable to hold rocks and logs in place), and the newer practice where logs were anchored against living trees to create off channel support during high water and allow for logs to move a little with the current.

Next stop was where a recycled bridge was used to replace a culvert and talks about fish habitat and a little biology. The old culvert that was there would not pass fish. ODF chose to put in a bridge rather than replacing the culvert with another culvert. More expensive but does a better job of passing fish. Note: Most of the habitat restoration was aimed at supporting the listed coho but is helpful to other salmonids also. The newer habitat restoration practices mimic the natural phenomena the best way possible. ODF emphasized that from 1992 to today, they have spent $1.2 million dollars on 421 stream habitat projects in the Tillamook District including placing 1,681 pieces of large wood in the streams and placing 450 boulders. ODF also mentioned they had opened up 12.8 miles of new spawning and rearing habitat with these projects.

:bowdown:

Then it was off to the Wilson River watershed to show modern FMP (Forest Management Plan) in which we saw examples of the SAH’s (Salmon Anchor Habitats). Any management within these areas should be designed to minimize the risk to habitats and populations. We were shown some clear cutting to reduce the effects of a severe forest health issue affecting the Tillamook called Swiss Needle Cast disease. It’s a fungus that affects the needles and the needles fall off and the trees stop growing. We also saw a thinning near the south fork of the Wilson where the east slope was left intact because of it’s steepness and possible risk to habitat because of landslides.

:bowdown:

17 SAH basins were selected from a pool of possible candidates provided by ODFW.

I will add pic’s that I took later today along with other info. Jeff took some pic's also.

Were eyes opened?

<font size="2" face="verdana,arial,helvetica">I would have to answer yes to that question. Especially to the environmentalist. I talked to Dave Moskowitz after we got back to the ODF office as he was waiting a ride. I asked him what he thought. He told me; “it looks like they are doing some good things”. He also stated that; “he thought they should leave some of the forest unmanaged”. I questioned him on that and he said; “he thought they should leave some of it wild”. It was my opinion that they were doing just that in the SAH areas where they are leaving significant portions of the areas out of the harvest equation in addition to leaving larger riparian areas.

I would have to say my eyes were opened also. I saw a lot being done for wild fish that I hadn’t expected. I saw forestry practices that were impressive to me. The future looks bright in the Tillamook State Forest and it is producing large amounts of wild fry including a few pink’s we were informed!

Everything I saw, read (we were given many handouts, some included before & after pic’s) and heard reconfirmed everything I have heard from biologist over the last several months since this tour was started. Logging and wild fish can co-exist. There is a lot of work to do however for habitat reconstruction, but I didn’t see anything detrimental or disturbing in the current Forest Management Plan by ODF. It was in my opinion that these foresters do care and are concerned in the future health of the Tillamook State Forest.

Some of the ODF and ODFW personnel involved and present were:

Mark Labhart
Tillamook District Forester, Tillamook

Mike Schnee
Forest Plan Coordinator, Salem

Wayne Auble
Assistant District Forester, Tillamook

Tony Klosterman
ODF Road Engineer

Dave Plawman
ODFW Habitat Biologist, Tillamook

John Germond
ODFW Forest Plan Coordinator, Portland


Thanks to Mark Labhart, I found him most helpful and a great “Devils advocate” :wink: (you’d had to been there to understand) and I don’t think anyone could not appreciate the “nice guy” personality and sincerity of Mike Schnee! :smile:

Dan

 

[Born to be Wild]

First Pic is of the group at our first stop at Stuart Creek introducing ourselves.

This pic is when we made our short hike down to the Stream. Pictured from L to R is Tony Klosterman, Dave Moskowitz, Sandy Bell, and Jeff (Barviewrocks).

The two folks in the upper left are Tony Klosterman and Dave Plawman.

Stuart Creek, vacated (closed) road, removed culvert and added logs.

Big Logs!

[ 04-29-2003, 07:44 PM: Message edited by: DepoeBayDan ]

 

[Born to be Wild]

This picture shows three things of interest. Directly below down the hillside is a clearcut. Probably not what you are used to seeing in a clearcut. Resembles eastern or southern Oregon. It was clearcut because of the Swiss Needle Cast disease.

Also accross the canyon or valley you can see a thinning near the south fork of the Wilson where the east slope was left intact because of it’s steepness and possible risk to habitat because of landslides.

