Bunnies
Not far from my apartment there are two huge parks, two of the biggest in Seattle. One, called Greenlake park, is skirted (on it's West side) buy Aurora Ave (Hwy 99) and is largely occupied, as those with literal minds might imagine, by a large (green) lake. The other, called Woodland Park, is bisected by Aurora Ave (Hwy 99); its East half is mostly wooded (as predicted, again, by the literal minded among you) and its West half is home to Seattle's Zoo. Woodland Park is part of, in fact most of, Phinney Ridge, which is to say that the whole park is pretty much all up hill. Where Aurora Ave starts it's incline is the beginning of the park (on it's North end) and if you turned off Aurora onto 50th you'd continue uphill for several blocks along the South end of the park.
These two parks are like a map of my childhood, or adolescence at least. My 8th grade class had our end of year picnic at Woodland Park. When I was 14 and 15 I rowed crew at Greenlake in the summers. In fact I had a run in with an overly friendly frat boy who helped out coaching our crew team there. Near the Bathhouse Theater I went skinny dipping for the first time when I was 16. I spent a lot of time at that spot, by the Bathhouse, my Junior and Senior years in High School. Friendships were forged and others were broken there. To this day, I always go there when my life seems out of control. Things never seem any clearer there but it reminds me of a time when my life was quite a bit more out of control and that helps.
There's a small strip of grass surrounded by trees right where the two parks meet, at Aurora Ave, that used to have dozens (possibly hundreds) of bunnies in it. They made their burrows under the highway and, I hear, in some cases even burrowed all the way under the highway and up into some of the animal cages at the zoo. I loved these bunnies. That section of the park is a tiny triangle of grass bordered on the South by N 63rd St, on the East by W Greenlake Way, and on the West by Aurora Ave N. It was on my way home from my parents house (among other things) and every time I drove by and saw all the bunnies I smiled.
Then I started to hear talk a couple years ago about how the city wanted to eliminate the bunny problem. Though apparently there had been talk for many years, decades possibly. You see the bunnies weren't wild to begin with, they were pet bunnies that people abandoned there. So it wasn't a natural bunny habitat, so to speak, which wasn't good for the bunnies or the habitat. Over the years people had tried to adopt the bunnies or relocate them but those efforts couldn't keep up with the expanding bunny population (bunnies being bunnies after all). Apparently, in recent years, the bunny burrows under the Zoo had become so numerous that they were a hazard to the more valuable zoo animals by making the ground unstable. There was a fear that one of the African Savanna animals, a zebra or giraffe or something, would accidentally step in one of the burrows and twist an ankle thereby having to be put down...or something like that. I understand that, and the much more logical argument about the burrows potentially making the highway unstable and prone to sink holes, all of which are threats to the bunnies as well anyway. So, I understood the need to do something about the bunny population, but I felt like eliminating it all together seemed extreme, and, of course, it made me sad because, you know, bunnies are cute and stuff.
There was much talk about possibly killing the bunnies, just like there had been with the geese a few years back, but bunnies are cute and geese are not so I think the impetus to come up with a more humane solution was higher. In the end a more humane solution was found. There's actually a bunny sanctuary in Redmond, specifically designed to house all those abandoned Easter gifts that people foolishly buy for their kids (which were the source of the Greenlake/Woodland Park bunny problem to begin with). They relocated the bunnies this past winter. It was actually hard to tell. There was a big storm this year that knocked down a lot of trees including a large one in the bunny zone (as I used to call it). This huge tree lay there for about 3 or 4 months, all winter basically, when all the other debris from the storm had already been cleared. With the tree there, taking up a majority of that tiny strip of park, the bunnies weren't as visible, but a couple months ago, when they finally cleared the tree from the park I realized the bunnies were gone.
I know the parks are better off and the bunnies are better off but I kind of miss them.
These two parks are like a map of my childhood, or adolescence at least. My 8th grade class had our end of year picnic at Woodland Park. When I was 14 and 15 I rowed crew at Greenlake in the summers. In fact I had a run in with an overly friendly frat boy who helped out coaching our crew team there. Near the Bathhouse Theater I went skinny dipping for the first time when I was 16. I spent a lot of time at that spot, by the Bathhouse, my Junior and Senior years in High School. Friendships were forged and others were broken there. To this day, I always go there when my life seems out of control. Things never seem any clearer there but it reminds me of a time when my life was quite a bit more out of control and that helps.
There's a small strip of grass surrounded by trees right where the two parks meet, at Aurora Ave, that used to have dozens (possibly hundreds) of bunnies in it. They made their burrows under the highway and, I hear, in some cases even burrowed all the way under the highway and up into some of the animal cages at the zoo. I loved these bunnies. That section of the park is a tiny triangle of grass bordered on the South by N 63rd St, on the East by W Greenlake Way, and on the West by Aurora Ave N. It was on my way home from my parents house (among other things) and every time I drove by and saw all the bunnies I smiled.
Then I started to hear talk a couple years ago about how the city wanted to eliminate the bunny problem. Though apparently there had been talk for many years, decades possibly. You see the bunnies weren't wild to begin with, they were pet bunnies that people abandoned there. So it wasn't a natural bunny habitat, so to speak, which wasn't good for the bunnies or the habitat. Over the years people had tried to adopt the bunnies or relocate them but those efforts couldn't keep up with the expanding bunny population (bunnies being bunnies after all). Apparently, in recent years, the bunny burrows under the Zoo had become so numerous that they were a hazard to the more valuable zoo animals by making the ground unstable. There was a fear that one of the African Savanna animals, a zebra or giraffe or something, would accidentally step in one of the burrows and twist an ankle thereby having to be put down...or something like that. I understand that, and the much more logical argument about the burrows potentially making the highway unstable and prone to sink holes, all of which are threats to the bunnies as well anyway. So, I understood the need to do something about the bunny population, but I felt like eliminating it all together seemed extreme, and, of course, it made me sad because, you know, bunnies are cute and stuff.
There was much talk about possibly killing the bunnies, just like there had been with the geese a few years back, but bunnies are cute and geese are not so I think the impetus to come up with a more humane solution was higher. In the end a more humane solution was found. There's actually a bunny sanctuary in Redmond, specifically designed to house all those abandoned Easter gifts that people foolishly buy for their kids (which were the source of the Greenlake/Woodland Park bunny problem to begin with). They relocated the bunnies this past winter. It was actually hard to tell. There was a big storm this year that knocked down a lot of trees including a large one in the bunny zone (as I used to call it). This huge tree lay there for about 3 or 4 months, all winter basically, when all the other debris from the storm had already been cleared. With the tree there, taking up a majority of that tiny strip of park, the bunnies weren't as visible, but a couple months ago, when they finally cleared the tree from the park I realized the bunnies were gone.
I know the parks are better off and the bunnies are better off but I kind of miss them.
posted by Beth at
6:01 PM
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