(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Dawn Chorus: How “BIRD WATCHER GO HOME” protest helped save Olympic Peninsula coastal wilderness [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-02-19 Justice William O Douglas meets pro-highway protesters at the end of the 23-mile hike from Ozette to Rialto Beach, 1958 (Photo by John Vallentyne, Museum of History and Industry, Seattle, Washington) Wilderness is inextricably linked to ecological integrity. Such places have the richest biodiversity, which includes birds. Scientific studies across the board report drastic declines in bird numbers, with habitat degradation being the primary cause. It’s only where habitats are protected from human exploitation that birds and their biodiverse ecosystems can thrive. That requires public pressure and policy initiatives. Rialto Beach, Olympic National Park For much of our history, as humans labored to develop (“conquer”) wild land, wilderness was seen as dangerous and evil. But as our population and technology dominated the world, undeveloped areas diminished and attitudes began to shift. The Romantics (like Wordsworth) and the Transcendentalists (like Emerson) came to value natural settings for their aesthetic and religious qualities. As land became degraded by intensive agriculture and forestry, critics like George Perkins Marsh pointed to the utilitarian value of nature when it’s protected and managed. Aldo Leopold was among the earliest to draw attention to the ecological importance of natural systems per se. In the early 20th century, Leopold questioned the wisdom of humankind’s exploitation of nature, challenging the whole concept of human sovereignty with regard to the land. Leopold recognized that it is an interdependent system of plants, animals, soils and natural processes—a biotic community. “We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.” — Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac foreword This was a radical change in priority, which many find threatening to this day: valuing ecosystems over humans when it comes to environmental policy. It hasn’t been easy saving the remaining remnants of wilderness (and in truth there’s no place on earth that hasn’t been affected by human activity in some way, locally or globally). In spite of decades of environmental legislation in the U.S. establishing parks, refuges, wilderness areas, and relevant laws like the Endangered Species Act, there’s very little land today that meets the generally accepted definition of wilderness, ie. areas that are mostly biologically intact, and where humans have not developed the land with industry, agriculture, housing, roads, and other infrastructure. In the lower 48 states, only 2.7% of U.S. land area can be considered wilderness today. 🦅 To protect even the few remaining areas invariably raises conflict. This is the story of one such wilderness on the coastline of the Olympic Peninsula, one that holds a special place in my heart. Olympic Peninsula: bounded on west by Pacific Ocean, north by Strait of Juan de Fuca, east by Puget Sound Orange = urban corridor Green = lowlands Brown = mountains In the northwest corner of Washington state, full scale development and resource exploitation of the Olympic Peninsula was originally limited to the fringe of lowland forests since the core of this land is 8,000 foot mountains, and urban growth was along the protected inland waters of Puget Sound. The high elevation area, considered unreachable at the time by logging companies, was declared Olympic National Park in 1938, and a remote mile wide coastal strip was added to ONP in 1953. Unlike in Oregon, Highway 101 in Washington was mostly constructed inland, leaving a significant length of the Pacific coastline wild. In the 1950s as people began automobile tourism in earnest, some development groups began pushing for an extension of Hwy 101 through the heart of the ONP coastal strip to open it up for car tourists to view the ocean from their window, like most of Oregon. It would have meant punching a road through 23 miles of the wildest section of coastal Washington. Light green = Olympic National Park Blue line along coast = section of ONP between Cape Alava and Rialto Beach, proposed 1950s extension of Hwy 101 Polly Dyer, a prominent Northwest conservation activist, organized a hike along the proposed route as a way to draw public attention to the destructive road proposal. She brought Howard Zahniser into the project; he was head of the Wilderness Society and later drafted federal legislation establishing the Wilderness Act of 1964. What really turned up the visibility of the project was the participation of United States Supreme Court Justice William O Douglas. Pair of Bald eagles in snag by a beach in ONP Douglas didn’t take much persuasion. He’d been passionate about nature all his life, having grown up in Washington state where he spent much time hiking in the mountains as a youth. After becoming a lawyer, then law professor, then justice (SCOTUS’ most liberal justice ever), Douglas became an activist in conservation projects by personally visiting them on