Thirdly, you can see the branches of a tree infected with Swiss Needle cast on the left (foreground/close-up). It was pointed out the tree should have more resembled a Christmas tree, not the sickly tree it was.

A couple more pic's later including the ifisher's.
Got work to do.

dan

[ 04-28-2003, 06:26 PM: Message edited by: DepoeBayDan ]

 

[Born to be Wild]

Salmon Anchor Habitats (SAH’s)
Questions & Answers
(Updated April 23, 2003)

1. Where did ODF get the direction to develop and implement SAH’s?
• Governor’s Direction:
The Governor wrote a letter to the Board of Forestry on January 3, 2001. He specifically said on page 2:
“Protection of Anchor Habitat Areas: Another issue that I raised at the April Board meeting concerns the protection of key habitat areas for sensitive species, especially salmon. The Forest management Plan (FMP) has, in fact, been modified to describe a strategy of “anchor habitat areas” for key species of concern. This is a welcome addition. Any management within these areas should be designed to minimize the risks to habitats and populations”.

• Specific Forest Management Plan Direction
Pages 4-82 through 4-83 of FMP.
“The anchor habitats will be subject to alternative management standards for the initial implementation period, while more comprehensive watershed assessments are completed”.
“Management standards will be focused on accelerated restoration and enhancement actions to address identified limiting factors, and management guidelines to lower the risk of adverse effects from forest management activities through the application of alternative management strategies designed to further lower the risk of adverse impacts from forest management activities during the initial 10-year implementation period."


• Board of Forestry Intent Statement on adoption of the FMP
Board Intent statement No. 12 dated January 12, 2001: ODF will use existing FMP strategies and any alternate management strategies, anchor habitats, as the basis for management activities.

• Independent Scientific Team Recommendations 1999
Several members ( page 29 of summary ) of the FMP Independent Scientific Review team noted concerns that while the active management scenario will more quickly restore diverse forest conditions and properly functioning aquatic habitats, it can be assumed that ODF is taking a level of risk and uncertainty with this strategy. They suggested some sub-set of the forest take a “lower risk” approach until the hypothesis can be tested further.

• Independent Multidisciplinary Science Team
In their technical report 1999-1, the Independent Multidisciplinary Science Team (different group than our ISR group) made the following recommendation regarding our forest management plan...modify our plan to include "the immediate protection of all existing core habitat while implementation occurs."


2. What are Salmon Anchor Habitats (SAH)?
SAH’s are basins (usually 6th field watersheds) designed to protect areas of high or core salmonid populations.

3. What is a 6th field watershed?
6th field watersheds are generally 5000 to 15000 acres in size.

4. How did you pick the SAH’s?
17 basins were selected in northwest Oregon. They were selected from a pool of possible candidates provided by ODF&W.

5. What methodology did ODF&W use to identify the pool of possible SAH’s?
• Watershed containing a high amount of coho, chinook or chum salmon. Spawning count data used.
• Watershed contained historic centers of salmonid spawning abundance.
• Watershed had higher quality habitat
• Professional judgement from ODF&W

6. What is your strategy in SAH’s and what makes it different from what you are doing in other basins?
• Larger no touch buffers
• Avoid clearcut harvests on high hazard and high risk land slide areas
• Reduce some of the harvest planned in SAH’s and shift those reduced acres to other less sensitive areas.
• Management of Roads - Emphasizes a well planned road system which minimizes the amount of new road construction and requires high quality maintenance and restoration of existing roads.
• Complete comprehensive watershed assessments first in these basins.

7. What’s it going to do to the harvest figures by implementing this strategy?
The harvest acres and projected volumes do not change for the district. Some of the acres and its accompanying volume shifts from SAH basins to other basins.

8. How long are you going to implement this strategy?
The Implementation Plan says ten years from July 1, 2003 – June 30, 2013. A comprehensive review of these strategies is scheduled for 2011.
In addition, ODF is conducting a forest re-inventory and modeling exercise to be completed by 2005. This data may result in a review of the current strategies and this may affect harvest levels either up or down.

