For those of you who haven’t been following the local news, you’ve missed some fun times here in the city! Yes, that’s right, we do live in a city, though you may wonder at that fact after reading this!
From Myballard.com
Black bear sightings near Discovery Park
May 17th, 2009
Updated 7:30 a.m. It appears the Magnolia bear moved on to Ballard overnight. Seattle Police and wildlife officers spent most of the early morning hours trying to capture a small bear who ran through yards and down back alleys, first spotted at 15th Ave. and 77th St. just after midnight. My Ballard reader Silver tracked the police calls in the forum here. Wildlife officers were armed with tranquilizer darts and a tracking dog, and they told the crew from My Ballard to stay in the car as they followed the chase at a safe distance.
But the bear was too quick. By 3 a.m., it had disappeared in the area around 11th Ave. and 92nd St. Officers decided to call off the pursuit, but the animal resurfaced at 5:30 a.m. at 133rd and Meridian. An officer on scene early this morning told us they believed this is the same black bear that was reported yesterday near Discovery Park, and that it probably made the swim over the Ship Canal to Ballard.
Two different people reported seeing a black bear in Magnolia early Sunday. The first report came in around midnight from a caller who said that they believed a bear was wandering in their yard in the 5600 block of 39th Avenue West. The caller reported that the bear then wandered out of the yard. The second call came in at around 6:45 a.m. from a resident in the 4200 block of 34th Avenue West. That person stated they believed the animal was headed toward a ravine east of Discovery Park.
Updated Tuesday: Looks like the black bear is still on the run. At 9 p.m. last night, he was sighted near Fifth Avenue Northeast and Northeast 160th Street — which meant he had crossed Interstate 5. Then a little before 6a.m. today a jogger using the Kellogg Middle School track reported seeing a bear heading into the Hamlin Park woods near Northeast 165th Steet and 15th Avenue Northeast. The district called police and is telling students to stay out of the nearby woods today, and if they see a bear, steer clear of it. The school is just east of the wooded Hamlin Park.
The young bear has been named the “Urban Phantom” by wildlife agents, led by state Fish & Wildlife Sgt. Kim Chandler. “The whole idea of the search was to help him,” says Chandler. “But he doesn’t seem to want our help, and seems to be doing OK.”
Urban Phantom has had a busy few days. The black bear was first seen in Discovery Park on Sunday before running through the middle of Ballard Monday and making his way to Twin Ponds Park in Shoreline. Fish & Wildlife officials don’t believe the small bear is dangerous.
Updated 3p.m. That is one fast moving bear and he has now traveled all the way from Magnolia to Shoreline. Wildlife officials believe the bear is in Shoreline at the Twin Ponds Park. They have just closed the park to try to contain the bear.
Magnolia resident Albert Lee came face to face with the animal.
“A black bear jumped out over the edge of the flowers here and just lumped along and headed straight through to my neighbor’s house,” said Lee. He said he’s never seen anything like it. “My first impression was that’s a mighty big black dog, I wonder what neighbor’s dog (it is)…then it clicked in – look at the butt on that thing. That is a bear,” Lee said. “Probably two, 250 pounds. Butt, body, head. Pretty straight forward. I saw enough of it to know that it was clearly not a dog.”
There have been no additional sightings since Sunday in Magnolia. Seattle Police say they are aware of the calls and are monitoring the park. The Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Parks Department have been notified and they are aware of the possible sightings.
We received a number of emails from residents who tell us the bear sightings are the talk of the neighborhood today. If anyone does see a bear, call 911.
Update: Police and wildlife officials are tracking a bear in Ballard early Monday morning. A police officer said they believe the bear may have swam over from Discovery Park.
Black bear runs through Ballard
May 18th, 2009 by Geeky Swedes
Updated 11 a.m.: Seattle Police and Department of Fish and Wildlife officers spent most of the early morning hours trying to capture a small bear roaming the neighborhood. As first reported here on My Ballard, police first joined the chase near 15th Ave. and 77th St. just after midnight. The bear ran through yards and down back alleys. It climbed a tree, escaping just before officers arrived.
Wildlife officers were armed with tranquilizer darts and a tracking dog, and they told us to stay in our car as we followed the chase at a safe distance. (If you’re curious if the animal ran by your house, My Ballard reader Silver tracked the police calls in the forum here, which we used to create the map below:)
But the bear was too quick. By 3 a.m., it had disappeared in the area around 11th Ave. and 92nd St., and officers called off the pursuit. But two hours later, a resident spotted the animal at 133rd and Meridian.
An officer on scene early this morning told us they believed this is the same black bear that was spotted yesterday around Discovery Park, and that it probably made the swim over the Ship Canal to Ballard. The bear was last seen in Magnolia at 10:11 p.m., and the first sighting in Ballard was around 11:30 p.m. at 63rd and 24th. (Thanks Silver for helping with the story this morning!)
Bear heads north to Shoreline, disappears
May 18th, 2009 by Geeky Swedes
Update 10 p.m.: The black bear that ran through the middle of Ballard early this morning made a stop Monday afternoon in Twin Ponds Park in Shoreline, temporarily closing the park to the public. But a half hour later, it ran south a couple blocks and hasn’t been seen since.
