Beach Bill Ecology Talk

Stewart Schultz, teaching a shoreline workshop\Photo by Michael Coe.

On July 6, the actual anniversary of the Oregon Beach Bill’s signing, we’re holding a special beachwalk.  To ramp up enthusiasm for the celebration, and learn more about the beach we’ll be walking on, we’re providing a warm-up lecture the previous evening, Wednesday, July 5.  The talk takes place at 7 p.m. in the Cannon Beach Community Hall, 207 N. Spruce St.  The event is free and open to all, whether participating in the next day’s beachwalk or not.

The presentation will be an event in itself.  Stewart Schultz, author of The Northwest Coast: A Natural History, and a leading expert on the coastal ecology of the Pacific Northwest, will speak on beach ecology.  Dr. Schultz will describe the life found on the shore and within the sands.  Tidepools are fascinating to many, but beach ecosystems, while less visible and less well-known, are an equally fascinating realm.

Stewart Schultz has wide-ranging experience in studying the Oregon coast, making him a very knowledgeable guide to the shoreline environment. An Oregonian who grew up playing on the shore near Gearhart, he went to Reed College and obtained his doctorate in botany from the University of British Columbia. He worked on the Oregon coast for the Nature Conservancy, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, gaining wide field experience, before pursuing an academic career as a professor at the University of Miami, and now the University of Zadar in Croatia. During the academic year he studies marine ecology, as well as his specialty of plant evolution and genetics, but every summer he returns to the Oregon coast to teach shoreline science.

For more information, contact Phillip Johnson, (503) 754-9303, phillip@oregonshores.org.