 

[Born to be Wild]

Little North Fork Wilson River
12.3 miles long
Fish Outmigration Surveys

Years - 1998 - 1999 - 2000 - 2001 - 2002 Total
Chinook Fry "1,223,944" "451,236" "226,121" "431,523" "1,048,385" "3,381,209"
Chum Fry "145,002" "59,346" "27,813" "7,052" "138,476" "377,689"
Coho Fry "9,437" 418 "21,676" "6,923" "6,175" "44,629"
Coho Smolts "3,345" 246 259 "14,442" "6,055" "24,347"
Steelhead "19,025" "6,150" "11,467" "33,917" "9,223" "79,782"
Total "1,400,753" "517,396" "287,336" "493,857" "1,208,314" "3,907,656"

Total Coho per mile "1,039" 54 "1,783" "1,737" 994
Total Chinook per mile "99,508" "36,686" "18,384" "35,083" "85,235"
Total Steelhead per mile "1,547" 500 932 "2,757" 750
Total fish per mile "113,882" "42,065" "23,361" "40,151" "98,237"

Average fish per mile last five yrs. "63,539"

"In the last five years, the Little North fork of the Wilson river has produced 3.9 million fish in a basin that is 94% "
in stands 60 years of age or less.

<20 years of age 256 ac. 2%
"20 - 39 years of age 1,772 ac. 17%"
"40 - 59 years of age 7,768 ac. 75%"
60+ years of age 515 ac. 6%

 

[garyk]

DDD, just wondering why you offered the data from the Little N.Fk. Wilson?

Is comparative data available from others, or was that provided to you by ODF? Thanks.

 

[Born to Fish]

Dan - thanks for the information. Good reporting and pictures. Who knows, there may be a new niche for you as a Cub Reporter on the Longview Gazette. :wink:

You indicated that this is a 10-year initiative, and as such I wonder if they're going to put on these show-me trips on an annual basis. If so it might have been good to tie it in with the same weekend as the volunteer fin clipping project. Seems to be a connection between the two kinds of activities. Also, considering how successful the fin clipping event was in luring in 100's of volunteers and interested folks of all ages from all around, who knows, the combination may be self fulfilling in terms of attracting more interest and participation. Good way to show case local efforts. Great way to spend a weekend with the family and kids in a wonderful location - and encouraging understanding and respect for the resources.

Just a thought....maybe not an original one, but that's what we're offering from Boise for the moment. :grin:

 

[Born to be Wild]

Garyk,

I believe that is the only data available on Fish Outmigration Surveys in the Tillamook system. It was pointed out that it is very expensive to man smolt & fry screw traps. $50,000 a year if I remember right.

Also after searching Google a minute ago, I see there is certain criteria that needs to be met for the screw traps to function properly and small tribs might be the limiting factor there. Listed the criteria below.




Trapping Site Selection Criteria

1. Good geographic spread of sites coast-wide. Currently, ODFW has partial funding for field crews to be based in Tillamook, Newport, and Charleston. Without additional funding, it will be difficult for ODFW to operate traps that are long distances from these three areas (e.g. South Coast streams).
2. One person can run two traps. Paired sites should not be more than a 30-minute drive apart so that trap watcher can cycle between traps during high streamflows. This is particularly important during smolt trapping. Trapping sites do not necessarily need to be within 30 minutes of the field crews office if travel trailers, or some other means of housing can be arranged.

3. Candidate streams should have spawning populations of coho, steelhead, and cutthroat, and where possible, chinook.

4. To maximize the number of fish sampled, streams should be as large as trapping technology allows. In practice, this generally means fourth to fifth order streams that are no wider than approximately 30 meters active channel width.

5. Existing fish ladders should be used where possible as adult trap sites. This will reduce construction costs and enable more adult traps to be operated, improving the geographic range of the monitoring effort.

6. Sites must be of sufficient depth (> 2.5 feet) and of sufficient velocity at low spring stream flows to allow operation of a rotating screw smolt trap (or the site must be amenable to modification to meet these criteria). The site should also be neither too constrained or high gradient so that the smolt trap will be damaged due to excessive water turbulence, or be too unconstrained so that the stream becomes too wide and slow for efficient screw trap operation during high stream flows.

7. Land owner willingness to allow access to site for long term (> 10 years) monitoring.

8. Candidate streams without existing fish ladders need to have sites with the following characteristics to enable the construction of an adult weir:

a) Uniform (preferably bedrock) bottom and stable streambanks.
b) 1-2 percent gradient

c) Road access (close enough for delivery of materials needed to construct weir).