Fish & Wildlife officials, meanwhile, have discontinued the search because they don’t believe the small bear is dangerous. The bear had quite a day, swimming across the Ship Canal from Magnolia into Ballard late Sunday night, criss-crossing its way through the neighborhood with police and wildlife officials in close pursuit with tranquilizer guns and tracking dogs. The bear disappeared for several morning hours — wildlife officials believe it was taking a nap — before heading sharply north into Shoreline. There, the media joined the chase (video), with TV crews on the ground and choppers swirling overhead.
If and when Fish & Wildlife captures the bear, it will be “moved to where he belongs, to the woods somewhere,” said Sgt. Kim Chandler.
Bear spotted in Shoreline again
May 19th, 2009 by Geeky Swedes
The bear that ran through Ballard was spotted on the track at Kellogg Middle School up in Shoreline early this morning. Somehow, the bear made it across I-5. We’ve updated our tracking map here. And wildlife officials have now given the bear a name: “Urban Phantom.”
Here’s a google map of the bear’s route.
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Today the news is there’s been a bear sighting in West Seattle. I don’t think they are sure that it’s the same bear but if so that’s one fast moving guy and it doesn’t seem like he quite knows where he’s going. Doesn’t it seem like Seattle is not quite the big city we like to think it is? A bear running around the city! Crossing major roadways!
Muriel turned into a little monkey girl these past couple of weeks. It feels like it’s been longer, but it can’t have been since I know she wasn’t doing these things at 6 months. It’s been a long, long, long month. One of those months where instead of mourning the passing of another month of Muriel’s babyhood, I am thankful that we are another month closer to babyhood being over. Also thankful that we made it the the end of another month and all of the children are still alive, and I’m not in the loony bin.
By the way, photobucket drives me nuts. It makes my pictures look like crap. But I can’t figure out how to get flickr photos into this blog.
This is as close as she is to sitting:
Rowan loves to get her to scoot herself around the apartment by scooting in front of her and staying just out of reach:
Friday morning in Seattle was a beautiful one with some welcome sunshine. At Golden Gardens, where Jonah and I take an exercise class, I noticed a man walking toward the beach with a large bunch of white roses and even though he was alone I assumed there must be some special occasion for him to have such beautiful flowers. A romantic meeting for a beach side stroll? A meeting to look at the park facilities for upcoming nuptials? A while later we came upon a fairly deserted stretch of the beach and I spotted the man again. He was standing at the water’s edge, alone, slowly throwing his roses, one by one, into the water. After all of his flowers made it into the sea he stood there staring out and he was still there, unmoved when we left about 20 minutes later.
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On Fridays we have a dog walker that takes Gaje to the park. He’s been going on park runs since he was a puppy and we haven’t had the heart to end his ritual trips even though he doesn’t really need the exercise or break-up of his day like when he was a younger fella and I wasn’t around all day. A new person just started taking him (same “company” as I can call it now that our original walker has her own doggie empire and runs a whole dog daycare and training program, she just has a minion that does the park runs) and this Friday as she let him in the house I could hear her babbling to him about what a great day they’d had and what a good dog he was and then I heard her kiss him on the forehead before she closed the door to let herself out.
Those of you with children may recognize that song (those aren’t the actual words, but there’s a song that starts ‘there’s a spider…’). There is seriously a spider in the monitor right now, crawling all around! He’s a little guy and I hope he can find his way out. When I first noticed him (or her), he was crawling on a page of a website and I thought, ‘well, that’s a strange graphic.’ But when I left the website, the spider was still there, so I called Jay who had me turn off the computer and I could still see the poor little guy – so I’m pretty sure he’s real. And only slightly distracting as I try and do my homework!
So I’ll bitch here instead. I’m disliking this whole transition time between the two naps and one nap. It sucks and makes me feel tied to home in a way that I haven’t felt before.
Jonah still mostly needs two naps – or at least he can’t go through an entire afternoon/evening without getting incredibly unhappy if he’s skipped an afternoon nap. We tried just going cold turkey to one a day but that one nap kept getting shorter and shorter until it was crank-fest here all day long. Not a good thing. So back to the two naps and all was happy again until the last couple days when he’s skipped the afternoon one again, which would be fine if there was some sort of system I could have for predicting that he just isn’t going to go to sleep and then we could just move on with our day instead of me sitting around half listening to hear if he’s asleep and not wanting to move around too much in the house until he does go to sleep. Bah!
So it goes. I guess I should be glad that he’s not in his crib screaming. He mostly sits in there talking to his animals or working on projects like pulling all of the bite guards off his railings.
CDC has recently released information regarding swine flu patient zero (the person who kicked off the human-to-human spread of disease). The information has been released in an attempt to prevent the initiation of different pandemics in the future, such as pot belly pig flu, feline flu, and the very deadly hamster flu. I urge everyone to take proper precautions. (obviously I didn’t have anything interesting to share either, but felt the need to do my part in prevent neglect of roses)
