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MONDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2013
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Two new reserves off coast for fishing Volunteer Dick Schmidt scans the ocean for migrating gray whales at Shore Acres State Park on Saturday during Winter Whale Watching Week. By Alysha Beck The World
A GLIMPSE OF GRAY Volunteers, visitors flock to coast to watch gray whale migration BY CHELSEA DAVIS The World
Hundreds of eyes are peering toward the ocean this week, hoping to catch a glimpse of a gray whale. Visitors were perched along Shore Acres State Park on Saturday morning, marking the biannual Whale Watch Week. It puts volunteers at 24 sites along the Oregon Coast to teach visitors about the whales’ migration, feeding habits and tips on how to spot them. Husband and wife Dave and Bea Bone, of Medford, took a seminar in Newport to By Alysha Beck, The World become volunteers 18 years ago. It gave them Elaine, left, and Pete Nelson from Aloha search for migrating gray whales that grow as big as a school bus at an excuse to come to the coast, Bea said. “It’s not hit or miss, but it takes work,” she Shore Acres State Park Saturday during Winter Whale Watching Week. said of spotting the whales. “This year the ocean is calm so they’re swimming at the sur“If you’re really lucky, you can see them and seen a little blast of spray,” Cathy said. face. Usually you look for the spout.” The whales leave en masse from the feeding breach out of the water,” she said. “It’s pretty “Sometimes you can see them come up and you can see their back.” grounds in the Bering Sea. Anywhere from spectacular.” So far this week, the whales haven’t been The Crandells think the best place to whale 18,000 to 20,000 gray whales will make the 6,000-mile journey down the West Coast to shy. On Thursday, volunteers spotted 19; on watch is at Cape Lookout in Tillamook. The whales are typically seen 2 to 5 miles off Baja California, where the pregnant whales Friday, they spotted 12. On Christmas Day, the will have their calves. On average, 29 gray Bones saw mating groups of three to five shore near the crabbers. A gray whale’s pregnancy lasts 12 to 13 whales pass by every hour — “not that you see whales, called triads. “Sometimes they’ll mate as they go up and months. When the baby is born, it can be 15 them all,” Dave pointed out. Visitors need to keep a close eye on the sur- down the coast,” Bea said. “The individual feet long and weigh up to 1 ton. whales are usually pregnant females, but not “Corresponding to a human, that would be face of the water, Bea said. a 2-foot-long, 50-pound baby,” Dave said. “The water will shoot straight up and the always. Sometimes they’re juveniles.” Calvin and Cathy Crandell of Beaverton Females are generally 45 or 50 feet long and spout can be 6 to 12 feet,” she said. “You’re looking for a spew of water like it’s squirting were traveling the coast looking for spots to weigh 40 tons, while males are only around 35 bird-watch Saturday morning. This weekend, to 40 feet long. from a city fountain.” That’s when you might see the body of the they set their eyes on the Simpson Reef. “Not on this trip, but I’ve looked out there whale: the back and its knuckles or the fluke (tail). SEE WHALES | A8
Some with Alzheimer’s find care internationally
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you pills and tells you to go to bed,” he says. Kuratli and his family have given themselves six months to decide while the retired software developer lives alongside his 65year-old wife in Baan Kamlangchay — “Home for Care from the Heart.” Patients live in individual houses within a Thai community, are taken to local markets, temples and restaurants, and receive personal around-the-
clock care. The monthly $3,800 cost is a third of what basic institutional care would cost in Switzerland. Kuratli is not yet sure how he’ll care for Susanna, who used to produce a popular annual calendar of her paintings. But he’s leaning toward keeping her in Thailand. “Sometimes I am jealous. My
Trying teaching Steve Rosier, Coos Bay Patty Huntley, Coos Bay
After years in other jobs, some professionals are giving teaching a shot.
Obituaries | A5
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Teachers find home visits help in class BY ALAN SCHERZAGIER The Associated Press
ST. LOUIS — In days gone by, a knock on the door by a teacher or school official used to mean a child was in trouble. Not anymore, at least for parents and students at Clay Elementary School. The urban public school is one of more than 30 in the St. Louis area that sends teachers on home visits several times a year. Unlike home visit programs that focus on truants and troublemakers, or efforts aimed exclusively at early childhood, the newer wave seeks to narrow the teacher-parent divide while providing glimpses at the factors that shape student learning before and after the school bells ring. “I wish they had this when I had children in school,” said Elmira Warren, a teacher’s aide at Clay who has made home visits to her students and their parents. “I was
SEE ALZHEIMER’S | A8
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CHIANG MAI, Thailand — Residents of this facility for people with Alzheimer’s disease toss around a yellow ball and laugh under a cascade with their caregivers, in a swimming pool ringed by palm trees and wind chimes. Susanna Kuratli, once a painter of delicate oils, swims a lap and smiles.
Watching is her husband, Ulrich, who has a heart-rending decision: to leave his wife of 41 years in this facility 5,600 miles from home, or to bring her back to Switzerland. Their homeland treats the elderly as well as any nation on Earth, but Ulrich Kuratli says the care here in northern Thailand is not only less expensive but more personal. In Switzerland, “You have a cold, old lady who gives
DEATHS
BY DENIS D. GRAY The Associated Press
SALEM (AP) — Beginning Wednesday, two more areas off the Oregon Coast will be closed to fishing and other recreational seafood and seaweed harvesting. New restrictions are beginning at marine reserves at Cascade Head just north of Lincoln City and at Cape Perpetua south of Yachats, The Statesman-Journal reports. All fishing is prohibited inside the boundaries of the reserves. That includes the taking of invertebrates as well as seaweed and wildlife in those areas. There will also be slightly lessrestrictive rules at “marine protected areas” north and south of both reserves and on the western edge of the reserve at Cascade Head. Similar recreational and commercial prohibitions are in place on marine reserves at Redfish Rocks south of Port Orford and Otter Rock between Depoe Bay and Newport. In the marine protected area, some sports activities will be allowed, such as trolling for salmon, crabbing and fishing from the shore. In the marine protected area and in a seabird protection area south of the Cape Perpetua Marine Reserve, the taking of baitfish — Pacific herring, Pacific sardine, anchovies, smelt and Pacific sand lance — is banned to protect the food base for the birds, but all other fishing is allowed. A fifth reserve/protected area complex at Cape Falcon just north of Manzanita on the north coast will have restrictions starting on Jan. 1, 2016.
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