Local beach is popular with seals. Parks Tacoma starts program to protect them
The program will train and facilitate volunteers to keep an eye out for wildlife that hauls out on Owen Beach at Point Defiance Park to protect it from predators and well-meaning members of the public who might be curious about the animals, program coordinator Desiree Kennedy told The News Tribune. The Marine Mammal Health Watch is part of Parks Tacoma's Point Defiance Park Watch program, in which volunteers patrol the area to serve as an extra set of eyes on park rule violations.
'These people really will be the eyes and ears out in the park to let us know what they're seeing so that we can record it appropriately,' Kennedy said of the program at Owen Beach.
Kennedy said a team of volunteers will be dispatched along Owen Beach in two-hour shifts to ensure that a volunteer will be on site in the event of reports of seal appearances. Volunteers will help educate people about the animals and ensure that passersby keep a safe distance so the animals remain unharmed.
The program will focus on Owen Beach since it's a known hot spot for seal activity, Kennedy said.
'They also use that space at Owen beach naturally to mate, to give birth to their babies, to molt and to warm up or potentially cool off,' Kennedy told The News Tribune. 'So it's just really part of their natural behavior to come onto shore.'
Parks Tacoma decided to create the program after noticing the need for such volunteers over the years.
'Just the amount of questions that come from the public, we knew that we needed to be able to help answer those,' Kennedy said.
The program kicked off on May 21 when Parks Tacoma hosted its first orientation for interested volunteers. Kennedy said about 40 volunteers attended the event, and Parks Tacoma hopes to assign all of them two-hour shifts at Owen Beach to keep a volunteer presence on site at least during peak hours on weekends.
Volunteers will likely be stationed at Owen Beach starting around mid-June, Kennedy said.
Interested volunteers can contact Desiree Kennedy at desiree.kennedy@tacomaparks.com to learn more or get involved.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
UPI
5 hours ago
- UPI
AAP recommends children receive COVID-19 vaccine
The American Academy of Pediatrics is recommending children as young as six months receive the COVID-19 vaccine, despite the Trump administration stating it is not necessary for healthy children. File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo Aug. 20 (UPI) -- The United States' leading pediatrics association is recommending that children as young as six months old be inoculated against COVID-19, going against the Trump administration, which stopped recommending healthy children receive the vaccine. The American Academy of Pediatrics made the recommendation Tuesday in the publication of its childhood and adolescent immunization schedule for this year. The report specifically recommends that children be inoculated against COVID-19 between the ages of six and 23 months, stating that those in this age range are at the highest risk of suffering the worst effects of the disease. "Children younger than 2 years old are especially vulnerable to severe COVID-19 and should be prioritized for vaccination unless they have a known allergy to the vaccine or its ingredients," the AAP said in a release accompanying the report. The AAP recommendation goes against that of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who in late May said the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was no longer recommending that "healthy children" be immunized against COVID-19. Kennedy, a known vaccine skeptic, cited "a lack of any clinical data" to support booster COVID-19 shots for children. That move prompted AAP and other leading medical groups to sue Kennedy in July for making "unilateral, unscientific changes" to federal vaccine policy, calling it an "assault on science public health and evidence-based medicine." "This administration is an existential threat to vaccination in America, and those in charge are only just getting started," Richard Hughes IV, partner at Epstein Becker Green and lead counsel in the case, said in a statement. "If left unchecked, Secretary Kennedy will accomplish his goal of ridding the United States of vaccines, which would unleash a wave of preventable harm on our nation's children." Kennedy in June also fired all members of the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and replaced them with his own appointees, including three who have spoken out against the COVID-19 vaccine, two of whom have served as witnesses in lawsuits against vaccine makers and one who served on the board of the nation's oldest anti-vaccine group.
Politico
11 hours ago
- Politico
RFK Jr. attacks pediatricians' group over vaccine recommendations
In May, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention dropped its recommendation that all children 6 months and older get Covid shots. Kennedy at the time said the move was based on 'common sense' and 'good science. ' The AAP, however, said it had retained its guidance for young children to get the shots because they are still at risk of severe cases of the disease. 'COVID-19 continues to result in hospitalization and death in the pediatric population,' the group said in a release explaining its recommendations, adding that 'children younger than 2 years old are especially vulnerable to severe COVID-19 and should be prioritized for vaccination.' The pediatric group did not immediately respond to POLITICO's request for comment regarding Kennedy's remarks. Earlier Tuesday, HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon accused the pediatricians of 'freelancing its own recommendations, while smearing those who demand accountability' in a statement to POLITICO. AAP President Susan J. Kressly defended her group's guidance in response, saying they were 'based only in the science, the needs of children, and the care that pediatricians have for the children in every community.' Despite the disagreement over vaccination of young children, both the new CDC guidance and the pediatricians continue to recommend shots for children with underlying conditions that could put them at risk for severe disease. Both have also scaled back recommendations for healthy children older than 6 months, saying that parents of children without underlying conditions should decide on vaccination in consultation with their pediatrician . Why it matters: The pediatricians' split with the CDC underscores the depth of the distrust between the medical establishment and Kennedy — a longtime vaccine skeptic who once said the Covid vaccine was 'the deadliest vaccine ever made' in defiance of scientific consensus.
The Hill
13 hours ago
- The Hill
Pediatric group bucks RFK Jr. on kids' COVID shots
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommended Tuesday that children between 6 months and 23 months old receive the vaccine to protect them against serious illness caused by the virus. Kids under the age of 2 are especially vulnerable to severe COVID-19, the group said, and should be prioritized for vaccination unless they have an allergy to the jab or its ingredients. In May, Kennedy announced that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) would no longer recommend routine COVID-19 shots for healthy children due to a lack of clinical data justifying the need for annual vaccinations against the virus. But the CDC did not follow Kennedy's guidance to the letter, instead recommending that parents take part in a 'shared decision making' process with health care providers to determine if their child needs the shot. The AAP and HHS have been at odds for months, and tensions reached a head when Kennedy dismissed all the members of the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) and replaced them with his own handpicked representatives, including some outright vaccine skeptics. Since it was founded in 1930, the AAP has published evidence-based vaccine guidance to support pediatricians. But it has not traditionally differed substantially from federal recommendations. The move to publish COVID recommendations that break from HHS reflects a new effort by medical societies and expert advocacy groups to bypass Kennedy and what they say are his efforts to upend the nation's vaccine system. With vaccine skeptics in charge of U.S. health care, these groups say they want to give Americans — especially parents — as much information as possible to protect children from disease. At the same time AAP's recommendations were released, a group of epidemiologists and infectious diseases experts called the Vaccine Integrity Project held essentially their own version of an ACIP meeting to review evidence on the safety and efficacy for flu, COVID and RSV shots. Members of the initiative said ACIP usually reviews guidelines for respiratory virus vaccines during the summer, but has not appeared to have done it this year. In its absence, the initiative was stepping in. The panel concluded there was no change in safety signals or sudden drop in efficacy on any of the vaccines reviewed. 'There is no scientific evidence to support the changes HHS made to COVID recommendations for pregnant women or for children most at risk for high-risk transmission of severe disease,' said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, who is leading the initiative.
