Oregon L.O.W.F.I

Posts Tagged ‘Newport’

People on the coast and elsewhere have reported that their shrimp and fish glow. According to Oregon State University, this is normal and the fish is safe to consume.

Shrimp and other seafood can appear luminescent, courtesy of certain marine bacteria that might be hitching a ride, said Kaety Hildenbrand, of Oregon State University Sea Grant Extension, which has been receiving calls from concerned consumers.

The thing to remember, said Hildenbrand, who works with coastal fishing communities, is that “glowing” shrimp is not a health risk and doesn’t reflect mishandling during processing.

I love some of the comments, such as:

“This seems to be a banner year for glowing seafood,…”

The following remark strikes me as very odd:

It’s also possible that there has been no increase in glowing seafood — just an increase in the number of people noticing it. That raises another question: Are more people cooking seafood without lights?

Complete story here.

Recent news making the loop alerts us to the news that bald eagles and pelicans, are eating murres on the Oregon coast. Specifically, the murres at Yaquina Head. This is news, and very weird news, in context of what it means as signals within global changes, as we’ll see.

But the fact that eagles eat murres isn’t all that new, as the Oregon Field Journal notes in a post from June 3rd:

Bald eagles eat murres and they know where to find these seabirds: in their largest colony on rocks right off the Yaquina Head lighthouse in Newport.

We covered this story last year (and the program ran again last week on Oregon Field Guide)

Gulls swoop in and eat the eggs, the eagles eat the murres. Now scientists have noticed an added element: pelicans are also eating murres. Fish and Wildlife Bulletin reports:

Our field crew also recently observed an immature brown pelican land on Flattop Rock and run through the colony flapping its wings,” Suryan said. “As it zigzagged through the colony, it ate 10 common murre chicks and chased away many of the adults, allowing the gulls to come in and go through their egg-stealing routine.

“Who would have thought that a pelican, of all things, would devour 10 young murres in a matter of seconds?”

I was delighted to see this in our local paper — a pod of orcas in the Yaquina Bay, here in Oregon. I’m so sad I didn’t get to witness this! I have friends and family there and am there frequently, just not this time! But how wonderful for the community to have this happen! A rare sight:
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2010/06/a_rare_sight_killer_whales_swi.html:

NEWPORT — It’s the sight some here wait years, even decades to see, and Thursday a whole lot of  people got their wish when a pod of orca whales cruised over the Yaquina Bay Bar, under the bridge and kept on all the way past the port, docks and Bayfront right on up the river.

The blogThe Big Studyhas an interesting piece on the behavior of light; anomalous, high strangeness and unexplained events having to do with light. Included in the article is a bit about the Reeves case from the 1960s in the Newport-Toledo area on the Oregon coast. Called the Reeves case, the Toledo lights case, etc. or the Toledo Donuts… Keel wrote about this and a few mentions can be found here and there. To this day, the event reamains unexplained.

A possible explanation, in my opinion, is a military test of classified technology. UFO sightings were happening all over the area; and the navy and research facilities have a strong presence there. On the other hand, the Reeves case echoes other strange, out of place type “aliens,” type encounters. Maybe there is no rational explanation; it just is one more of those strange visitations that pop in from the “Goblin Universe,” (Holiday) or “Daemonic Reality,” (Harpur) or Trickster realm. (Hansen.)

The other day I posted about the coyote population inside the city limits of the coastal town of Newport, Oregon. In fact, as I wrote, a coyote has been seen by several people on the street over from my mother’s house. For whatever reason I never thought of coyotes in the area, certainly not right in town, a couple blocks from the touristy Nye Beach area. Deer are common, and there was the black bear story awhile back along the Yaquina River (woman was sentenced to leave her home and not return to the area for feeding a large population of black bears.)

Much closer to home, as in no more than five miles from here, a report in the local paper about cougar in the well traveled Spencer’s Butte park. That location is heavily used by hikers, bikers, nature lovers, etc. From the Register Guard, the area’s newspaper:

<a href=”http://www.registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/web/news/cityregion/24574682-41/butdorf-butte-cougar-cougars-sign.csp”> Hazardous hike | Warning signs are posted after hikers spot three cougars while climbing Spencer Butte </a>
They did what they were supposed to do. They didn’t run. They walked slowly. They shouted. Loud and often.

“My whole body was full of adrenaline,” said Julie Butdorf, a University of Oregon student who was hiking Spencer Butte about 6:30 a.m. Wednesday with fellow student and roommate Jenna Rosenfeld when they came upon what they are sure was a cougar a few feet off the trail. And then another. And another.

“There were at least three of them,” Butdorf said.

They made it safely back to their car and called the authorities, who ended up posting a warning sign in the area.

