Tag Archives: critters

No, Bob, coyotes are not a Seattle public safety problem

Posted on by
38

This coyote stole someone’s shoe in September in Volunteer Park — before giving it back. Thanks to that temporarily shoe-less neighbor for sharing the picture.

Seattle City Council public safety chair Bob Kettle has more than street disorder and public drug use on his mind.

The council member representing downtown, Magnolia, and Queen Anne also wants to protect you from your neighborhood coyotes.

“Like many of you, I have personally dealt with menacing coyotes when I’ve walked through Queen Anne, I am concerned to see that the coyote issue has escalated beyond being a nuisance to the point that one of our neighbors was attacked while protecting her dog,” Kettle said in a message to constituents earlier this month. “I have raised this issue of both public safety and public health to the Mayor’s Office, to FAS, and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. I am determined to mitigate this issue before a tragic incident occurs.”

Kettle says his office is working on a solution but the city “does not have a mechanism for dealing with animals who are in greater numbers and no longer afraid of humans.”

Kettle’s call for action comes following an October incident in which a woman was bit in her backyard trying to save her dog during a coyote attack.

Coyotes will occasionally make the news on Capitol Hill including an increase in sightings this summer around Volunteer Park. Continue reading →

Pikes/Pines | A vote for Barred Owls, Capitol Hill ambassadors to the wild

Posted on by
1

A Barred Owl looking blending in beautifully in the bigleaf maples in the background (Image: Brendan McGarry)

If you have seen an owl on Capitol Hill in the past decade, there is a strong chance it was a Barred Owl (Strix varia). In our highly altered habitat melange full of rodents and other gulpable creatures, they reign supreme. These days, almost no other owl species are regularly seen on Capitol Hill.

I think Barred Owls are cool, but they also happen to be a sticky subject. They are recent arrivals, colonizers from Eastern North America. People paying attention to owl populations can agree that until the late 1990s, there were very few occurrences of Barred Owls in Washington State.

I recall a late 90s trip to Bainbridge Island to see a “for sure” pair of these owls during a 24-hour birding extravaganza. At that point in time it was worth the late night ferry trip even when our next destination was the mountains near Cle Elum. Today, that would be an absurd proposition (I suppose it always was but you get what I mean). I could probably choose any park on the Hill of decent size and adequate habitat and summon a Barred Owl with my moderately good impression of their barking,“Who cooks for you, who cooks for you owl” call.

Continue reading →

CHS Pics | Cal Anderson Park is also having a Rat Summer

Posted on by
3

While the city and community organizations work to put on events like this past weekend’s Capitol Hill Garage Sale Day to help activate the park, Cal Anderson seems to stay pretty activated on its own, thanks very much.

Recently, artistic rodent creations popped up in the park in a kind of rat art scavenger hunt.

Rat summer, indeed. Continue reading →

Pikes/Pines | The reliable Butter Butts are back on Capitol Hill

Posted on by

A “Myrtle” Yellow-rumped Warbler in winter plumage (Image: Brendan McGarry)

This time of year I am always listening for the next new arrival, no matter where I am. A surprise visitor is certainly more likely during spring migration — and, because I enjoy seeing common birds filter in and out as they pass by or arrive to breed. I have written about spring migration a lot on Pikes/Pines, but that’s because it is a source of renewed excitement about birds and phenology.

The same way we get excited about flowers blooming, seeing feathered friends arrive is a serious source of happiness and curiosity. Never is the movement of birds exactly the same each year because weather and other factors are never exactly the same – even with the help of Bird Cast and years of experience can’t you totally predict what birds show up (but boy, is it fun when you find that you’ve hit the mark). However, there’s always things you expect, like for instance Yellow-rumped Warblers (Setophaga coronata). Continue reading →

Pikes/Pines | What your feathered friends need on a below freezing Capitol Hill

Posted on by

A Spotted Towhee looking out from food and shelter on a frozen day. (Image: Brendan McGarry)

We might not be able to translate Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs directly to our fellow creatures – afterall we don’t know how much things like belonging matter to a Northern Flicker. But it goes without saying that our feathered neighbors on the Hill all need food, water, and shelter above all else.

With some of the lowest temperatures in decades upon us, it’s a good time to remember what it takes for birds on the Hill to survive. Wild and free they may be and the list might seem simple, but boy, it’s real out there.

For birds, freshwater can be the hardest thing for birds to find when the temperature dips. What collects in a small indentation on a sidewalk or light morning dew can provide enough for a bird like a Song Sparrow, but freezing weather frequently takes this access away. If you want to help birds and other animals during periods of cold weather – give them access to water and find a way to keep it from freezing. Continue reading →

Puppies, live music, and beer — Boneyard indoor dog park and tavern coming to the Central District

Posted on by
 

HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE
Subscribe to CHS to help us hire writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. To stay that way, we need you.

Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for as little as $5 a month. 

