Results tagged “animals”

The nights on the farm were restless, especially in such a tiny tent, but we wouldn’t have slept any better indoors. We’re never at ease sleeping away from home. Nevertheless, waking at five in the morning was effortless. Maybe it was the anticipation of all the new experiences that each day brought or maybe it was because we hadn’t been stuck breaking down our station so late the night before. As we walked from our tent to the school, we said good morning to the ducks for the last time. In a half an hour we would return with the rest of the class to butcher several of them.

Seal pupping season has begun, which means those cute widdle furry seal pups will soon enough start popping up on West Seattle beaches. And when they do--watch the seal cam!--the Seal Sitters, an all-volunteer seal superhero group will be on the lookout. This year the group needs more trained helpers on the beaches, protecting the resting seal pups from curious dogs and the "I want to pet it!" type of people.

We're reluctant to spend this absolutely glorious sunny Monday morning writing about this weekend's horrific murders down in Graham, Washington. What Seattlest would rather do is watch web cams of Northwest wildlife, and we bet that's what you'd rather think about, too. The Hancock Wildlife Foundation has two live streaming web cams of bald eagle nests in British Columbia, and a handful of other recorded segments from years past of such wonders as the Chehalis salmon run. When will Dreamworks make a movie about talking, singing bald eagles and Chinook salmon? We'd buy that DVD/BluRay combo pack. Mornings and webcams like these remind us that we have the privilege of making our home in one of the world's most bountiful, beautiful areas. Sunshine, please stay!

Seattlest gathered the top economic writers in the country and asked them to discuss the ramifications of the $819 billion economic recovery plan.

HOLIDAYS AT THE ZOO: Even the animals at the Woodland Park Zoo are getting into the holiday spirit. For the next three days of the zoo's Winter Celebration, zookeepers will bring the animals gifts of tasty treats like "wreaths trimmed with fish or assorted fruit, evergreen trees with ornamental fruit, or wrapped boxes filled with favorite tidbits." For today, the schedule of feedings is sun bears at 11 a.m., grizzlies and pigs at noon, and the elephants at 2 p.m. Tomorrow, the orangutans, otters, golden lion tamarins, and tigers get theirs, and Wednesday closes things out with the emus, gorillas, and Australian birds and keas.

Ninety-five baby turtles of a rare species hatched today at the Woodland Park Zoo! Awww. The little amphibians, only as big as a quarter each, will eventually be returned to the wild from whence they were rescued as part of a conservation and recovery project. (The big mean bullfrogs were eating all the exotic baby turtles, making them even more rare.) These specific newly-hatched turtles are not on display at the Zoo, but there are photos here and here. 100% adorable. Just look at his little mouth gaping wide! Happy Halloween to Turtle Boy, by the way, wherever you are in life.

The King County Animal Care and Control department is far too understaffed to check up on dogs running loose, even aggressive ones, reports the Seattle Times. Animal control officers have reiterated--after a pit bull attack on a 71-year-old SeaTac woman last Monday--that they can't do much until after you've got bite marks. Bottom line: as it's hard to dial with a pit bull hanging off you, hands-free phone technology is clearly more important than ever. For those who enjoy fact-based argument, in 2007 pit bulls represented four percent of licensed dogs in Seattle and 22 percent of reported dog bite attacks. Poodles didn't bite anyone, but we still advise keeping an eye on them.

Seattlest, as you know, has long been an advocate of playing hooky on Friday. Today, if you're looking for an excuse to cut out early, just tell your boss you can't bear to sit in the office any longer on the Happiest Day of the Year. How did "they" figure out that today is the happiest? A simple math formula, of course: "According to the research this has been worked out using the equation O + (N xS) + Cpm/T + He." Naturally, divide the Cpm by T.

Brooklyn trio A Place to Bury Strangers bills themselves as "the loudest band in New York," but that's not exactly true. A band's loudness is of course the product of several factors, the volume and intensity assuredly a function of the sound system every night they play, or the sound guy, or the venue itself. So perhaps it's more accurate to describe APtBS as "the effects-pedaliest band in New York" or "the My Bloody Valentiney-est band in New York." Because both of those claims are true, without a doubt.

Welsh five-piece Super Furry Animals are known for crafting catchy orchestral psychedelic pop-rock -- hence the terribly "trippy" cover art for their latest album Hey Venus. The band's been together since '94, and while most UK groups of that time period have split up or gone on permanent hiatus, SFA are still going strong. For that, you can credit the drugs. Seriously though, the Furries make songs with sunny melodies and melancholy, nearly doo-wop arrangements that come off effortlessly. Check out the above track "Run-Away," which begins with the simple yet heartbreaking (and difficult to discern, at least in the live version) declaration: "This song is based on a true story, which would be fine if it wasn't autobiographical." Ouch.

Since this week's storm didn’t claim any lives in Seattle, most of us tend to think of the damage in terms of washed out images of I-5 and that Subaru in Golden Gardens.

