Outdoor Digest.

Byline: The Register-Guard

MUSHROOMING WORKSHOP OFFERED: Mt. Pisgah Arboretum will conduct an intensive, two-day Mushrooming for Beginners Workshop this weekend. Maggie Rogers teaches the class, which runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, and offers instruction on field identification, ecology, picking, cooking, folklore and more. Workshop registration is $60, with a $10 discount for Arboretum members. Pre-registration: 747-1504.

BOSNIAN BIKE ADVENTURER RETURNS: Willie Weir tells compelling stories of his bicycle adventure to Sarajevo, Bosnia, Slovenia and Albania while U.N. troop trucks and tanks rolled along Bosnia's highways. So compelling, in fact, that the University of Oregon Outdoor Program is bringing him back for a third presentation of his program, "Love, War and the Bicycle: A Balkans Adventure." Weir's free talk is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Wednesday in Room 100 of Willamette Hall on campus.

WILLAMALANE OFFERS 'TRAIL TALK': The lives of native Americans, explorers and early settlers will be the subject of a free "trail talk" offered Friday by Willamalane Park and Recreaton District. The "Ten Thousand Years in a Nutshell" program will touch on the lives of Kalapuya Indians, Hudson Bay Company trappers and settlers looking for new homes, all in the historic setting of the Dorris Ranch, Oregon's oldest working filbert farm. The program begins at 7 p.m. at Tomseth House at Dorris Ranch, south Second and Dorris streets in Springfield.

WILDLIFE COMMISSION MEETS: The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission will meet in public session today and Friday in Portland to learn about financial implications of wolves coming to Oregon, as well as to consider a permanent ban on the importation of live deer and elk. The wolf workshop begins at 1 o'clock today at Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife headquarters, 2501 S.W. First Ave. The fourth in a series of informational sessions on issues related to wolf management, the workshop will focus on potential fiscal impacts. Other agenda items will be considered starting at 8 a.m., Friday. Public testimony will be taken on a new "Native Fish Conversation Policy," a ban on the importation of live cervids (deer and elk) and some parts of cervid carcasses, and on the 2003 sturgeon season options. For additional information, see the agency's Website at: www.dfw.state.or.us

CHETCO CLOSED TO ANGLING: The Chetco River upstream of the Highway 101 bridge is now closed to salmon and steelhead angling. Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife Director Lindsay Ball signed an emergency order implementing the closure on Friday. He said the move was necessary to protect salmon "stacking up" in the tidewater area because of low water flows. Hundreds of chinook are kegged up in two holes on the Chetco River and the fish are extremely vulnerable to legal and illegal fishing, according to ODFW biologist Todd Confer in Gold Beach. The closure will remain in effect until a significant rainfall allows the fish to move further upriver.

WASHINGTON COAST CLAMMED-UP TIGHT: Washington will have no winter razor clam season, and even digging next spring is questionable, according to shellfish biologists for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. The reason: Levels of domoic acid, a naturally occurring marine toxin, are rising in clams and far exceed the threshold safe for human consumption.

Clams testing higher than the federal standard of 20 parts per million of marine toxin are not safe to eat. Testing in late October found 188 ppm at Mocrocks, 185 ppm at Copalis, 132 ppm at Long Beach and 113 ppm at Twin Harbors. The same problem has forced a clamming closure on northern Oregon beaches.

"Judging from past experience, it could take a number of months for these toxin levels to subside,'' said Dan Ayres, shellfish biologist. In 1998, the last time domoic acid levels climbed so high, the clam season was closed for a year.