WASHINGTON
If you plan on strolling through West Seattle’s Lincoln Park, you might want to carry a large umbrella. We’d recommend wearing a hat, too, but Seattle Parks and Recreation issued an “owl safety alert” after an aggressive hooter started attacking unsuspecting park-goers and flying off with their headgear. In a post on the agency’s Facebook page, one hiker reported that an owl swooped down and stole their brother-in-law’s hat while they were walking through Lincoln Park on their way to visit a troll. (No, the hikers didn’t accidentally wander into Narnia, there really is a giant troll named Bruun Idun out there, made by artist Thomas Dambo as part of the “Northwest Trolls: Way of the Bird King” project.) Rachel Schulkin, a spokesperson for Seattle Parks and Recreation, told The Seattle Times that “owl dive-bombing” isn’t uncommon; in fact, similar “fowl-play” occurred at Discovery Park, on the Burke-Gilman Trail and at Lincoln Park last year. Are the owls auditioning for a remake of Hitchcock’s The Birds, or is something else at work? According to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, both barred and great horned owls tend to become more territorial during autumn, when the days get shorter, as well as during the spring mating season. Schulkin said that the hat thief appears to be either a horned or barred owl, adding that “she’s personally seen no pattern between whom the owls pick to dive-bomb, and whom they choose to spare.” Or should we say “hoo” gets dive-bombed, and “hoo” is spared?
COLORADO
In other avian news, KDVR-TV reported that police and animal control officers were called to recapture AWOL emus twice in five days, in Lakewood, Colorado, and also in Camfield. The first fluffy and fabulous fugitive was spotted Aug. 18, strutting along an intersection near Colfax Avenue and Quail Street (naturally) after fleeing its Lakewood home. Officers from the Lakewood Police Department Animal Control and the Regional Transportation District flocked together to return the bird to its home, with Lakewood police reporting that they’d had a “pretty emu-sing day.” And then, just four days later, a second emu, aptly named “Dash,” took off running, according to Camfield resident Brian Bunn, who assisted with its capture. Bunn told KDVR-TV — accurately, we might add — that emus are “pretty intimidating because of their claws on their feet. They’re just real live dinosaurs. They’re the last living dinosaurs.” Colorado police are frequently tasked with rounding up exotic animals; witness the baby kangaroo found hopping down the streets of Durango last year, or the Patagonia mara — which resembles a cross between a jackrabbit and a capybara — spotted in Lakewood near Bear Creek Park. Patagonia maras are illegal to keep as pets in Colorado. Emus, however, are legal, and some are local celebrities: We are especially fond of Dennisaurus Rex, an emu that promenades around Colorado Springs on a leash.
CALIFORNIA
An immigration arrest in Los Angeles unfolded like something from a theater of resistance playbook. On Aug. 15, as several federal immigration enforcement officers were detaining a Colombian woman charged with living in LA illegally, a tow truck driver decided to intervene, The Sacramento Bee reported. According to the affidavit filed by Homeland Security, the man ignored officers’ warnings, “started swearing at them,” jumped into his tow truck and proceeded to haul away one of the officer’s vehicles, with its emergency lights still activated. A video shared on the social platform X by the U.S. attorney’s office shows the government vehicle, its flashing lights a-twinkle, being towed out of the apartment parking lot, with an ICE officer running fruitlessly after it. The driver, who has since been arrested, was reportedly laughing and filming as the ICE officer ran after him.
CALIFORNIA
Three new species of snailfish were discovered thousands of meters deep “along the abyssal seafloor offshore of California,” thanks to a joint effort by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute and teams from the State University of New York at Geneseo, University of Montana and the University of Hawai’i. The aptly named “bumpy snailfish” are unlikely to make it as beauty or skincare influencers, though we think they’re rather adorable, being large-headed with “jelly-like” bodies covered in loose pimply skin that reminds some of us of our own high school yearbook pictures. This discovery of a trifecta of hitherto unknown snailfish (Careproctus colliculi) is the result of “major advances in underwater technology,” Oceanographic Magazine reports. And just when you thought there were no new surprises left to uncover.
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This article appeared in the November 2025 print edition of the magazine with the headline “Heard around the West.”
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