Cape Meares National Wildlife Refuge | |
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IUCN category IV (habitat/species management area) | |
Location | Tillamook County, Oregon, USA |
Nearest city | Cape Meares |
Coordinates | 45°29′14″N123°57′49″W / 45.4873248°N 123.9637426°W [1] |
Area | 138.51 acres (56 ha) [2] |
Established | 1938 |
Governing body | U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service |
Website | Cape Meares NWR |
Cape Meares National Wildlife Refuge is a National Wildlife Refuge of the Oregon Coast. It is one of six National Wildlife Refuges in the Oregon Coast National Wildlife Refuge Complex. Located on Cape Meares, the refuge was established in 1938 to protect a remnant of coastal old-growth forest and the surrounding habitat used by breeding seabirds. [3] The area provides a home for a threatened bird species, the marbled murrelets. Peregrine falcons, once at the brink of extinction, have nested here since 1987. [4] The refuge, with the exception of the Oregon Coast Trail, was designated a Research Natural Area in 1987. [3]
The Cape Meares Light, which marked the cape at night from 1890 until 1963, is now open to the public. Three Arch Rocks National Wildlife Refuge and Oregon Islands National Wildlife Refuge are easily seen from the cape. It is the only point in the United States from which three refuges can be seen at the same time. [5]
The Oregon Coast Trail passes through the center of this headland and interpretive displays along the trail describe the varied wildlife. From this trail, it is possible to see migrating gray whales, three species of scoters, western grebes, and common loons. A wildlife viewing deck, part of the Cape Meares State Scenic Viewpoint, provides views of the refuge's sea cliffs and inshore islands. In season, visitors can see the aerie of a nesting peregrine falcon pair. Each spring thousands of seabirds return to nest on the cliffs. Species that can be seen are brants, pelagic cormorants, common murres, tufted puffins, pigeon guillemots, western gulls, and black oystercatchers. [4] This state park has 3 miles (4.8 km) of hiking trails and a 1-mile (1.6 km) walking trail through the forest of sitka spruce and western hemlock. [6]
Some of the trees on the refuge are hundreds of years old and more than 200 feet (61 m) tall. The Cape Meares Giant, a sitka spruce, is of special interest. After the Great Coastal Gale of 2007 killed the Klootchy Creek Giant, once considered the largest sitka spruce in the world, [7] the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) granted a special use permit to Ascending the Giants, a Portland based organization, which allowed them to climb and measure the Cape Meares Giant. Based on the results, the FWS issued a press release in February 2008 that announced that the tree is the largest known Sitka spruce in the state and that it was designated an Oregon Heritage Tree. [3] Oregon's actual largest Sitka Spruce, using a point system, is Falcon's Tower, discovered and measured by Certified Arborist M. D. Vaden. Cape Meares Giant Spruce had only 743 points, whereas Falcon's Tower was documented at 750 points by M. D. Vaden. [8] Falcon's Tower is in Oswald West State Park, between Cannon Beach and Manzanita, Oregon. [9]
Cape Lookout is a sharp rocky promontory along the Pacific Ocean coast of northwestern Oregon in the United States. It is located in southwestern Tillamook County, approximately 10 miles (16 km) southwest of Tillamook, just south of Netarts Bay. The promontory extends 1.5 miles (2.4 km) perpendicular to the coast, and is approximately 0.5 miles (0.80 km) wide at its base, tapering as it extends outward from the coast. Cape Lookout State Park is located on the north side of the promontory, which is part of the Siuslaw National Forest. Cape Lookout Road travels past the base of the cape. Cape Lookout is a member of Tillamook's Three Capes Scenic Drive.
Picea sitchensis, the Sitka spruce, is a large, coniferous, evergreen tree growing to almost 100 meters (330 ft) tall, with a trunk diameter at breast height that can exceed 5 m (16 ft). It is by far the largest species of spruce and the fifth-largest conifer in the world, and the third-tallest conifer species. The Sitka spruce is one of the few species documented to exceed 90 m (300 ft) in height. Its name is derived from the community of Sitka in southeast Alaska, where it is prevalent. Its range hugs the western coast of Canada and the US, continuing south into northernmost California.
Cape Meares is a small headland on the Pacific coast in Tillamook County, Oregon, United States. The cape forms a high steep bluff on the south end of Tillamook Bay, approximately five miles (8 km) northwest of the city of Tillamook. Much of the cape is part of the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department-administered Cape Meares State Scenic Viewpoint with three miles of hiking trails, which includes Cape Meares Light and the Octopus Tree. The cape is named after John Meares, a British explorer.
Tillamook Head is a high promontory on the Pacific coast of northwest Oregon in the United States. It is located in west-central Clatsop County, approximately 5 mi (8 km) southwest of Seaside. The promontory forms a steep rocky bluff on the ocean, approximately 1,200 ft high, forested with Sitka spruce. It is located in Ecola State Park.
