page_title: Central Oregon Coast Range
section_title: Flora and fauna
hierarchical_section_title: Central Oregon Coast Range / Flora and fauna
caption_attribution_description: A bucked spruce
context_page_description: The Central Oregon Coast Range is the middle section of the Oregon Coast Range, in the Pacific Coast Ranges physiographic region, and located in the west-central portion of the state of Oregon, United States roughly between the Salmon River and the Umpqua River and the Willamette Valley and the Pacific Ocean. This approximately 90-mile long mountain range contains mountains as high as 4,097 feet for Marys Peak.
  Portions of the range are inside the Siuslaw National Forest and three wilderness areas exist as well: Drift Creek Wilderness, Cummins Creek Wilderness and Rock Creek Wilderness.
context_section_description: The Oregon Coast Range is home to over 50 mammals, 100 species of birds, and nearly 30 reptiles or amphibians that spent a significant portion of their life cycle in the mountains.
  Birds living in the Central Coast Range include a variety of smaller and larger bird species. These include winter wrens, chestnut-backed chickadees, red-breasted nuthatches, varied thrushes, several swallow species, red crossbills, evening grosbeaks, brown creepers, olive-sided flycatchers, Hammond's flycatchers, gray jays, western wood-pewees, and western tanagers. Some of the larger species in the range include the red-breasted sapsucker, common ravens, peregrine falcons, the pileated woodpecker, turkey vultures, wood duck, common nighthawks, and the red-tailed hawk. Birds in lower numbers include Vaux's swifts, the endangered spotted owl, bald eagles, the downy woodpecker, hairy woodpeckers, the pine siskin, the hermit warbler, Pacific-slope flycatchers, golden-crowned kinglets, and ruffed grouse. One of the more common avian wildlife is the American dipper, which live mainly near rivers and streams. These birds build nests from six to nine inches (229 mm)  in diameter out of moss.
  The central coast range is also home to some larger animals such as deer, elk, bobcat, and bear. Bear are black bear while deer are mule and black-tailed deer species. Some additional mammals are mountain beaver, coyote, mink, river otter, mountain lion, the common raccoon, common porcupine, brush rabbit, and skunk.
  The coast range is inhabited by eleven different species of bats, and they account for nearly 20% of all the mammal species in the range. Species of bats include the Yuma myotis, silver-haired bat, big brown bat, hoary bat, and the long-eared myotis. Other mammals living in the central range include beavers, creeping voles, long-tailed voles, vagrant shrews, deer mice, Pacific jumping mice, western pocket gopher, marsh shrew, shrew-mole, coast-mole, ermine, northern flying squirrel, and Townsend's chipmunk among others.
  Amphibians include, but are not limited to, rough-skinned newts, northwestern salamanders, western red-backed salamander, Coastal tailed frog, Coastal giant salamander, red-legged frog, southern torrent salamander, and Ensatina. Additional species include northwestern garter snake, northern alligator lizard, Pacific tree frog, western pond turtles, gopher snake, ringneck snake, and western fence lizards. Fish species in the Central Coast Range include chinook salmon, steelhead, cutthroat trout, and the threatened species coho salmon.
  A large section of the range is covered by the Siuslaw National Forest. Most of the range is forested and mainly within the western hemlock vegetation zone with the overstory of the forest dominated by red alder, western hemlock, western cedar, bigleaf maple, and Douglas-fir trees. In these forested sections,  trees include Sitka spruce, western redcedar, Douglas-fir, and western hemlock. The understory of the forest areas contain vine maple, Oregon grape, salmonberry, huckleberry, and sword fern to name a few. Other plants that grow in the region are Pacific madrone, salmonberry, Pacific silver fir, bracken fern, manzanita, thimble-berry, Pacific dogwood, bitter cherry, snowberry, some rose species, and cascara. Additionally, various grass, sedge, and moss species are some of the other plant life growing in the mountain range.
  Arthropods include various spiders, millipedes, collembolans, beetles, and a variety of centipedes.
caption: A Sitka spruce tree logged near Newport in 1918.
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