NORTH BEND — The question was simple: Why?

A panel of 10 local leaders and a handful of audience members talked about wave energy and marine reserves — primarily about reserves — during a visit from Gov. Ted Kulongoski’s chief of staff, Chip Terhune, at the North Bend Public Library on Friday. It was a follow-up meeting from one coastal fishermen had with Kulongoski in November.

Most of the 50 or so folks in the audience just listened.

So did Terhune.

He took a lot of notes, asked a few questions. Made a few statements.

And everyone got to enjoy a little bit of fresh Dungeness crab.

Terhune was on the last stop of a three-day swing down the coast to listen to communities’ concerns about closing off areas of the ocean for either marine reserves or wave-energy generating buoys.

“I’m here to listen. Give me an earful,” he said.

Terhune said a lot of folks look at the development in Central Oregon as the symbol of a lot of change. Similar change could be coming to the coast, and coastal residents must decide what they want their communities to look like in 10 or 15 years — a future that may include marine reserves and wave energy buoys bobbing off the coast.

Oregon Dungeness Crab Commission Administrator Nick Furman concentrated on commenting on the health of local fisheries. But first he noted he found it ironic that locals were packed into a meeting room while those who could be most affected by the changes — commercial crabbers — were absent, taking advantage of the nice weather to go out on the ocean to work.

“I take issue with some of the tactics used to influence you on your public swing,” Furman said, noting that several comments were sent around by e-mail to encourage folks to attend the meetings in support of marine reserves. “This is a real effort to influence your opinion.”

In reality, he said, Oregon’s fisheries are in pretty darned good shape. The pink shrimp fishery recently was labeled as a sustainable fishery by the Marine Stewardship Council and the Oregon crab fishery likely will be, too.

“I think our coastal waters are healthier than they’ve ever been,” he said.

And before Terhune could open the meeting to general comments from the audience, Furman tried some personal influence of his own: He passed around a can of fresh-picked Dungeness crab for the panelists and audience members to sample.

Many of the other panelists echoed his comments.

Wayne Butler, who owns Prowler Charters in Bandon, said marine reserves don’t fit easily into already well-managed fisheries.

For instance, he said, if 30 percent of the fishing grounds are closed to protect one species of fish, all of the existing fishermen will be forced to fish in the remaining 70 percent of fishing grounds. That would put more pressure on the one species — and all fish — that also lives outside of the marine reserve. Under current fisheries management, quotas or bag limits could be reduced to diminish fishing efforts on fish outside of the reserves.

Furthermore, there already are existing closed areas to protect some rockfish species, such as yelloweye.

“Why?” Butler asked of the need for reserves. “What is the benefit?”

Terhune opened the meeting to general public comments and prefaced that part of the meeting with one observation.

“The passion I’ve heard here, the knowledge I’ve heard here is impressive,” he said.

The sole supporter for marine reserves was Bandon resident Bill Russell, who’s been involved with the Shoreline Education for Awareness.

Russell said he’d heard denials of the science about the effectiveness of reserves from panel members.

“The fact that they don’t work is not true,” Russell said.

He noted that the Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans, a joint research program of four Oregon and California universities, has done studies of marine reserves and also collected information about marine reserves around the world. PISCO scientists found that there is significant diversity of marine species, an increase in the numbers of animals and spillover effects from marine reserves, he said.

Reserves are a good plan he said, noting that salmon no longer are as abundant as Coquille Indian Tribe member Tom Younker mentioned earlier in the meeting.

“Those aren’t marine issues, sir,” commercial salmon troller Rick Goche countered when he spoke. “Those are freshwater (issues).”

Most of the salmon problems come from the fish’s life cycle on land, when they’re in the river and subject to disease and parasites, Goche said.

Friday wasn’t the end of the discussion. People wishing to make written comments are encouraged to send those to Gov. Ted Kulongoski, 160 State Capitol, 900 Court St., Salem, OR 97301-4047; or by e-mail to representative.citizen@state.or.us.