 

[Born to be Wild]

A picture of Stuart Creek taken before habitat restoration by ODF that you can compare with the picture above of Stuart Creek with the big logs. Certainly a big improvement there.

 

[Jerry Dove]

DAN. MY; HAT IS OFF TO YOU!! Wow what a great report, and I never even saw you take notes. It was a great tour, I hope we can do it again with more folks. Just let me know when all want to go and I will put it together. Thanks. Jerry

 

[garyk]

Dan, some background on the Little N.Fk. Wilson.

In 1991 (reissued 1993) Guy Orcutt of the ANWS circulated a proposal – “The Little North Fork of the Wilson River – Proposal for a Demonstration Forest and Wild Fish Study Area”

This set the groundwork for an effort to preserve the ~227 acres of old growth forest located along about one mile of the Lt.N.Fk.Wilson in the middle reach. This parcel was scheduled for clearcutting by Hampton Lumber. Even in 1991 this old growth boardered river was a rare example of how the Tillamook region used to be. Fortunately efforts to preserve this stand succeeded, culminating in 1996 with the transfer of this acreage from Simpson Timber to BLM.

The effects of this stand, even though it’s roughly only a mile of river - cannot be overstated. A visit to it is like stepping back at least 75 years. The river is complex with log jams, lots of in-stream woody debris; the water shaded by centuries old fir, spruce and cedar. It’s completely unlike the rest of Tillamook’s other rivers. It illustrates what has been lost elsewhere.

That this small tributary produces a lot of salmon is no surprise, it comes closest to the demonstrating the natural state of Tillamook’s rivers when they were at their highest historical productivity.

The Little N.Fk. Wilson is vitally important to the area’s stocks of steelhead, coho, Chinook and cutthroat. It also provides a great example of how productive the Tillamook Forest can be if managed for fish production, including pro-active actions such as streamside conifer restoration.

While "94% of the basin is in stands 60 years of age or less" we can see how important the 6% in old growth condition is to stream health and productivity.

 

[Straydog]

Interesting. Thanks for the thorough report Dan!

 

[Sore Back]

Thanks Dan. Appreciate all the time you took building this report. You get an A+ :bowdown:

 

[GutshotApe]

Originally posted by garyk:
......the water shaded by centuries old fir, spruce and cedar. It’s completely unlike the rest of Tillamook’s other rivers.

<font size="2" face="verdana,arial,helvetica">garyk - yes, large woody debris in the creek is an important component of fish habitat...so is shade on the creek. But shade from old growth trees is no better than shade from young alders or salmonberry. Using a spherical densiometer, I conducted measurements of % shading on 10 salmon creeks in the Siuslaw drainage in 1994...one of the poorest (lowest percentage of the creek actually shaded) was on Saleratus Creek where it flowed thru a 1/2 mile long stretch of BLM oldgrowth. Due to gaps in the canopy the creek had only about 45% shade compared to 95+% for creeks with young alder canopies (I know, young alder makes poor LWD...but we're talking about shade here).

Its too bad some fry & smolt counts aren't readily available for a stream with 0% oldgrowth...contrasted with one that is 100% oldgrowth/unroaded/undeveloped.


DepoeBayDan - I wish I could have mede the trip but your report w/pics makes it seem like I was there anyway. :wink:

 

[Straydog]

Is there further work planned for the closed Stuart Creek road?

 

[garyk]

Regarding 'shade'. I mention it to paint a picture of what the reach looks like.

For fish, the most important benefit of that old growth, in this particular situation, is the recruitment of large woody debris.

The LWD in turn creates complexity and the pool/riffle ratio that is in decline in the other surrounding rivers, as the old legacy logs/log jams, finally wash out.

Unfortunately, for these other rivers their riverbanks are mostly alder dominated (yes, there are some exceptions - there always are). Without active streamside conifer restoration (a challenging task in itself), these rivers will be very deficient in LWD for centuries, thus keeping their productive capacity at a greatly reduced level - and fish runs at a fraction of what they would be otherwise.

