Oregon initially banned drone use over state parks but now allows them at 20 sites, including 11 on coast

By STEVE LUNDEBERG/Columbia Insight

Banned at Oregon state parks last spring, drones are back in the air at 20 locations, including 11 on the coast, following a set of exceptions that went into effect Aug. 8.

The prohibition on unmanned aircraft systems in state parks went into effect May 1. At the time it was announced, however, plans were already in the works to reopen some locations to drone flights, according to Lauren Wirtis, communications manager for the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department.

More exceptions are possible.

The 2021 Legislature tasked the Oregon Parks and Recreation Commission with coming up with regulations for drones on the more than 250 properties managed by the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department.

“Our direction was to take a balanced approach, to develop rules that are safe and feasible and allow drone use where it’s less likely to have negative impact on other visitors, wildlife or cultural and natural resources,” says Wirtis. “This is the first phase of allowing that kind of use.”

The exact numbers of drones and drone pilots in Oregon aren’t known, but they’re well into the thousands.

More than 4,000 people in the state hold a Part 107 license from the Federal Aviation Administration, necessary to fly for professional or commercial purposes. Countless others fly legally without a license as recreationists.

Prior to May 1, the only official regulations drone pilots had to follow in state park, which include the 362-mile ocean shoreline, were the ones enacted by the FAA, the agency charged with governing U.S. airspace.

In the dozen or so years since both drone use and camera-equipped models became commonplace, some park managers had issued temporary rules on drone operations, sometimes in specific parts of a park, sometimes for a whole park. Managers were also within their power to ask a pilot to cease operations, such as in the wake of a complaint or concern about noise, safety, privacy or wildlife well-being.

Since May 1, no one could legally launch a drone on state park property, except for pilots who were granted a $100 permit to fly for research activities, commercial pursuits and other special uses.

Permits are considered by the state agency on a case-by-case basis. But as of August, any drone pilot can take to the skies at 20 state parks, including 11 along the coast.

In Lincoln County, the parks or recreation sites with no restrictions on drones include Lost Creek and W.B. Nelson near Newport and Driftwood Beach north of Waldport. The others on the coast are Bob Straub State Park, Sunset Beach and Manhattan Beach recreation sites, Prichard State, Hoffman Memorial, Seven Devils and Ophir State waysides.

Two of the 20 locations are categorized by the department as state parks, which tend to be larger than waysides, recreation sites, recreation areas and natural areas and may have a greater suite of facilities, including visitor centers, campgrounds and hiking trails.

One is Bob Straub State Park near Pacific City and the other is L.L. Stub Stewart State Park northwest of Portland, near Buxton.

“The special use permit is really for flying a drone in a park that’s not on that list,” says Wirtis. “With an evaluation process, it can make it easier to say yes to drone operations within specific parameters: where a pilot is allowed to operate, the time of day, time of year, etc. Also, with a permit we know who’s doing the operating so if we get a complaint or a ranger sees something, we know who the pilot is. It’s a controlled situation not a broad allowance, but with flexibility.”

The ocean beach — the statutory vegetation line to extreme low tide — falls under state park rules.

“If you are outside of OPRD property, you can operate a drone, including flying it over park property,” Wirtis said. “Even in this case, federal FAA laws still apply as does the requirement not to harass people or wildlife. However, within a park/wayside/scenic area and the ocean shore, you can only operate a drone if it is listed as one of the parks where it is allowed or the operator obtains a special use permit.”

In Washington, operating a drone in any state park is prohibited without a permit, which pilots must apply for a minimum of 60 days before they want to fly.

In Idaho, the approach is similar to how things were in Oregon prior to May 1 — operators can fly a drone on state park property until a park official asks them not to, or asks them to pick a different day, hour and/or location.

Drones and birds

One factor that’s been a big part of the drone discussions in Oregon is birds.

Shelby Lawson, an Oregon State University wildlife biologist who studies the responses predators elicit in nesting red-wing blackbirds, says it’s easy for them and other birds to perceive the shadow of a drone as signaling a threat.

“That’s part of how they detect approaching birds of prey, from their shadows and silhouettes,” says Lawson. “If they think a drone is a hawk, they might be inclined to opt for self-preservation and flee the nest, putting their eggs at risk from another predator, like a jay or squirrel, that they could fight off if they were there.”

There’s also the possibility, says cinematographer and licensed drone pilot Darryl Lai, of an in-flight bird’s curiosity getting the better of it to the point of aggression that would probably be ill spent.

“I’ve seen them get pretty close [to drones] and give a look that says ‘What exactly are you?’ ” says Lai, whose credits include Saving Atlantis, a documentary about efforts to protect coral reefs, and The Wonder and the Worry, which explores the career of former National Geographic editor in chief Chris Johns. “Thankfully, I have not seen an attack in person. It does happen but not without doing damage to a bird before the drone goes down.”

David Bird, a pioneer and global leader in employing drones for wildlife research, including egg counts in raptor nests, says he’s experienced two occasions of a bird striking a drone and both involved an osprey.

“They are very aggressive over their nests,” says Bird, professor emeritus of wildlife biology at McGill University in Montreal.

Bird, who has been working with drones for 15 years and whose interest runs so deep that he founded the academic journal Drone Systems and Applications, is strongly in favor of Oregon’s move to regulate their use at state parks.

“I’m like a normal person when it comes to being at a park,” he says. “If I’m trying to enjoy pristine wilderness, in a canoe on a lake or on a beach or on the side of a cliff, and I hear a drone fly over I find it annoying. It’s an invasion of privacy and I don’t like it.”

Lai, an avid technologist and flyer who was building “quadcopters,” as drones were once known, long before they became widely available on a commercial basis, says he appreciates the spirit in which the state park rules have been created.

“More safety is a good thing,” he says. “I don’t see noise as being much of an issue anymore — they’re pretty quiet now — and while privacy is an understandable concern, I think most people have gotten used to the idea that some kind of camera is on them almost everywhere they go in public. But if the rules encourage greater safety in drone operation, I can definitely get behind that.”

There are limits, however, on the overall clout the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department can bring to the drone table.

The big one, Lai notes, is that the regulations only cover where someone can stand to launch an aircraft.

That is, since the FAA, not the state, has jurisdiction over airspace, parks officials can’t prevent someone from flying over a park if the flight begins outside its boundaries and follows federal guidelines.

“Our intent has always been to create a balanced approach to drone use, having places where people can go to do this activity,” says Wirtis. “We didn’t want to ban all use at 250 parks while we evaluated each one, which could take a really long time.

“The real theme for us is adaptive management. Birds have nesting seasons, and some parks have a seasonality to their allowed use, or really specific areas. We want to really slowly turn the dial up on allowed uses in ways that don’t end up harming natural and cultural resources. Without the really specific rules that we now have, the result of a very thoughtful approach, it’s hard to do education and enforcement.”

• Steve Lundeberg is a former newspaper reporter and editor in Albany and currently a research writer at Oregon State University.
• Columbia Insight is a Hood River-based nonprofit news organization whose mission is to inform and inspire readers with original, balanced journalism about environmental issues affecting the Pacific Northwest.