Bizarre Zoology: Previously Undocumented Oregon Coast 'Sea Serpent' Report

From Bizarre Zoology: Previously Undocumented Oregon Coast 'Sea Serpent' Report.



Who knew -- I didn't -- that one of my favorite places on the Oregon coast, (Yachats) is home to sea monsters? Next time I'm out there I'll have to take a much closer look.

source: Bizarre Zoology blog

'Tiny fish that survived tsunami, ocean crossing from Japan makes debut in Seaside'

Why not keep all the fish in the aquarium, instead of killing them save for one?

Tiny fish that survived tsunami, ocean crossing from Japan makes debut in Seaside | OregonLive.com: About five striped beakfish were found on a boat from Japan that washed ashore near Long Beach, Wash., last month. The Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife euthanized most of them, perhaps because of fears that the fish would become an invasive species.

But not before someone spirited away one of the black-and-white striped fish to the Long Beach City Hall.

Employees there in turn called the Seaside Aquarium, which came to the rescue.
More
Continuing coverage of the debris washing up on the Oregon and Washington coasts from the Japanese tsunami.
"They didn't want to turn it loose," said Seaside Aquarium curator Keith Chandler. "And they didn't want to let it die."

So Chandler and the aquarium staff rescued the critter they have dubbed the "tsunami fish."

Coyotes on the Beach

Oregon beaches have been experiencing coyotes on the beaches for awhile now. (I wrote about coyotes in the Newport area in May of 2010,) for Oreogn L.O.W.F.I. I've heard them at night; it's both a cool and an eerie sound to hear them so close, and right on the beach. But, like bear and deer in the area, the coyotes in human developed areas are a problem, for both humans and animals. There's the reason why bear, deer, coyote, etc. are "infringing" in human populated areas. The animal's habitat is being decreased, the animals move in. There are other reasons as well: for example, humans feeding wildlife, particularly bears. (A Yachats, Oregon women was found guilty of feeding bears on her property; she was banned from living in the area) as I also blogged on L.O.W.F.I.

On Thursday, a five year old was bitten by a coyote on the beach in Nehalem State Park. (Nehalem is on the coast.) Wildlife authorities shot and killed the coyote; the child is undergoing a rabies shots series.

Eating the dog; "She'd Have Done It, Too"

Some people are fucking idiots:Three lost in woods considered eating dog | The mushroom pickers who were found after six nights in the forest stayed in what they described as a “bear’s nest”

GOLD BEACH — Three mushroom pickers lost six nights in the rugged forest of Southwest Oregon with no food considered eating their dog, and they used their dead cell phone and a sheath knife to flash a signal at the helicopter pilot who found them.

Dan Conne said Sunday from his hospital bed in Gold Beach that he and his wife and son spent the nights huddled in a hollow log with nothing to eat, and considered sacrificing their pit bull, Jesse, for food.

“She’s that good a dog, she’d have done it, too,” Conne said.

Strange Frequency: Beeping, Bird Visitation, Radio Noise

I had a very strange experience last night. I spent much of the night sleeping little; listening mainly to Coast to Coast and the news coming in on the earthquake in Japan, and soon after, the tsunami warnings. Earliest reports were warnings for Hawaii and the Washington and Oregon coasts; later, California and Alaska.

I was compelled to listen through the night because of the sheer tragedy and immensity of another overwhelming earth disaster, and also, because we had planned to drive to the coast that day (approximately fifty miles from our home) and spend the weekend there. I was also concerned about my mother and friends on the Oregon coast, as well as family living up and down the Pacific coast.  I tried to sleep, managed to doze off for a while but kept waking up, turning the little transistor on again. Throughout Coast to Coast local tsunami warnings came through, announcing beach and school closures for the Oregon coast.

At one point, a deep beeping sound woke me up. This beeping was deep within me; not from an external source, not an acoustic anomaly. It was inside of me. It became louder, and with it, I saw a large dark bird come flying towards me. All I could see was the shape, no details. Slowly flapping its huge wings as it came towards me, as the beeping got louder and louder. A glowing whitish-blue light or "halo" surrounded this bird. This bird vision was indie my head, not external, but it was definitely connected to the beeping sound. At first I thought the bird was an owl; and it might had been, but it seemed to be something else as well. What, I'm not sure. I had conflicting responses to this bird; one, that all this was pretty damn interesting but as the owl, or bird-creature, came closer, along with the light, I became a little scared and tried to shut it out. It sort of exploded when I did that, and I had the feeling this bird-like creature was both frustrated with me and disappointed that I chose to ignore it.

