News Release
| Release Number: | 00-055 |
| Dated: | 4/14/2000 |
| Contact: | Matt Rabe, 503-808-4510 |
Portland, Ore. – Caspian terns will not be hazed off Rice Island, according to an order issued by a federal judge in Seattle today.
Following a hearing on the subject this morning, U.S. District Court Judge Barbara Rothstein extended the temporary restraining order barring the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from conducting any activity that might cause the birds to not nest on the island.
The judge issued the original temporary restraining order on Monday after four environmental groups filed a lawsuit claiming the hazing would harm the birds.
The Corps’ contractor was to begin active harassment activities Tuesday in an effort to encourage the birds to relocate to East Sand Island, a place in the river where the terns eat fewer juvenile salmon. The Corps’ effort was a collaborative plan created by the multi-agency Caspian Tern Working Group, made up of federal, state and tribal resource agencies.
At risk are millions of juvenile salmon and steelhead migrating down the Columbia River to the Pacific Ocean. Data collected by researchers in 1998 and 1999 shows the terns consumed about 10.9 million, or about 11 percent, of all the juvenile salmon and steelhead – wild and hatchery – that reached the lower estuary each year.
The contract called for a two-person crew to actively harass concentrations of 25 or more Caspian terns on the three islands, without disturbing other species of birds known to nest at these locations. The contractor cannot physically harm the birds, only scare them away.
Biologists believe direct human presence would be enough to cause the terns to vacate the area. If terns did successfully lay eggs, however, as a final step, up to 300 eggs could be removed under a permit from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and turned over to biologists.
The contractor’s crew was to work from sunrise to sunset, and rotate on a four-day on/two-day off work schedule. The crews were to reside on Rice Island through July 1.
The Corps believes the longer it takes to begin work the more difficult it will be to move the birds later in the season, after they have established nesting sites and begun laying eggs.
The multi-agency Caspian Tern Working Group has prepared a four-acre area on East Sand Island, near Chinook, Wash., as a managed habitat site for the terns. Biologists believe the site can accommodate up to 100 percent of the birds. The birds also may decide to move to other suitable areas in the lower estuary and southwestern Washington coast.
Caspian tern breeding was first documented in the Columbia River estuary in 1984 when about 1,000 pairs were reported nesting on fresh dredged material on East Sand Island, near the mouth of the Columbia River. Prior to 1984, the species was a non-breeding, summer resident of the Columbia River estuary.
Most of the East Sand Island colony moved to Rice Island in 1986, probably because of vegetation growth on East Sand Island, according to biologists. Since that time, the colony’s population has expanded to more than 9,500 nesting pairs. Returns of banded birds indicate that a significant proportion of the Rice Island tern colony originated from colonies in Grays Harbor and Willapa Bay in southwestern Washington.
Juvenile salmon and steelhead make up a large portion of the fish terns consume at Rice Island – about 75 percent, compared to a much smaller percentage at East Sand Island – about 44 percent. Biologists estimate terns, cormorants and other sea birds consumed 10.9 million, or about 11 percent, of the 95 million out-migrating salmon and steelhead that reached the Columbia River estuary in 1998.
The Caspian Tern Working Group is made up of representatives from the Corps, National Marine Fisheries Service, Bonneville Power Administration, U.S. Fish and Wildlife, U.S.D.A. Wildlife Services, Northwest Power Planning Council, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, Idaho Department of Fish and Game, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, Washington Department of Natural Resources, Oregon State University and the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission.
The push to move the terns off of Rice Island was directed by the National Marine Fisheries Service in their 1999 biological opinion as a condition of the Corps’ continuing effort to maintaining the Columbia River Federal Navigation Channel.
The lawsuit was filed Monday by the National Audubon Society, Defenders of Wildlife, the Seattle Audubon Society and the American Bird Conservancy.