» Man dies in plane crash

By Amy Moss Strong
Editor
Thursday, January 21, 2010 | No comments posted. David S. Pitkin, the Langlois man who died in a plane crash Sunday afternoon while doing a migratory bird count along the coast, was an expert in his field, according to those who knew him.

According to reports, Pitkin, 49, a former employee with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service who was working as a contractor for the agency, was reported missing Sunday afternoon, when he and the pilot, Vernon Ray Bentley, 52, a USFWS employee from Blodgett, didn’t arrive in Corvallis.

Searchers found the wrecked plane Monday morning, said Benton County Sheriff Diana Benton.

The two men were involved in the agency’s annual midwinter count of migratory birds, said David Patte, an agency spokesman. They had been surveying estuaries for ducks and geese, according to Dave Ledig, South Coast manager for the Bandon Marsh and Oregon Islands Wildlife Refuges. The agency has been using planes to survey for birds for 90 years and it’s the first crash for the program, according to Dave Patte, USFWS spokesman.

Pitkin worked for the agency for many years as a biologist for the Oregon Coast National Wildlife Refuge Complex, which included the Bandon Marsh Complex, Ledig said. He had lived just north of Langlois for the past couple of years with his partner, Morgan McKenzie. He began doing contract work for the agency when he retired from the service in May 2007.

Pitkin flew as a passenger on a regular basis doing bird surveys around Bandon and up and down the Oregon Coast. His father lives in Utah, Ledig said, and Pitkin had no children. The Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board will try to determine the cause of the crash.

“He was a great biologist and a good friend,” Ledig said. “Ray also was a great person.”

Ledig has been a passenger on the same survey in the past. Pitkin contracted with various groups and also worked on the South Coast as a crew member on a number of archeological digs, including the study of weir technology in Bandon. He worked in the Brookings area at Harris Beach State Park and did aerial surveys on bald eagles.

Pitkin also worked as a rancher in the New Lake area with his partner’s family on the McKenzie ranch.

“I would call Dave one of the best naturalists and biologists I’ve worked with and he also was an incredible photographer,” Ledig said. “He had a real eye for capturing wildlife within their habitat, which is hard.”

Ledig said Pitkin loved to fly, though he was not a pilot. He was involved in many seabird counts along the coast and his work was important to the conservation of a number of species, including Aleutian cackling geese and peregrine falcons. “He also was a very good boat operator and did a lot of wildlife surveys in the ocean, which is another skill set he carried with him,” Ledig said. “He was very competent in all he did.”

Services for Pitkin have not yet been announced.