There’s been a lot of controversy in this area about laws pertaining to cougar hunting, especially trap laws and the use of dogs in hunting cougar. No doubt this incident will bring the issue up yet again.

Cougar in the Spencer Butte area are “rare,” according to ODFW’s  Brian Wolfer. However, the agency gets reports of cougar sightings in theresidential streets around the park. (A few years ago the paper had a photograph of a cougar in a tree on the University of Oregon campus; much closer to home than Spencer Butte park!)

Warning have been issued to stay out of the park, and signs put up about cougar. Yet human nature demonstrates that some people either have no fear, are too thrilled by the possibility of spotting a cougar up close, or, excuse me, stupid:

The warning signs didn’t stop folks from hiking the butte later Wednesday, although most went with caution.

“Where’s the sign?” said Myke Leopold of Marcola. “I need to read it.” Leopold, who’s hiked the butte a half-dozen times, brought along a friend Wednesday, Victoria Aguirre of Medford, who was getting set to hike the 2,065-foot butte for the first time.

“It’s daytime,” Aguirre said. “They usually come out at night, right?”

True, according to ODFW’s Brian Wolfer (and note the Fortean name game of his last name) and, cougars don’t usually attack humans, yet they have.

This one really got me:

Kerry Lennartz, also a UO student, heard about the sighting from a friend Wednesday morning. But that didn’t stop her from taking her weekly walk with her dog, Rozzie, a Shiba Inu. “It’s the middle of the day, so I figured it would be OK,” Lennartz said.

Besides, she’s worked with wildcats at a rescue center in her home state of Indiana, she said. She’s even touched a cougar.

“They’re really sweet in captivity,” Lennartz said. “They purr.”

“In captivity” animals are different than they are in the wild, and I’m not so sure about bringing a dog into the mix. I’m staying out of the park, not that I go up there much anyway, except to look for UFOs. The Spencer Butte area is also known as a Eugene UFO hot spot; and, in fact, I’ve seen a few UFOs in that area over the years.

Visiting mom today in Newport (which is on the central coast) she tells us of a coyote hanging out on the street up from hers. Mom lives literally across the street from the ocean, up a hill, in the Nye Beach area. The coyote has been seen by several people in the area.

The Oregonian’s Lori Tobias, in a September 2009 article, wrote of the coyote population in the area: Newport: Coyotes on the increase along the coast

NEWPORT – No one realized Amber was missing until Sheila Sammons got the call on Sunday morning: a neighbor had found her cat’s collar.

“I knew right away something was very wrong,” said Sammons. “I thought there’d been a cat fight and that I would find her injured in the bushes.”

Instead, Sammons would discover Amber had fallen prey to wild animals she didn’t even know inhabited the area; one whose numbers are unusually high this year — coyotes.

“We’ve had a lot of calls about coyotes this year,” said Doug Cottam , a wildlife biologist in the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Newport office. “It has been a good year for the survival of the young. The conditions were good, mild and a little wetter.”

Complaints about the animals, reputed for their clever but cautious ways, have long been common on parts the central coast.

“In the past, in Lincoln City in particular, there were numerous coyotes that were tame and habituated to people,” said Cottam. “We’ll get calls from tourists and there’ll be coyotes on the beach, and they are fairly unafraid.”

Usually, when I’m at the coast, I’m busy looking for agates and UFOs. Now I have to add coyotes to my list.

This comment, actually, just a stream of words without punctuation or coherent message, was left on my post Newport, Oregon: A “New” Port(al)? from the 17th of February today. It was left by someone with the name of “Hidereligious” at gather@sort.com.

Department Open,ignore interested church owner type for fuel persuade operate committee popular data brief relatively minister unit challenge nod maintain form western journey board experience start official convention stick round display reason attack much central steal long crime central associate afternoon unless happen impossible index shut latter sure flight contrast legal will state watch link ignore under certain lawyer more ring one strategy sector terms program write force still since field sun noise note near when language mechanism agreement lunch dry economic street band usual again blue middle test

Playing around with the words I came up with the following found poem (and some people don’t think I have a life!)

Department Open
ignore interested church owner
type for fuel, persuade, operate. . .
Committee
Popular data, brief
relatively minister
unit challenge
nod, maintain form
Western journey
board
experience start, official convention, stick: round.

Reason, attack much
central, steal long crime, central, associate
afternoon, unless happen impossible
index shut
latter, sure
flight contrast
legal, will state, watch, link, ignore under certain lawyer
more ring, one strategy
sector

Terms: program
write force, still, since field, sun, noise note
near when language mechanism
agreement
lunch, dry

Economic street band, usual
again blue
middle. . .
test.