 

[GutshotApe]

Originally posted by garyk:
Without active streamside conifer restoration (a challenging task in itself), these rivers will be very deficient in LWD for centuries, thus keeping their productive capacity at a greatly reduced level - and fish runs at a fraction of what they would be otherwise.

<font size="2" face="verdana,arial,helvetica">The thinking of some OSU and other forestry professors is that without a catastrophic fire (followed by an aggressive, timely conifer reforestation effort with brush control), many coast range riparian alder forests will eventually die of old age and the creeksides will become permanently dominated by salmonberry thickets. Salmonberries provide good shade on tiny streams but not much LWD.

 

[Born to be Wild]

Is there further work planned for the closed Stuart Creek road?

<font size="2" face="verdana,arial,helvetica">Yes. I believe for one they are planning on planting the stream banks where the road ends at the stream for protection against erosion. I'm not sure of the work planned for the road itself. Maybe Jerry does. The road had trenches dug accross it to prevent tresspassing by vechicles.

The next two pic's show a replcement culvert and the rocks being placed inside to make it more natural for the salmon. The second pic shows a couple coho entering the culvert.

The participating ifisher's: L to R, Jeff - Barviewrocks, Kenny Bell - ?, Jerry Dove - Jerry Dove (real original) , Dan - DepoeBayDan

A landing above the Wilson. Wayne Auble (assistant District Forester) to the left wearing the light blue pants) and Mark Labhart (Tillamook District Forester) to the right wearing red jacket and drinking a soda.

Yes it rained!

Over looking the Wilson again and one of our many disscussions.

I did talk to Mark Labhart at the ODF office after the tour was over about the possibility of doing it again sometime pointing out that some ifisher's were sick and some had the Willamette springer flu and he said he would be more than happy to do it again and it would only take a dozen or so folks to make it happen. Maybe durring the summer months when the weather is somewhat more predictable?

Thanks for your comments. I did work hard on this and put in some time. Thanks to Jerry Dove and Mark Labhart for putting this event together.

Thanks again to Mark for emailing me the electronic copies of the SAH's, pictures, fish outmigration surveys, and all the other info that we were given as handouts as I requested.

You're right Jerry, I didn't take notes (except mental notes), but spent some time with Mark on the phone on Monday and also extracted some info from the handouts and emails I recieved.

Guess I should post a pic of the vans that were borrowed from Salem for this event.

 

[garyk]

GSA said - "...coast range riparian alder forests will eventually die of old age and the creeksides will become permanently dominated by salmonberry thickets."

Yes, I became aware of their theory of the 'Salmonberry/Devils Club Climax Stage' during our work on the L.N.Fk.Wilson.

It's certainly possible, and may indeed happen in some locations.

Without question, what we do observe today is a lack of conifer recruitment in the the alder dominated riverbanks. Because of this, alder conversion and conifer restoration has become one of the points I focus on and advocate for when discussing management of the Tillamook.

To Dan: GSA and I have mentioned a couple interesting biological topics - longterm natural LWD recruitment, salmonberry climax stage, and conifer restoration. By chance, did these items get discussed during the tour?

 

[Barviewrocks]

When they have another tour, I encourage everyone to attend. It was very educational to me as I know less about forestry than catching fish consistantly (that's not much folks!). I do however know how to fish ;-)

Here are my takaways - sorry for the long wind but I learned a lot:

Tillamook Forest Tour Learnings
4-26-03

How did the Tillamook forest get to where we are today:

· Sometime after the Tillamook burns in the early 1950’s there were many defaults on property and the State of Oregon was chartered to manage the forest on behalf of the county.
· If you consider the start of the present Tillamook Forest as the reforestation efforts, consider this effort followed the multiple Tillamook forest burns in the 1930 to 1950’s. The starting point after the fires was gross devastation. There was very little old growth left after the burn (estimated to be about 1%). And there was virtually no native seed stock to repopulate and replant the forest.
· At this time, there was very little pacific coast forest restoration scientific knowledge as to how to reforest the land. The forest needed to be restored quickly from the vast devastation. There was much damage to the rivers, estuaries, and bay from the silt run off as well as other animal habitat.
· Douglas Fur was the primary rebuilding stock chosen and both saplings and seed stock from the western cascades was used as it was one of the most immediately available options.
· This choice of planting fur has resulted in a 72% “closed single canopy” forest structure. The most recent forest scientific theories suggest a diversity of structure types and plants as ideal for healthy forests, animal habitat, and resilience. One suggestion is the steep and wet slopes of the Tillamook drainage is perhaps not the ideal environment for a dense tree population of primarily Douglas fur. Rather, a mixture of spruce, hemlock and diverse ground coverings may be closer to the native fauna and would be more in keeping with natural coastal fauna. Unfortunately, this diversity of fauna is a very small portion of the forest.
· Many Douglas furs within the Tillamook forest have a problem with Swiss Needle Drop which is a fungus that infects the pores of the tree’s needles causing them to shed the needles which affects the growth and vitality of the trees. Although the cause is not known, it is suspected that the Douglas fur stock used to repopulate the forest is of a genetic makeup that is not suited for the wet coastal Tillamook area.