Ah, football. We love it. It’s easily our favorite sport to watch as it gets our usual docile selves all fired up and yelling at the television every week. Basketball, even with its fast pace and high scoring, is a bore. And baseball? Baseball is almost as fun to watch as golf or the Lifetime channel. But for all of football’s glory, there remains its biggest upset. Which is that it’s one of those high-testosterone...

Walking down 15th the other afternoon, we were a little Hitchcocked out by the sight of a crowd of crows (or ravens, the comments section is of two minds about which) assembled on a neighbor's house and lawn. Naturally, we immediately suspected said neighbors of being witches. (Not that there's anything wrong with that. Live and let magick, we say.) A woman got out of her car while we were taking the picture and,...

Yeah, yeah, yeah… we’ve bawled a bunch about the blahness of Queen Anne cuisine, from the "exotic" Chinoise at the top of the hill to the "exotic" Racha at the bottom of the hill. So we lowered our expectations a bit to try some good ol' American food at Floyd's Place, which reviewers consistently Yelped as, well, "decent."

Foul weather holds off until Sunday afternoon, leaving plenty of time under cool gray skies for Seattlest & friends to launch a Flexcar and sail out to the farm. Once we get past Redmond, the familiar trappings fall off: shopping malls, housing developments, the last Whole Foods, the last gas station & mini-mart.

Eaten: An onion burger and brick of fries.

PORTLAND, Ore. - Portland snake enthusiast, Matt Williamson was rushed to the hospital after a recent assault by an unnamed rattlesnake.

The eternal feud between evolutionary rivals bears and crows finally came to a dramatic conclusion recently at the Woodland Park Zoo, as the persecuted bears claimed a decisive victory over their winged foe, the goddamned crows. Jim Woodring was on the scene and documented the victory on his blog (click through the drawing below for a larger more readable version):

Kakuta Hamisi, a member of the Maasai tribe of Kenya, is working over the summer at the Woodland Park Zoo, talking to zoo visitors about Maasai culture and conservation.

We attended an advance, VIP screening of The Simpsons movie at Cinerama on Friday night (or at least that's what the guy who sold us the ticket for the special price of $45 told us).

Taking a break from trying to surf the flaccid waters at Westport on Saturday, a team of Seattlest agents mingled around the parking lot where they met a man from Bellevue who was the victim of a random dog attack last week. The veteran surfer peeled back his bandage to show the teeth marks from the doberman yellow lab who chomped on his arm. Apparently our victim was minding his own business riding his bike on one of the trails over there when he rode up on a woman walking her dog. He tried to give them as wide a berth as possible, but the dog pounced and the dog owner couldn't control the retractable leash in time to stop the attack.

In the wake of Hansa the Elephant's death from herpes, many Seattleites are understandably concerned about whether they, too, could contract this fatal disease.

We're not sure what we can possibly add to this bizarre news that's so very ripe for incredibly childish jokes.

German squirrels are roaming Berlin on a murderous rampage.

Oh yes, Seattlest fans, it's that time of year again. When, after weeks of teasing, the sun finally decides to stick around. When all able-bodied gay men head to Madison Beach in their tight little shorts with their cute little dogs, and all the able-bodied lesbians head to some outdoor location with their picnic blankets and their mullets for an Indigo Girls concert.

A new musical genre: not heavy metal, but fiberglass.

Apparently its that time of year again, since at least one Seattlest contributor witnessed a few crow attacks on civilians in the past week, including an attack on his own feeble, defenseless person by a pair of crows on the north side of Freeway Park earlier this week. They swooped down from behind at his head, squawking, and followed him halfway through the park. Upon exiting the south side on Seneca he observed a different pair of crows swooping down at other people.Then today he spotted yet another attack on an innocent pedestrian.

You know the concept: local artists create fiberglass scultpures based on Ur-piggy Rachel, eventually sold to raise money for the Pike Place Market Foundation. One such sculptor is Colin Reedy, an Oregon furniture designer whose previous contributions include a couple of ride-em "Pork Choppers." This particular creation, titled "Prosciutto and Melon Pig," ought to be positioned at a deli counter like DeLaurenti, not on the sidewalk in Belltown next to, gulp, the pork-free Tandoori Hut.

When we first bought our house the "backyard" was a complete eyesore, replete with a tar-roofed carport next to a plot of head-high blackberry bushes held back by a sagging chain-link fence. We joked about renting goats to clear the whole thing, but in the end resorted to a backhoe. (And this past weekend, a mere 3 1/2 years after we moved in, we finally have a backyard, huzzah!). Apparently, we're not the only one who had that goat idea: Just 4 blocks down from our house, construction company Saltaire hired "Rent-A-Ruminant" to graze an entire quarter acre in just 48 hours. We wandered down the street and lo and behold, there were 60 goats (we could only see about 15 at a time, the rest were wandering up inside the blackberry bushes) munching away like a, well, 60-goat wrecking crew. We were joined by many neighbors, all of us slightly shaking our heads and laughing, just marveling at the sight of a pack of goats on a steep sidehill just steps away from an insanely busy intersection at Dearborn and Rainier. Slowly more and more kids arrived, squealing and pointing and petting (note to neighborhood associations: if you want to have a packed and lively block party, rent some goats).