This could be an algorithm sort computer science thingie; I don’t know anything about that except what Wikipedia came up on my Google search when I typed in “sort.com.” I don’t know if it does have something to do with that, or if there is anything I should be worried about given the content of the post. Probably just a random, no account cyberworld kind of thing.

Naveed on his blog Naveed’s Realm has an interesting item about the legend of the monster in Devil’s Lake in Lincoln City, Oregon.

The short story as for as the Oregon one goes is that the Siletz Indian tribe centuries ago used to really like of the area of Devil’s Lake. Then one night when a group of warriors was dispatched across the lake, massive tentacles burst forth from the waters destroying the canoes. The warriors where then flung around, beaten against the water and debris, and died from drowning or injury. From then on the lake was called Devil’s Lake.

Was the “monster” a squid, or is the story only a myth to explain the dangers of the area?

This is the current Trickster’s Realm column for Tim Binnall’s Binnall of America. TR is a bi-monthly column I write for Binnall of America.

My friend “Lola” lives in the coast range in Oregon. Lola has a life long history of paranormal activity in her family including not just ghosts but UFOs, Bigfoot and other paranormal and psychic phenomena. These things seem to follow the family; particularly the women. There are some paranormal clichés involved: events happen more to the females in the family, some members have Native American blood, and at least one house is on Native American hunting grounds.

Lola, her husband and their children moved a few years ago to their present home in the coast range. We’ve visited them several times and it’s a great place; out in the country, on acres of land by a creek. The night sky is magnificent and far from city light pollution. There is something odd about the place however, and that is the space between their house and the shop. The shop is a large building; it could easily be a house onto itself. It’s placed in an odd spot; very close to the house; there’s only about six feet between the shop and the house, which makes for a dark, cold, narrow passage way to navigate through.

In the narrow dark space between house and shop there is a persistent feeling of something very heavy and large, as well as depressed, close by. Neither one of the children (young teens) will go out there at night, and they’re no wimps. They’re used to living in the country; many family members live in rural areas; they’re no strangers to the country. Lola doesn’t like to go out there at night either, and really, no one does, including myself or my husband. It’s not only the space between the buildings that has this heavy cold feeling, but the shop itself. The remodel work going on hasn’t seemed to improve these feelings.

The feeling I get when in this space is one of extreme heaviness, a depression as well as an oppression, of something very, very large. It’s a living, conscious entity but I haven’t been able to call it “human,” or “animal” — it seems to be both, as odd as that sounds.

The other day George had mentioned that he’s always felt it’s an animal spirit, and that this energy is one of great depression due to abuse. Right before he said that to me, I was thinking about this energy, trying to get closer to what it is. I received a strong vibration of mistreatment, but as to animal or human, it was still vague. It seemed wrapped up altogether. Then George said, out of the blue, “I’ve always felt very strongly that this animal energy had a lot of abuse energy surrounding it.”

Lola’s bedroom faces the shop, and their bedroom widow looks directly onto the building. She keeps the curtains closed at all times, because of the negative energy she feels coming from the building. There are strange claw marks on their bedroom window, high up and no one can figure out how they got there, or what made them. Whatever it was, had to jump up very high to make them; and why would it? It’s as if something was trying to claw its way into the bedroom. It’s possible a bear was looking in the window, (they do have a black bear problem in the area) still, the bear would have had to have been an exceptionally large one to reach that high.

Lola has had other strange experiences; one afternoon, while lying on their bed, she saw an entity appear beside her. The entity, in Lola’s own words, “Wasn’t human, but was trying to pass itself off as human.” Lola was clear it was a female entity, with a pale, almost white face, and a “wig” of dark brown hair cut short. Lola doesn’t know if this has anything to do with the energy between the buildings; but she does say this entity wasn’t a positive one.

The other day, Lola was working in the herb patch outside her kitchen, which is a few feet from the shop. She told me she kept getting a strong image of something dead buried nearby; something large and animal like.

There is a sad history to the place; a horse that the previous owners kept on the property was terribly neglected, and they left the animal on the property when Lola and her family bought the place. The poor thing suffered a great deal for years but fortunately, Lola’s family has worked closely with the horse, who is now very happy and healthy, and they’ve since bought other horses to join the family. The area where the horses hang out seems fine; but near this shop area, it’s another feeling altogether. And I’ve noticed the horses don’t go near there either, or in the upper field that faces Lola’s bedroom.

Something seems to have left an imprint; either a series of events, or one specific being, be it human or animal. Whatever it is, has been felt by many visitors.

From the blog “Naveed’s Realm” — Naveed lives in Oregon — this item about a possible strange, dark colored feline spotted on the Oregon coast some years ago. I know exactly where he’s talking about; I have family and friends in that area, plan to
relocate there myself soon, and have driven that road many a time. I’ll be sure to keep my eyes extra open next time I’m out there!