Subject: [Tweeters] White Pelican nesting site bulldozed and buried
Date: Sep 14 17:57:19 2012
From: Andrew Emlen - aemlen at centurytel.net


Today I paddled out to Miller Sands in the Lewis & Clark National Wildlife Refuge, on the Columbia River across from Altoona. For the past few summers, the western spit of Miller Sands has been the site of a White Pelican nesting colony. It was the only one on the lower Columbia. Northwest Bird Research biologists banded 71 White Pelican chicks there (and found an additional 20 chicks that were too small to band) on July 20. There were about 400 adults. Today, I found the Army Corps of Engineers had their dredging equipment set up there. They had bulldozed all the vegetation and buried the entire nesting area under dredge spoil, and were continuing to add more sand. It's likely that the site will be unusable for them next year.