Shalaine Mistretta of Portland and her dog, Everest, walk along the upper section of the Cape Horn Trail. For years, the lower portion of the trail has seasonally closed to protect nesting peregrine falcons. Now a conservation organization is working to see the lower portion of the trail temporarily opened year round to hikers to see if birds and people can coexist peacefully, but the move is proving controversial among bird advocates. At top, signs at the entrance to the Cape Horn Trail remind hikers to be respectful of wildlife. (Alisha Jucevic/The Columbian)Photo Gallery
A hiking organization’s efforts to convince the U.S. Forest Service to at least temporarily end a nearly decadelong policy of closing the Lower Cape Horn Trail during peregrine falcon nesting season has alarmed biologists at the Audubon Society of Portland.
Since 2009, the Lower Cape Horn Trail in the Columbia River Gorge closed each year from February to July to protect nesting peregrine falcons on the cliffs above. The birds are perhaps the most impressive success story of any creature listed on the Federal Endangered Species Act. Around 50 years ago the birds teetered on the brink of oblivion, but successful conservation and breeding programs helped their populations recover dramatically. They are still protected under the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act and remain listed as a protected species in Washington state. But in December 2016, they were lifted from the Washington State Sensitive Species list.
“They have had great success in their recovery and it seemed to be time to go, ‘OK, we’ve been doing the extra precaution of keeping the trail closed. Now might be a good time to see if hikers and the peregrines can coexist in a healthy way,'” said Teresa Robbins, vice president of the Cape Horn Conservancy.
The Conservancy, a non-profit focused on the stewardship of the Cape Horn Trail, is in talks with the Forest Service to allow hikers year-round access to the trail during a two-year trail run. The organization believes hikers and nesting falcons can coexist in the area — so long as hikers are educated about the birds and tread quietly. The organization proposes having volunteer docents stand at both ends of the hiking trail to inform hikers as to why they should not disturb the nesting birds and hand out small informational cards with more details. The group also plans to monitor the birds’ nesting and fledgling activity from the Oregon side of the river using high-powered scopes. None of the monitors are trained biologists, but they have been trained by Forest Service biologists.
Uninterrupted, the trail is a 7.5-mile loop, but with the lower trail closure in place, it becomes an out and back.
“It’s just nicer for hikers to always be on a loop. Plus that area of the trail is just gorgeous,” said Barb Seaman, the Cape Horn Conservancy president.
The Conservancy wants the proposal to go live March 1, but Forest Service officials say that date doesn’t hold any significance.
“I can tell you right now we’re not ready to implement it,” said Forest Service spokeswoman Rachel Pawlitz.
The Forest Service wants to see docents at the trailhead every day. But the conservancy will, “work toward that goal” once they have “weekends and spring break scheduled,” Seaman said. “Establishing this level of volunteer steward presence is a precondition and a giant step toward the eventual lifting of the closure on a trial basis.”
The proposal comes just before a hiking season in which the Washington side of the Gorge is expected to see a greater number of visitors due to damage on the Oregon side of the river from last year’s Eagle Creek fire.
Bob Sallinger, Conservation Director of the Audubon Society of Portland, said his organization doesn’t object to discussing the closure, but they do object to the proposal in its current form and the fact that policy change is being driven by one group rather than a stakeholder community.
“I don’t think any groups want their legacy to be the displacement of a nesting site,” Sallinger said.
Sallinger wrote to Robin Shoal, Forest Service planning and natural resources staff officer for the Columbia River Gorge Scenic area, “We are deeply troubled that the U.S. Forest Service failed to engage in a meaningful stakeholder process in developing this decision to terminate the closure, has failed to adequately consider best management practices for managing peregrine eyries, and has failed to put in place meaningful provisions to protect, monitor and address potential disturbance to the nesting falcons.”
The Portland Audubon chapter claims to have found no scientific evidence that educational docents will mitigate the impacts of hundreds or thousands of people walking below the birds’ nesting sites. In fact, Sallinger argues that the Conservancy’s proposed plan is “completely inadequate” and may make the situation worse. Still, he said it’s possible the birds could tolerate visitors just fine.
“Maybe it is time to explore that, but let’s do it in a way that’s controlled and thoughtful and monitored, and use that to get good information to make decisions,” he said.
Although peregrines live in noisy urban areas and nest around roadway bridges in Portland as well out in the wilds of the Gorge, the scientific literature says nearly every peregrine’s tolerances are unique and that the indicator of a disturbance is set by the baseline amount of disturbances that were present when they nested.
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“The disturbances documented in the past were caused by groups hiking quietly on the trail — that is the disturbance,” Sallinger said. “Placing docents on the trail and expecting people to hike quietly doesn’t address the cause of disturbance, it explicitly allows the disturbance.”
Sallinger worries that disturbing the birds could cause them to accidentally break their eggs, make their offspring fledge prematurely, or cause adult birds to abandon their nests all together.
He also claims that a two-year trial is too much time to allow for possible nest failure, especially when there’s no guarantee of closing it again. Sallinger also is suspicious about having members of a group advocating for access doing the monitoring work.
When the Forest Service established the closure nearly a decade ago, the agency said it would reconsider the closure when the bird’s listing changed. When they began to do so, officials consulted last January with their colleagues in the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, conservation managers and a local wildlife biologist about the possible changes. They also conversed with raptor biologists from Pinnacles National Park about their studies on human-falcon interactions.
But unlike the work that lead to the closure being put in place, the Forest Service didn’t undergo an environmental assessment to explain why they’re considering the changes. The discussions between the Forest Service and the Conservancy so far haven’t produced any written plan, according to Pawlitz. And at no point has there been any process undertaken to notify the general public of the proposed changes to the closure.
Why no public process?
“I don’t know the answer to this one,” Pawlitz said.
The Portland Audubon has offered their own list of recommendations to go forward in a way they believe is more transparent and scientifically robust. The list includes a new environmental assessment, engaging with peregrine experts, reconsidering the docent approach, and considering limiting the number of people on the trails on a daily basis, among several others.
“It’s important that Cape Horn not become symbolic of a bad management plan,” Sallinger said. “We’re not saying that will happen here, but it could.”
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