Activities on stream habitat restoration and improvement

· I was impressed with the habitat restoration work we witnessed. In many areas, we were trying to figure out how the logs were placed in the streams as we did not see any damage from vehicles. I later found out that log placement by helicopter, although expensive is very efficient in placing logs and minimizes damage to surrounding habitat. Selective concrete bridges as opposed to culverts are much more expensive but more effective in creating habitat for fish passage. There are many cost verses benefit and stretching of the budget decisions that are made of this type in stretching of the restoration budget. I liked what I saw and gained a better understanding of the reasoning behind the choices.
· The budget for habitat restoration is approximately 35% of actual funds directed to the work. The remaining funds come from various grants – private, federal, State, etc. This can be further stretched through volunteers such as planting trees, willows, brush to hold stream banks. This could be an opportunity for those of us that want intercity kids or other programs to have a hand in creating the future. I recall planting trees in the Tillamook Forest while in the scouts long ago and both enjoy and appreciate more deeply what we have today as a result. There is an opportunity for savy grant writers to work with the forestry department to apply and gain grants for habitat restoration.
· I heard that for Coho survival, winter habitat is very important to long term survival in addition to summer cover and shade. At winter high water run off, merely placing logs in the river to develop pockets may not be as effective as creating off channel cover as the pockets are often too swift for smolt to remain and find food.
· Logs placed in the river for cover must be of specific dimensions with respect to length and diameter verses the dimensions of the high water levels in the stream. Careful placement without cables may allow for more dynamic movement and ultimate settlement rather than using cables in which the stream is controlled. This natural movement will allow the stream to naturally form habitat in a dynamic way while not being washed downstream in flood conditions when done correctly.
· Closing a road requires much red tape and citizen input. These are being done constantly in keeping with a steady road to forest ratio balance while allowing for fire protection coverage.
· The little north fork of the Wilson is a very productive Chinook breeding ground. In some recent years producing as many as estimated 1M Chinook fry (2002).

Going forward into the future

· There is a variety of forest practices and the manner in which they are implemented. This seems obvious but it was very evident that I cannot judge all forest management as the same as there are private, federal, state, etc which all manage and interpret the laws differently. In the future, if I see areas which are poorly managed I have to be careful to identify the managing party so as not to transfer these practices to other agencies.
· I came away with a good feeling that the State of Oregon has a very reasonable approach to managing the Tillamook forest into the future. The 10 year plan which will be reevaluated and monitored reasonably addresses the diverse interests of those concerned. Given that the forest is not ideally structured and populated with out of area gene stock furs, many areas are infested with fungus, and the need to restructure the forest structure over time while preserving animal habitat: these are very challenging tasks to balance against the extreme positions of extreme loggers, need for county revenue from logging, recreational users, and the extreme environmentalists. I believe the present forest plan is a very reasonable starting place from which to build a future that does not give into extreme positions. They also realize the diversity of interests and are very open to working with all parties which will no doubt ever be satisfied completely.
· The “clear cut” areas I saw were not the same devastation I have seen in other forests. Some differences are leaving “seed trees” standing of moderate density, no caterpillar tracks, consulting with geologists and intentionally leaving specific areas intact due to possible instability regarding land slides, selection and removal of infected furs only while leaving conifers, and use of overhead lines for removal of trees. This is very different from the massive clear cuts in other areas.
· There are some great developments for recreational users as well which balance motorized forest users verses no motorized users. For the most part, hwy 6 divides these user groups (south is for motors) although this is not a hard and fast policy.