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Typically when WW writes about owls, we're referring to OWLS, the august Oregon Women Lawyers who push for diversity among the legal ranks, among other issues.
Today we take you to Salem, where a string of owl attacks are unnerving joggers in Bush's Pasture Park. It turns out that barred owls can be particularly ferocious during nesting season, especially at dusk and dawn.
City leaders have had to post signs to warn visitors to the park.
But it was too late for Ron Jaecks, a Salem surgeon. As the Statesman Journal reports, an owl attacked Jaecks twice on Jan. 13, pulling his hat from his head and puncturing his scalp. Jaecksâdid we mention he's a surgeon?âthought at first he was experiencing a stroke or an aneurysm. That's how painful owl attacks are, apparently.
Making this story even stranger, Rachel Maddow successfully talked about the owl attacks on MSNBC last night in the same segment devoted to the unfolding scandal around Gov. John Kitzhaber and first lady Cylvia Hayes.
It gave her quite a hoot.
"This day, Feb. 5, Oregon is the most interesting place in the country," Maddow told viewers. "Governor Kitzhaber's girlfriend trouble and the question of whether or not he's going to resign over his longstanding girlfriend troubles, right after being sworn in for a fourth term, that girlfriend trouble thing is not the only thing looming over the state of Oregon right now, looming silently and occasionally swooping down and terrifying the state."
WWeek 2015