foot and by boat. These included the Guadalupe Mountains in Texas, part of the Appalachian Trail in New Jersey, a canal greenway in Maryland, the Red River Gorge in Kentucky and the Buffalo River in Arkansas. He enthusiastically joined the publicity hike on the Olympic Peninsula, in his home state. In fact he knew the coast well, even had a small cabin near La Push, the southern end of the proposed new road. Douglas used his prominence to invite a large group of hikers — conservationists, news reporters and road proponents (though none of the latter joined the hike) — and in August 1958 the group hiked out to the ocean from Lake Ozette and then south along the coast. Over the next three days they hiked sandy and cobbly beaches, climbed over headlands, around seastacks and through arches, camping each night on the beach. One news reporter filmed the hike and put together this 17-minute account, which gives you a good sense of what this coastline is like (and camping gear of the 1950s!). . On emerging from the southern end of Rialto Beach, the group was accosted by a pro-road protester. The title photo of this diary captures that moment. Polly Dyer said later that the encounter and photo were key to the success of the project: “When we came out at Rialto Beach a pro-road person was there with signs, ‘Bird Watchers Go Home.’ He made our story. Had he not done that, the press would not have believed us. We always felt that hike really turned it around” (Defending Wild Washington... p. 153). Public opinion and appreciation for the wilderness coastline quashed support for the new road for a time. In 1964 new efforts were floated. Douglas and Dyer marched again along the coast, reviving public attention, and the road project was shelved for good. The publicized image of protesters badmouthing birdwatchers surely helped! These are a couple of accounts of the hike and some background: Conservationists William O. Douglas, Polly Dyer, and others begin a 22-mile hike along the Olympic coastline to protest proposed road construction on August 19, 1958. Hiking for Change: How William O. Douglas Saved the Wilderness 🦅 I have hiked this stretch of wilderness coastline many times myself. Even though it is narrow and logging companies have cut much of the forest inland, you feel like you’re as immersed in wild nature as it’s possible to be. Where the rough surf meets towering ancient evergreens, wildlife proliferates and thrives. In addition to chipmunks, elk, slugs, frogs, millipedes, sea otters and much more, a large variety of birds make their homes here, both year round and seasonally, due to the many habitats and their complex healthy ecosystems. These are a few of the birds found in the coastal wilderness of the Olympic peninsula (all pics by me). There’s quite a bit of overlap among the several groups of course, in the mosaic of ecosystems. In the surf, on the beach and rocks: Harlequin duck, surf scoter, white winged scoters, black oystercatcher, least n western sandpipers, Whimbrel, black turnstone, horned grebe, common murre, pigeon guillemot, marbled murrelet, tufted puffin, rhinoceros Auklet, Heermann’s gull, western gull, California gull, Glaucous winged gull, olympic gull, caspian tern, Brandt’s cormorant, Pelagic cormorants, double crested cormorants, bald eagles, brown Pelican, belted kingfisher, peregrine falcon, common raven, common goldeneye Gulls foraging in heavy surf Eagle. There are tons of eagles along this coastline Black oystercatchers at a low tide Marbled Murrelets require old forest for nesting Black turnstones dodging surf In the woods: Bandtail pigeon, rufous hummingbird, pacific slope flycatcher, downy woodpecker, hairy woodpecker, northern flicker, common raven, Stellers Jay, chestnut backed chickadee, golden crowned kinglet, brown creeper, pacific wren, varied thrush, Swainson’s thrush, American Robin, cedar waxwings, red crossbill, dark eyed junco, song sparrow, Savannah sparrow, spotted towhee, orange crowned warbler, Wilson’s warblers, black throated gray warbler Savannah sparrow on driftwood by the forest Bandtailed pigeon Buffleheads in James Pond Brown creeper Varied thrush in late fall, down from the mountains In the tidal rivers, creeks and ponds: bufflehead, red breasted merganser, hooded merganser, great blue heron, double crested cormorant, common merganser, common and Barrow’s goldeneyes, western grebe, lotsa dabbling ducks Common merganser in the Dickey river Barrow’s goldeneye, Double crested cormorant, Surf scoters in the mouth of the Quileute river Western grebe and California gulls in the Quileute. I don’t see Western grebes anymore in the waters around where I live It takes a hike to get out to see these birds where they live in the coastal wilderness but it’s worth it. As Thoreau wrote in his essay “Walking”, In wildness is the preservation of the world 🌲 The Dawn Chorus is now open for your birdy reports of the week. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/19/2137154/-Dawn-Chorus-How-BIRD-WATCHER-GO-HOME-protest-helped-save-Olympic-Peninsula-coastal-wilderness Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/