Bit of coastal forest is set aside.

Byline: LARRY BACON The Register-Guard

YACHATS - Tenmile Creek meanders through about 25 acres of meadows on a newly protected 98-acre parcel, changing its course and exposing new gravel bars at a whim during winter runoffs.

A mixture of magnificent trees - cedar, spruce, hemlock and a scattering of Douglas fir - rise on the hillsides flanking the stream.

Much of the land about seven miles upstream from where the creek runs into the Pacific Ocean south of Yachats contains old-growth or mature trees that provide homes for marbled murrelets and spotted owls - both protected under the federal Endangered Species Act. Bear, cougar, elk and other wildlife make their home along the stream, which has natural runs of salmon and steelhead.

Hans Radtke, a work-at-home economist who lives a bit farther downstream, bought the 98 acres in 1980 as an investment for him and his wife, Karin, and his brother and sister-in-law, Kurt and Jane Radtke of Portland.

Now the Radtkes have sold the land for $405,000 to the Pine Tree Conservation Society, a New York-based conservation group, which will lease it to the National Audubon Society to manage under a program designed to protect important conservation areas in the 16,000-acre Tenmile Creek basin.

Radtke said 20 percent of the proceeds from the sale, more than $80,000, will be donated to the Trust for Public Land to help it conserve outstanding natural areas across the country. The trust brokered the deal with the Audubon Society.

Radtke, 61, is chairman of the federal Pacific Fishery Management Council, which oversees management of fisheries along the entire West Coast. He said he and his family are pleased with the transaction because it meets their needs, helps protect the natural values of the basin, and assures that the land they have grown to love will remain as it is now.

"My wife said she does not want to see all these beautiful old cedars coming down the road" on log trucks, he said, as he walked along a gravel bar flanked by giant trees and old snags dripping with moss.

Showing some visitors around the property, he pointed out logs in the creek that were put there by helicopter in 1997 as part of a fish habitat improvement project. He said they provide the quiet pools of water young fish need.

He pointed up the hillside toward a giant old-growth Douglas fir. "There's one tree up there I measured 9 1/2 feet in diameter," he said. "It's probably 200 feet high. My estimate is 500 to 600 years old."

The groundwork for the land sale was laid by Paul Engelmeyer, the Audubon Society's Northwest policy analyst for salmon, who manages the 116-acre Tenmile Creek Audubon Society Sanctuary. The sanctuary is about two miles downstream from the Radtke property.

The acquisition of the Radtke property brings to 1,350 acres the amount of land in the area set aside for conservation purposes.

About 1,100 acres was acquired by the Siuslaw National Forest using federal land and water conservation money. It's open to the public. The other 250 acres - the sanctuary, the Radtke property and 40 acres owned by a private individual - will be managed by the Audubon Society and be open on an invitation-only basis.

Engelmeyer said the Friends of the Tenmile Creek Sanctuary, which includes many residents of the central coast like himself, pushed for the acquisition of the important pieces. He said the Tenmile Creek basin is an important conservation area because so much of it is mature forestland that's home to a wide variety of wildlife.

The creek drainage is also part of a 33,000-acre expanse of forestland that includes the Cummins Creek and Rock Creek wilderness areas - the largest piece of coastal temperate rain forest in the contiguous 48 states, he said.

It's a unique area, he said, and the acquisition of the Radtke property will help keep it that way. Work continues on acquiring more land, he said, including 80 acres near the mouth of Tenmile Creek as well as some conservation easements on private lands.

CAPTION(S):

BRIAN DAVIES / The Register-Guard Hans Radtke (left) sold acreage on Tenmile Creek to a conservation society with help from Paul Engelmeyer of the Audubon Society, which will manage the land.