Then, I heard, again from that same, deep-within place inside me, the sounds of voices talking on the radio. So I told myself it was the radio; I still had it on, the ear buds in my ears. But the radio and ear -buds were both on the night table, and the radio was off.

I cannot describe how this was not a dream. It was not a dream that I awoke from, it was not a hypnogognic dream, it was not a dream then I awake to find I'm really still dreaming, ... none of that. None of that. I was completely awake. The radio talk within continued; I tried very hard to listen to make sense out of it but the voices were indistinct.

Thunderbird Synchronicity
After I wrote this, I visited The Anomalist to find this link to a post from Loren Coleman at Cryptomundo: Tsunamis and Thunderbirds, which explores the stories of Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest and earthquakes:

It is amazing what Thunderbird folklore may tell us about past tsunamis, says Ruth Ludwin, a University of Washington scientist. Her research has found that Thunderbird and other cryptid stories and traditions “could relate to a large Seattle fault earthquake around A.D. 900 and specific eyewitness accounts linked to a mammoth 1700 earthquake and tsunami in the Cascadia subduction zone.”

“Along the way, I picked up a lot of stories about landslides,” she said. But she couldn’t find anything that seemed to match the 1700 event, until she took a closer look at the story of Thunderbird and Whale.
“It’s a story of the underworld versus the over-world,” Ludwin said.
The Whale was a monster, killing other whales and depriving the people of meat and oil. The Thunderbird, a benevolent supernatural being, saw from its home high in the mountains that the people were starving. The great bird soared out over the coastal waters, then plunged into the ocean and seized the Whale.
A struggle ensued first in the water, the tribal tale says. “The waters receded and rose again. Many canoes came down in trees and were destroyed and numerous lives were lost.”
The Thunderbird eventually succeeds in lifting the evil Whale out of the ocean, carrying it “high into the air (and then) dropping it to the land surface at Beaver prairie. Then at this place there was another great battle.”

On the Coast
After phone calls back and forth and following news reports we decided to drive to the coast, which turned out to be a beautiful drive. The tsunami warnings for this area have been lifted. As I'm typing this I'm looking out at the shore, listening to the ocean.

Bear on the Eugene Bike Path: Close to Home, Literally

Wow, if you know this area in Eugene, Oregon, where I live, you'd know that this is very odd: Bear wanders onto west Eugene bike path.
This is literally less than two miles from my house. Right in the middle of town. I have been on this path many times. One more example of signals: of wild animals seeking food, safety, habitat, as well as possible disorientation from... who knows what. Ever encroaching human habitats and construction, pollution and environmental changes, etc.

Not the first time a wild animal has been seen in this town; a few years ago there was a cougar seen on the University of Oregon campus. There are wild turkeys all around the hills, we often see deer just a mile or so from here. It's always amazing to me, the juxtaposition of city life: traffic, buildings, "downtown" (such as that is, given Eugene's crazy-wild ass hat stupid ideas of urban planning, but that's an entirely different subject) and wild animals, such as deer, bear, cougar, etc.

Brown Pelicans on the Oregon Coast

This is a sort of update to my previous post on the pelican sighting in Yachats. According to this site, brown pelicans migrate from California to the NW then leave the NW before the storms hit. But very recently, some pelicans have decided to stay in the PNW and not migrate:

Until recently, it seemed safe to say that the pelicans arrived in June and left in September. That was before the summers of 2008 and 2009, when they flew in massive flocks and roosted by the hundreds, even thousands, in the rocks and bays of the Oregon coast. One observer, in July 2009, counted 22,000 pelicans on East Sand Island, in the Columbia River.

Then, in the winter of 2009-10, some pelicans chose not to migrate at all. An estimated 1,000 pelicans stayed on the Oregon Coast until the early spring, when they began to sport their breeding plumage. Some biologists wondered if they might establish a new breeding colony here in Oregon, 1,000 miles north of their usual rocks in sunny southern California.

Brown pelicans hanging around the Oregon coast concern some biologists. The following is from a January, 2010 article; Pelicans Lingering on Oregon Coast:

The flocks of about 20,000 brown pelicans that live on the Oregon coast in summer usually fly south before winter. But during the past three years, they've lingered -- perhaps another sign of climate change.

