May 25, 2014

Report Details

It was Memorial Day weekend, and Portland had just had a emergency alert to avoid drinking the water. As a consequence the beach was packed with people walking and horse-back riding, 40 in all, with 16 horses and 6 dogs. It was not warm, and threatening rain, which meant no one was sitting or playing in the surf. The beach was mostly clean although someone had left a bag above the surf line containing many glass bottles. The bottles had been in the water a long time but there were no indications they were from Japan. There were few live birds around, and no carcasses. This mile is part of the snowy plover management area on the Nehalem spit. There is a sign, and a tape across the dry sand area at the north end of the area, but otherwise someone visiting the beach might not know of the restriction. The purpose of designating the area this year is to see if getting people to keep their dogs on a leash would encourage plovers to nest here as they had historically. However, the horses exiting across the area, and human footprints along the dune might indicate conditions that would not be favorable for nesting.