[obol] FW: ODFW Retirees - Wes Batterson News Article

Fri Feb 1 07:52:22 PST 2008

I was born in Wheeler, on Nehalem Bay, and I know that I met Wes Baterson
when I wa a child, but I have no real memory of that.  I do have a clear
memory of meeting Alex Walker in a little room in the Tillamook museum on
March 21, 1969.  I still have the signed copy of his "Bird-watching in
Tillamook County" booklet.  The ornithological history of this region is
quite impressive, as is the museum.

-- 
Alan Contreras
EUGENE, OREGON

McCain/Obama in 08 !

acontrer at mindspring.com
www.OREGONREVIEW.BLOGSPOT.COM  Commentary
www.CONTRERASBIRDS.BLOGSPOT.COM  Current Bird Photos

> From: Floyd Schrock <fschrock at gmail.com>
> Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 00:40:30 -0800
> To: DAVID IRONS <llsdirons at msn.com>
> Cc: David Fix <dfxjcp at humboldt1.com>, obol <obol at lists.orst.edu>
> Subject: Re: [obol] FW: ODFW Retirees - Wes Batterson News Article
> 
> One benefit for a birder of not having been born recently is having had
> opportunities to meet some of Oregon's "historic" birders.  One of my early
> memories is of a "long" drive from Yamhill Co. to Portland in about 1953 to
> attend a special Wesley Batterson presentation of some of his ornithological
> experiences.  My father was a friend of Mr. Batterson, and also of Alex
> Walker, and I remember being in the back rooms of the Pioneer Museum in
> Tillamook where Alex was skinning and mounting a bird (a duck, as I recall)
> for display in one of his beautiful dioramas.  I strongly encourage any
> birder who has not been up to the second floor of the Pioneer Museum to
> visit that hallowed place (in my memory, at least) at your first
> opportunity.
> 
> My father, like Mr. Batterson and Mr. Walker, had permits to collect eggs
> back in those days, and occasionally exchanged duplicate sets with them.  I
> have photos of a Western Flycatcher egg set in my dad's collection that came
> from Wesley Batterson.  A photo of the catalog card that Mr. Batterson
> prepared, and another of the eggs themselves, can be seen at <
> http://empids.blogspot.com/ >.
> 
> Floyd Schrock
> McMinnville, OR
> 
> On Jan 31, 2008 11:00 PM, DAVID IRONS <llsdirons at msn.com> wrote:
> 
>>  Greetings All,
>> 
>> My mom forwarded this note to me today.  Wes Batterson is a name that will
>> only be familiar to a few on this list.  He will always be remembered by
>> those of us who often visited the Pioneer Museum in Tillamook.  In their
>> bird collection were two mounted LEAST TERNS that had been collected at the
>> mouth of the Columbia R. in 1964.  The collector, one Wes Batterson, brought
>> the specimens to Alex Walker the longtime curator of the museum.  Walker was
>> an eminent ornithologist and collector in his own right and he
>> single-handedly built a incredible collection for this modest local museum.
>> I have not been into the museum in many years, so I don't know if that
>> collection remains intact.
>> 
>> I had no idea that Wes Batterson was still alive, and unknowingly I drove
>> by his home many times.  In my youth, I birded Nehalem Bay from the end of
>> Bayside Gardens Rd. dozens of times. Based on the anecdotes in this
>> obituary, I wish I would have stopped by and made his acquaintance.  Pasted
>> below are the details of the accepted record of these birds as it appears on
>> the OBRC website.
>> 
>> 074-64-04 Fort Stevens, mouth of the Columbia River, Clatsop Co., 2 males
>> collected on 21 May 1964. Specimens in Tillamook Co. Pioneer Museum, In:
>> *Murrelet * 53: 52, 1972. First verified Oregon record.
>> 
>> Dave Irons
>> Eugene, OR
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> ------------------------------
>> From: judie310hansen at comcast.net
>> Subject: Fwd: ODFW Retirees - Wes Batterson News Article
>> Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2008 20:09:54 -0800
>> To: llsdirons at msn.com
>> 
>> Did you know him?  I remember Jim Olson talking about him.  Love, Mom
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> We thought the following article in this weeks Tillamook Headlight Herald
>> regarding Wes Batterson would be of interest to the group:
>> **
>> - Kay
>> *
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> --------------------------------------------------
>> *
>> *Wildlife conservation pioneer dies
>> 
>> By Elizabeth A. Phillips*
>> Headlight-Herald Staff
>> 
>> NEHALEM - Wayne Smith remembers going to neighbor Wesley Batterson's home
>> on Bayside Gardens Road as a child to see Batterson's collection of geese,
>> ducks and other birds.