"I think it does have to do with big picture eco-change," said Deborah Jaques, a wildlife biologist in Astoria who contracts with the state and federal government. "They're a good indicator of that, but we don't have enough data yet."

And from March of this year; Brown Pelicans won't fly south from Oregon coast and that worries scientists:

Biologists are worried. Birds have starved to death and been pummeled by storms. Scientists are also perplexed about why they've altered their habits. Climate change could be a factor -- no one really knows for sure.

But last week, birders counted dozens on the coast. Lowe said there have been sightings of 60 in Newport, 25 at Charleston and seven in Depoe Bay.

"Maybe some of them will survive the spring," he said. "I haven't heard of any moralities. They haven't looked good for a long time, but they continue to hang in there."

Image: public domain

Omens on the Coast

Of dead birds, pink starfish, and Stonefield Beach . . .

We had a wonderful time on the coast over Thanksgiving. We stayed in Yachats, and took a lovely, if a bit spooky, walk on the beach. This particular beach is one in front of the motel (The Silver Surf) where we stayed, and very different from the surrounding beaches. That's one of the things I enjoy about the Oregon coast: it's diversity within a small area.

There isn't much area between ocean and where property sits. You really have to be aware of when the tides come in or you're in trouble. We saw several of these little niches or "cave-lets" as Jim called them; little grottoes within the sandstone. Hide aways for Bigfoot? :) But as always, when exploring the coastal area, my thoughts turn to Bigfoot!

A pink sea-star washed up on the shore, which is not necessarily unusual, but it reminded me of the odd story back in October back about the hundreds of pink sea-stars washing up in the area. It's been a few years since I'd seen sea stars washed up on the beach, this was my first one in a long time.

It's not unusual to see dead birds on the beach either; I often come across a dead gull or some other type of bird while walking on the beach. But this time, I found four dead birds: three gulls and one crow, in a sort of curved row. Very odd to see so many birds in the same spot like that; in a long line, about five feet from each other. The next day, about a quarter mile from the motel, we saw a gull standing in the middle of the highway. Birds always fly off when you get close, but this gull just stood there, and Jim had to swerve to avoid hitting it. The gull was standing over -- and eating -- a gull carcass. About an hour later, as we were driving back, we saw what we assumed was the same bird, dead on the road, near the cannibalized gull.

I also had the joy of watching a pelican hover, swoop and hunt above the sea, among all the gulls. At first we didn't know what we were looking at; one very large dark bird among all the whitish gray gulls. Was it a large gull, an osprey? We couldn't tell at first, then realized it was a pelican. I'd seen pelicans before of course, but usually, they're just sitting around. I'd never seen one fly about and "fish" before. I don't know, but it seems like it was unusual to see it by itself; I've always seen pelicans in flocks.

I had wanted to explore Stonefield Beach; but when we turned onto the drive we found a sign announcing  that the park was closed. Very interesting; locals, according to this article, are annoyed at tourists in the area but I find that a strange response. The whole coast is a tourist area, particularly around there; plenty of areas to hike, hunt, fish, explore. I didn't notice other beaches in the area that were closed. It's possible Stonefield was closed for other reasons having to do with safety; I can't see authorities giving in to locals who might complain about peole on the beach. If that were true, the whole coast would be closed down. My interest in the checking out that area has to do wtih local lore about UFOs, aliens, and other high strangeness.

We have a great time, and the motel we stayed at was very nice but we had some odd moments of electrical high strangeness. (Not a complaint at all, just observation.)  The phone in the room kept beeping; we finally had to disconnect it. My camera did something it had never done before; I went to turn it off, and all this static happened; lots of weird bands and a kind of strobing effect. WiFi was out, but that's not unusual on the coast; I did get it fine the next day, to my surprise, because it was much stormier this morning than it had been the last two nights.  A light wouldn't come on at all, we gave up, but the next day, it was fine and  came on with no trouble. Topping things off, I found the strangest message on my answering machine when I got home; electronic buzzings and beepings, a computerized voice telling me I was being sent a text message on my land line, a string of numbers, and it wasn't from anyone I know, yet did have something to do with an interest of mine, though no one I know who's aware of that interest  has my land line number... very odd.

Related posts
Stonefield Beach on Oregon L.O.W.F.I.
On Orange Orb: Oregon Coast: Bird Omens, Sky Weirdness