 

Dogs love beer including this good one we spotted at Chuck’s (Image: CHS)

The Central Seattle dog park experience is about to change with the addition of Boneyard, an indoor dog park and tavern set to join S Jackson.

Dagmar Rehse, dog lover and Boneyard owner, wanted to create a way for Seattleites and their furry friends to spend and enjoy time together away from their homes — even when it is raining cats and dogs in the city.

“Nine months out of the year you see these dog owners going to dog parks and suffering in the elements to let their dogs play,” Rehse said. “I wanted to create something more comfortable for the humans while their dogs are frolicking around.”

The new space at the corner of 26th and Jackson will be an indoor dog park and tavern, with boarding and doggy daycare for the dogs, and a bar for their owners to play “drink” at. While Rehse doesn’t live in the area, she did notice that the dog friendly neighborhood was missing this kind of hangout. It is also in an area beyond the higher rent neighborhood cores where the rent on a 3,267-square-foot space needed to give rover room to run pencils out.

And while there are many dog-friendly drinking venues around the Central District and Capitol Hill, the Boneyard is the only one centered on making a great, safe space for canine companions. It will also offer something no other beer hall around can offer — fur baby babysitting for dog owners who want a break while they crack a cold one.

Boneyard will be the first space that Rehse has opened, built by her love for dogs and a wish for a place where dog and owner can enjoy themselves together outside of their home. Continue reading →

How Urban Animal plans to become nation’s first worker-owned veterinary co-op — and what it means for the people who care for Capitol Hill fur babies

Posted on by

(Image: Urban Animal)

(Image: Urban Animal)

 

HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE
Subscribe to CHS to help us hire writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. To stay that way, we need you.

Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for as little as $5 a month. 

 
After more than a decade of providing walk-in veterinary care to Capitol Hill, Urban Animal will be transitioning to a co-op business model — the first of its kind in the nation. Drawing from 24 years of veterinary experience, founder Cherri Trusheim is responding to her observations of increasing corporatization and high levels of burnout within the industry.

“It is an emotionally taxing field to work in and sometimes the job lifespan isn’t too long,” Trusheim said. “We’re having a hard time finding veterinary professionals because corporate has come in and designed these jobs for them in a way that’s not sustainable.”

Trusheim’s vision for the cooperative emphasizes giving employees a say in how they provide veterinary care and other business decisions. The business will be owned by workers, which is different from other co-op models, where ownership falls on the consumers or producers of the product. Trusheim says there’s a lot of variance between each cooperative.

“For me, it was really that governance piece. Giving people a voice and not just giving them money,” Trusheim said. “Really having a voice at the table because burnout is, that feeling of overwhelm coupled with helplessness, you just don’t feel like there’s anything you can do to make it different.” Continue reading →

Urban Animal — including its Capitol Hill clinic — set to become state’s nation’s first worker-owned veterinary co-op

Posted on by

Founded in 2012 on the edge of the First Hill “Pill Hill” medical neighborhood, Urban Animal is reorganizing as a cooperative and giving the chance to its 110 employees across three Seattle locations including Capitol Hill’s E Thomas to become owners of the veterinary clinic that serves more than 50,000 clients.

“The veterinary industry is in the eye of a perfect storm due to factors such as employee burnout and private equity buyouts, which are diminishing the number of qualified veterinary professionals,” Urban Animal founder and veterinarian Cherri Trusheim said in the announcement. “Urban Animal is presenting this groundbreaking solution to set the bar for the industry and beyond.” Continue reading →

The Volunteer Park deer are welcome to stay as long as they like

Posted on by

Thanks to some CHS neighbors for the picture

When the Duwamish called it Whulshootseed — crossing over — woodland creatures were commonplace. In 2023, it’s a little more special to see a doe and a yearling on Capitol Hill.

Thanks to the neighborhood tipsters for the report on the two deer seen enjoying Volunteer Park. It isn’t clear when they arrived or for how long they are going to stay but they seem healthy and happy so far. One report says deer had been recently been spotted around I-5 so the leafy park seems like a much better alternative.

Seattle Parks said it doesn’t have any issues with the visitors. Continue reading →

Pikes/Pines | The Capitol Hill Superb Owl LVII Spectacular

Posted on by

A Barred Owl (Image: Brendan McGarry)

If I walked up to a random stranger on the street and said, “Hey, there’s a crow!” I suspect I would either be ignored or looked at with suspicion.

If instead I replaced “crow” with “owl,” I can almost guarantee that I would receive an entirely different reaction. Whether this is because of Harry Potter or because owls look a touch more relatable than other birds (with big heads, large forward facing eyes they might remind us of ourselves), we know and generally like owls. Owls are beautiful, mysterious, and interesting.

Yet, most owls are not very conspicuous and a vast majority of them are nocturnal. A lot of people have never or only rarely seen one in real life. On an average day on the Hill, you are not likely to see an owl. But what if you wanted to? Continue reading →