The Saint Lazaria Wilderness or St. Lazaria Island is a nesting bird colony located twenty miles (32 km) west of Sitka, Alaska and is a part of the Gulf of Alaska unit of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge. It is located in Sitka Sound, just south of Kruzof Island, and within the limits of the City and Borough of Sitka, Alaska. The island's name is Kanasx'ée in the Tlingit language.
Cascade Head is a headland and 102,110-acre (41,320 ha) UNESCO biosphere reserve and United States Forest Service Experimental Forest. It is situated 85 miles (137 km) southwest of Portland, Oregon on the Oregon Coast between Lincoln City and Neskowin. Cascade Head Preserve is a Nature Conservancy Selected Site.
Oswald West State Park is part of the state park system of the U.S. state of Oregon. It is located about 10 miles (16 km) south of the city of Cannon Beach, adjacent to Arch Cape, on the Pacific Ocean. The park covers 2,448 acres (9.91 km2), with many miles of hiking trails both inside the park grounds and linking to other parks and landmarks beyond.
The St. Vincent National Wildlife Refuge is part of the United States National Wildlife Refuge System, located in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Apalachicola, on the barrier island of St. Vincent. The refuge includes Pig Island, located in the southwest corner of St. Joseph Bay, nearly 9 miles west of St. Vincent and 86 acres of mainland Florida along Franklin County Road 30A. The 12,490 acre (51 km2) refuge was established in 1968.
The Southern Oregon Coast Range is the southernmost section of the Oregon Coast Range, in the Pacific Coast Ranges, located in the southwest portion of the state of Oregon, United States, roughly between the Umpqua River and the middle fork of the Coquille River, beyond which are the Klamath Mountains. To the east is the Umpqua Valley and to the west the Pacific Ocean. This approximately 55-mile (89 km)-long mountain range contains mountains as high as 3,547 feet (1,081 m) for Bone Mountain. The mountains are known locally in the Roseburg area as the Callahan Mountains, or simply as The Callahans.
The Oregon Coast National Wildlife Refuge Complex consists of six National Wildlife Refuges along the Oregon Coast. It provides wilderness protection to thousands of small islands, rocks, reefs, headlands, marshes, and bays totaling 371 acres spanning 320 miles (515 km) of Oregon's coastline. The areas are all managed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.
Oregon Islands National Wildlife Refuge is a U.S. National Wildlife Refuge off the southwestern Oregon Coast. It is one of six National Wildlife Refuges comprising the Oregon Coast National Wildlife Refuge Complex. The Oregon Islands provides wilderness protection to 1,853 small islands, rocks, and reefs plus two headlands, totaling 371 acres (150 ha) spanning 1,083 acres (438 ha) of Oregon's coastline from the Oregon–California border to Tillamook Head. There are sites in six of the seven coastal counties of Oregon. From north to south they are Clatsop, Tillamook, Lincoln, Lane, Coos, and Curry counties. The area is managed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.
Three Arch Rocks National Wildlife Refuge is a U.S. National Wildlife Refuge off the northern Oregon Coast. It is located on the central coast of Tillamook County, in the northwestern part of Oregon. It is one of six National Wildlife Refuges within the Oregon Coast National Wildlife Refuge Complex and was the first National Wildlife Refuge west of the Mississippi River. In 1970 the Refuge was designated as wilderness. It is one of the smallest wilderness areas in the United States.
Cape Perpetua is a large forested headland projecting into the Pacific Ocean on the central Oregon Coast in Lincoln County, Oregon. The land is managed by the United States Forest Service as part of the Siuslaw National Forest.
Samuel H. Boardman State Scenic Corridor is a linear state park in southwestern Oregon, in the United States. It is 12 miles (19 km) long and thickly forested along steep and rugged coastline with a few small sand beaches. It is named in honor of Samuel H. Boardman, the first Oregon Parks superintendent.
The Coast Range ecoregion is a Level III ecoregion designated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the U.S. states of Washington, Oregon, and California. It stretches along the Pacific Coast from the tip of the Olympic Peninsula in the north to the San Francisco Bay in the south, including Grays Harbor, Willapa Bay, and the Long Beach Peninsula in Washington, the entire length of the Oregon Coast, and the Northern California Coast. Named for the Coast Range mountains, it encompasses the lower elevations of the Olympic Mountains, the Oregon Coast Range, the Californian North Coast Ranges, and surrounding lowlands.
The Delevan National Wildlife Refuge is one of six refuges in the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge Complex in the Sacramento Valley of central northern California.
The Central Pacific coastal forests is a temperate coniferous forest ecoregion located in the Canadian province of British Columbia and the U.S. states of Oregon and Washington, as defined by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) categorization system.
Arizona Beach State Recreation Site is a 68-acre (28 ha) Oregon state park in Curry County, Oregon, in the United States. The beach is at an average elevation of 7 feet (2 m). Public recreational facilities at Arizona Beach State Recreation Site include a parking lot for beach access, observation areas for viewing marine mammals and birds and tables for picnicking. The park is open year-round.
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