25 Aug My Site: Siuslaw National Forest!

Hi everyone, I hope you’re all having an amazing summer! I’m very happy to be able to introduce the site I’ve been working with – Siuslaw National Forest! It’s hard to know where to begin, there’s so many amazing aspects of this forest that I could talk about. Siuslaw encompasses more than 630,000 acres on the central Oregon coast. This giant forest includes an expansive variety of ecosystems, recreational activities, and wilderness areas!

There are multiple places I’m stationed at every week, which means every day is a new adventure! One of these areas is the Cape Perpetua Scenic Area, a beautiful expanse where the forest meets the ocean. It’s incredible how the interactions between the temperate rain forest and the ocean have influenced the plants and wildlife around the Cape. Our old growth forests thrive off the summer fogs that roll through the coast and helps provide the nice moderate climate that our banana slugs find very appealing! Our trees love it so much, that we even have a 500+ year old Sitka Spruce in our midst!

Other stops I frequent are the Dunes areas. These vast, sandy hills provide areas for fun recreation activities and important species protection. One of those being our threatened shore bird, the Western Snowy Plover! We are lucky enough to have suitable habitats for this bird on some of our foredune areas. Informing visitors about our temporary plover guests on the beach has been a great opportunity to tell the story of the Plovers and how we can help protect them!

These are just a few of the places I’ll be found this summer, and I can’t wait to report back with some of the projects we’ve been assisting with! Until next time, I hope everyone has a great week!