Coastal Conservation News Archive

A complete archive of our past news articles, beginning in Fall 2016; older articles from our previous website are available in the historical archive

July 12, 2020

BioBlitzes in a New Format Coming up in July

Fawn Custer (kneeling), CoastWatch's citizen science trainer, leads a BioBlitz at Cascade Head. A BioBlitz is an intensive survey of a defined area with the goal of identifying all the species to be found in that area at one time, generally involving members of the public assisted by experts. It is a snapshot of biodiversity. In past years, coastal...Read more
July 12, 2020

CoastWatch Joins Hunt for Hybrid Beachgrass

Rebecca Mostow in the field. Much of the terrain of the Oregon coast we see today has been shaped by two dominant, invasive beachgrass species. They build the tall, stable dunes that parallel sandy beaches, providing some protection for infrastructure but causing the decline of native animal and plant species. A team from Oregon State University recently...Read more
July 10, 2020

Environmental Steward Certificate Program Starts New Round

Ed Joyce (right) and Jesse Jones (center) at a training session for the marine debris survey, a project which would help participants qualify for the Environmental Steward Certificate.\Photo by Patricia Jensen. Oregon Shores and CoastWatch partners with Clatsop Community College (CCC) in sponsoring the Environmental Steward Certificate program, an innovative...Read more
CoastWatch training on rocky shore habitats.\Photo by Daniel Anderson.
July 10, 2020

CoastWatch Webinars Now Available on YouTube

CoastWatch training on rocky shore habitats.\Photo by Daniel Anderson. With the onset of pandemic restrictions on travel and meetings, CoastWatch pivoted rapidly toward working online to maintain volunteer training and public education and to keep the mile adopter community connected. It required some hasty re-orientation for a program that has always relied on...Read more
June 8, 2020

A Message from the Board and Staff of Oregon Shores

We want to acknowledge this historic time of uprising in demand for racial justice by stating that the staff and board of the Oregon Shores Conservation Coalition join all concerned Americans in outrage at our nation’s continued systemic racism, and in sorrow over the violent and senseless deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and countless other Black people at the hands of the police. Each...Read more
May 18, 2020

Special Volunteer Needed for King Tides Project

CoastWatch collaborates with the state’s Coastal Management Program on the King Tides Project every year. Through this project, volunteer photographers document that highest tides of the year. We have a trove of photographs, growing in value every year, as we develop an ever-more-detailed portrait of the coast’s vulnerability to flooding and sea level rise. However, the photos, to be really...Read more
Siuslaw watershed during the most recent king tide.\Photo by Rena Olson, with aerial support from Lighthawk.
May 15, 2020

King Tides Project Looks Ahead

Siuslaw watershed during the most recent king tide.\Photo by Rena Olson, with aerial support from Lighthawk. The King Tide Project is already looking ahead to its 11th year. It may be spring, but in our plans, to borrow a line from a certain TV show, winter is coming! Here are the dates for the 2020-2021 version of the project, through which volunteer...Read more
May 7, 2020

Rocky Habitat Plan Enters Next Phase

Otter Rock tidepools at low tide.\Photo by Laurel Hillmann. On June 1, we finally begin the "site designation" process, the long awaited opportunity for the public to shape the state's emerging Rocky Habitat Management Strategy by proposing special levels of protection for key rocky intertidal and offshore areas. Between now and December, individuals, groups,...Read more
May 3, 2020

CoastWatching Moves Online

CoastWatchers Dave and Diane Bilderback conducting a beached bird survey. The coronavirus crisis poses particular difficulties for a program like CoastWatch, which brings people together for educational events and projects on the shore, while encouraging volunteers to monitor a shoreline which is currently closed to many. But the program has now pivoted to an...Read more
Volunteers removing Scotch Broom in the Oregon Dunes.\Photo by Dina Pavlis.
May 2, 2020

Scotch Broom Stalkers Needed in May

Volunteers removing Scotch Broom in the Oregon Dunes.\Photo by Dina Pavlis. As invasive plants on the Oregon coast go, Scotch Broom is second only to European beachgrass in the extent to which it has occupied and reshaped shoreline, bluff, and dune habitats. The Western Invasives Network has declared a Great Scotch Broom Census, to take place during the entire...Read more