Wrong Audubon title

Herald and News May 30, 2004

Thank you for continuing to run enlightening stories on the Klamath refuges and their situation regarding water. As a frequent visitor to your area to study birds, forests and wetlands, I hope your community will continue to seek solutions to accommodate all interests.

I note with slight dismay that the story published May 25 titled Dave Eshbaugh as executive director for National Audubon Society's Oregon Chapter. I hope this is not what he told you. He is, in fact, a salaried employee of National Audubon Society, which names the directors of its state offices, where they have them, as "executive directors" probably because these people, like Dave, are supposed to raise their own office finances.

He is more properly the National Audubon Society state director for Oregon, as well as being a vice president for the National Audubon Society, of which there are many. There is no Oregon Chapter in the National Audubon Society, because chapters, like Klamath Basin Audubon Society and my own chapter, are fully independent, non-profit organizations duly incorporated in the state of Oregon. Chapters nationwide share only an affiliation with the National Audubon Society, which is incorporated in the state of New York.

As for the comment credited to Eshbaugh, who very well understands the history of the Klamath in the last century, the notion that there will be "no losers" implies unbridled optimism - at least until the productivity of the region reaches zero. The marshes and wetlands provide far less for wildlife than they did 100 years ago, whether measured in million of tons of crops or acre-feet of water. The losers, in fact, are already dead.

Whether native people, native fish or wildlife, we simplify the ecosystem to their extirpation, and to our own peril. I would have to agree with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist, farmers have taken too much out of the system. Fair and reasonable compensation should be offered for their land, but not for their continued take of public resources.

Jim Fairchild

Corvallis

The writer is a member of the Audubon Society of Corvallis.