Tour Oregon Coast Oyster Hatcheries, Forests and Agriculture

Published 07/26/2015 at 5:04 AM PDT
By Oregon Coast Beach Connection staff

(Oregon Coast) – Two tours happen in the coming weeks on central Oregon and then on the north Oregon coast which offer unique opportunities to look at the oysters you so love, as well as learn about how forest and agricultural practices interlink.

The first happens this coming weekend in the Tillamook area, while the second takes place just inland in Lincoln County.

August 2 brings the Tour of Tillamook Oyster Hatchery, Oyster Beds and Processing Plant to inland Tillamook County as well as on the beaches.

The oyster industry is an important part of Tillamook County and includes a number of farms, like J. Andy Oyster Company working out of Netarts Bay and downtown Tillamook, and one of the largest oyster hatcheries in the country, Whiskey Creek Shellfish Hatchery located along Netarts Bay.

If you are interested in understanding where the tasty critters on your dinner plate come from or just curious about oysters in general, you'll want to be on this free tour. It includes a stop at Whiskey Creek Shellfish Hatchery and a stop at J. Andy Oyster Company. A number of the sites visited on this tour are not normally open to the public and the tours are a rare opportunity to learn about the these facilities, the state of the art scientific research going on at the hatchery, and the issues faced by the shellfish industries and wild shellfish along the Pacific Northwest.

Tours will start from Blue Heron French Cheese Company located just north of downtown Tillamook on Highway 101 at 2001 Blue Heron Drive, Tillamook, Oregon. You may also want to try out some of Blue Heron's great lunch specials while there. A free shuttle service is provided by co-sponsor Tillamook EcoAdventures, LLC and will leave from Blue Heron French Cheese Company at 10 a. m. The estimated duration of the tour, including travel, is four hours. Space is limited and pre-registration is required.

The contact to register yourself or a group tour is: smith_chrissy22@yahoo.com or phone at 541-231-8041.

The following weekend, it's the Oregon Small Woodlands Association and Farm Bureau Forestry and Agriculture Tour on August 8, through parts of Lincoln County a bit inland from the coastal beaches. It runs from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. and registration is required. Admission is free and so is lunch.

The tour – put on by OSU - is in two parts, essentially: a focus on the wooded areas of the central Oregon coast and of the agricultural lands.

For the woods section of the tour, you'll learn about when to thin wooded area, a cut-to-length thinning demonstration and how to set up a variable retention riparian prescription. Also examined: options to minimize deer browse damage in a newly planted forest and how how history influences management options.

The agricultural tour focuses on grass fed beef operations, options for dealing with drought conditions, controlling elk with fencing and combining agriculture with forestry.

To register email oswaevents@gmail.com or call (503) 588-1813.

Directions: From Hwy 20, at Toledo Dairy Queen, travel North on Hwy 229 toward Siletz. Travel about 3 miles past Siletz to 381 Kosydar Road, Siletz, OR, where tour begins. Look for OSWA Tour signs. Buses will transport participants to other tour sites.

Tour Sponsors: Lincoln County Oregon Small Woodlands Association, Lincoln County Farm Bureau, Oregon Forest Resources Institute, OSU Forestry Extension, Oregon Department of Forestry, Oregon Tree Farm System, and Oregon’s Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI®) Implementation Committee.

More about Tillamook County and Netarts below, and at the Oceanside, Netarts Virtual Tour, Map.

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