>> 
>> "He was just a heck of a good guy," Smith said, recalling camping and
>> hunting trips with his longtime neighbor.
>> 
>> Batterson died Jan. 24 at his home on Bayside Gardens Road. He was 98.
>> 
>> Fay Reid, Batterson's daughter, remembered families from all over north
>> Tillamook County coming to her family home to see her father's birds.
>> 
>> "Everybody growing up here got to do that," she said.
>> 
>> Batterson was born at his family's farm near Mohler in 1909. The farm,
>> later sold to Southern Pacific Railroad, is now known as Batterson Station,
>> or simply Batterson.
>> 
>> "His family has a history here," said Carol Povey, a longtime Nehalem
>> resident.
>> 
>> And Wesley Batterson, the only one of five children in his family to live
>> almost his entire life in Tillamook County, was well known in the area. He
>> began working for the Oregon State Game Commission, which later became the
>> Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, in the early 1940s. While he had no
>> formal education in wildlife biology, he quickly became one of the most
>> influential wildlife biologists in the state.
>> 
>> "He did a lot of pioneering work with breeding of game birds," said Herman
>> Biederbeck, district wildlife biologist with the department. "He was a true
>> pioneer in Oregon wildlife conservation."
>> 
>> The Tillamook Pioneer Museum is filled with Batterson's taxidermy,
>> wildlife photographs and hand-carved decoys, and Oregon State University
>> also has a collection of his work.
>> 
>> Batterson bred several varieties of game birds, including Black Brant
>> geese, many species of pheasants and ducks. He also traveled to Hawaii in
>> 1960 to lead a breeding program for the endangered Nene goose. Batterson
>> wrote several articles and books about his work.
>> 
>> He won countless awards for his work in conservation, including Oregon
>> State Employee of the Year in 1974 and the Kiwanis Award in Conservation in
>> 1965.
>> 
>> What his family remembers most about Batterson, though, was not his work
>> in wildlife conservation, but his vibrancy and dedication to his family.
>> 
>> "Until my girlfriend told me how famous my father was, I didn't know it,"
>> Reid said. "He was just my dad."
>> 
>> Batterson and his wife, Wanda, had three children, Gene, Leroy and Fay.
>> Wanda and Leroy Batterson died.
>> 
>> The family lived on Bayside Gardens Road near Nehalem for all but a few
>> years of Fay's life, she said. Gene and Fay remember their father making up
>> songs and singing while playing his ukulele, guitar or accordion. Gene
>> remembered going on hunting and fishing trips with his father.
>> 
>> "I had a fun time growing up," Gene said. "We never had pet dogs or cats.
>> But we had pet owls, pet hawks."
>> 
>> Batterson, almost everybody agreed, was always busy.
>> 
>> He rehabilitated injured birds, stuffed wildlife he found in the woods
>> that could not be saved, and was an avid hunter and fisherman.
>> 
>> Wil Reid, Batterson's grandson, said he also remembered hunting and
>> fishing trips with his grandfather.
>> 
>> "He knew exactly where to fish and exactly what lure to put on," Wil Reid
>> said. "It was intuitive to him."
>> 
>> And he remembered how vibrant his grandfather was.
>> 
>> "He was always on the go," Wil Reid said.
>> 
>> Indeed, a framed photograph in Fay Reid's home, which she shared with her
>> father for the last year of his life, showed him on top of Neah-Kah-Nie
>> Mountain when he was 90 years old. It was one of three times he climbed the
>> mountain that year, she said.
>> 
>> Marcy Russo, owner of the Big Wave Café in Manzanita, remembered Wesley
>> Batterson as a longtime regular at her restaurant.
>> 
>> "He was incredibly generous," she said, remembering that she told
>> Batterson how she wished she had a garden but simply did not have time.
>> Batterson told her she could have it at his house, but she told him she
>> didn't have time to tend it. So he planted the garden, tended it and brought
>> her the vegetables.
>> 
>> "He was a sweet man," Russo said with tears in her eyes.
>> 
>> Wesley Batterson, son, father, friend and conservationist, will be missed,
>> everybody agreed.
>> 
>> "He was outstanding," Povey said. "We were lucky to have him in this
>> community."
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> ------------------------------
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> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Floyd Schrock
> McMinnville, Oregon  USA
> http:\\empids.blogspot.com
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