State Reports 105 



Cormorants. Baird's Cormorant is found on all three rocks in isolated and 

 more inaccessible spots, and is the least common; there is a fourth species 

 of Cormorant found here, but it was not positively identified. There are 

 two Tufted Puffin rookeries on the rock to the right and the north slope 

 of the middle one, and also a few on the northern slope of the third rock. 

 There are two species of Petrels found, the Forked-tail and Leach's, but 

 it was impossible to estimate their numbers or that of the Puffins; 

 however, the guano was honey-combed with their burrows. The Western 

 Gull is quite numerous, between three and five thousand individuals; they 

 breed on all of the rocks. Pigeon Guillemots, not over fifteen or twenty 

 pairs, and a few Black Oyster-catchers, were found. 



''These rocks were visited in 1901 and 1903, and both times considerable 

 difficulty was experienced in getting out to them, as it was necessary to 

 launch a boat through the surf. We waited two weeks each time before a 

 sufficiently calm day arrived to attempt the breakers, although a little later in 

 the year, the storekeeper at Netarts P.O. assured us that the breakers often 

 subsided entirely, and people camping along the beach (summer resort 

 people from Tillamook and neighboring small cities) went out in small 

 boats to see the birds and sea-lions, a large rookery of the latter inhabiting 

 the smaller rocks. These people no doubt do some damage to the birds, as 

 firearms are common, and they make a practice of shooting at the sea-lions 

 from the blufifs on the shore; yet at this season, which is in the latter part 

 of July and August, the birds have finished their breeding, and the young 

 are fully grown. In the earlier part of the season, from June i to July 10, 

 there are but few outside people on the beach, and the breakers are too 

 heavy to allow any but the most determined and well -equipped to reach 

 the rocks from the shore, so not a great deal of danger is to be appre- 

 hended from this source. 



"There is, however, one great menace to the bird life present, which 

 ought to be checked. The seagoing tug 'Vosberg,' of Tillamook, has been 

 in the habit, in the past two years, of running Sunday excursion parties out 

 to the rocks. These parties comprise most of the able-bodied male citizens 

 of the town, and they go armed to the teeth, the ostensible and advertised 

 object of the excursion being a sea-lion hunt, or to capture one alive. We 

 witnessed the arrival of such an excursion, while waiting on the shore for 

 an opportunity to get out; the tug steamed very slowly in and out among 

 the rocks, while the passengers practiced marksmanship on the birds sitting 

 on the clififs. That they did great damage was attested the following day 

 when, along the beach, the surf line was strewn with the dead bodies of 

 Cormorants and Murres, mainly the former. This is a practice that it will 

 probably be difficult to check, as the town is isolated, being reached only by 

 weekly steamboat and stage lines, and this is doubtless one of their most 

 popular and exciting diversions in the summer. 



