PVC pipe is not on the list of 10 essentials for hikers but if you’re doing some fall hiking or camping near Nehalem in the North Cascades National Park, you might want to bring along a couple of 18-inch pieces.
Seems at least two ravens have spent the hiking season ripping out the wiper blades from their housings on various vehicles, including some at the employee parking lot, Goodell Creek Campground and near the visitor center.
The curious raven behavior began in May when a raven continually attacked the center’s rear windows.
“A raven was adamant, from our perspective, about trying to get in,” said acting chief interpreter Charles Beall. “It was frequently at the rear windows, scratching and pecking and flying up and down at them. It behaved very aggressively toward the windows.”
Initially employees chalked it up to a territorial raven fighting its reflection, thinking the reflection was an intruding raven.
“It was very aggressive, to the extent that it was bleeding from its beak,” Beall said.
Employees wrapped butcher paper around the first few feet of all the windows but it was torn down by the next day.
Theories included reflection anxiety, trying to attack the two large murals of ravens that were inside (they covered the murals) and wanting to get in because the bird heard the raven calls that were played inside.
By June, the raven had given up windows and started on windshield wipers.
“We started noticing missing windshield wipers,” Beall said. “The blades were torn out of the unit and left in the parking lot near the vehicles.”
It turned out that there were two ravens doing the deed.
“We began covering our windshield wipers with little PCV pipes,” Beall said. “All the employees were doing it.”
They also posted warning signs.
“It could be serious of you were crossing Washington Pass and all of a sudden there was a downpour and you didn’t have any windshield wipers,” Beall said.
They brought in bird researcher John Marzluff, co-author of “In the Company of Crows and Ravens.” He banded two vandals but the trauma of the capture didn’t deter them.
Natural resources specialist Cathi Jones said she received 13 raven-related reports, most of them about windshield wipers, and had no way of telling how many more incidents were not reported.
“We’re still trying to figure out (why) windshield wipers. Ravens are really intelligent and there’s a myriad of reasons why they could be doing it.”
Windshield-wiper wrestling is common in Alaska, she said.
“(Ravens) there seem to have some fetish for rubber windshield wipers or other little car trim that’s rubber. Here, it’s the wipers.”
Last July, rangers reported that ravens were ripping off windshield wipers and a few antennas in a Yosemite National Park parking lot. Those ravens had a bartering gene, however. Sometimes they left dead rodents on top of the vehicles.
CBC radio once reported that a principal from a New Brunswick, Canada, school had reported more than 40 windshield wipers from vehicles in the parking lot. One teaching assistant lost nine wipers, gained a lot of scratches on her car, and had the car’s soft top damaged by a raven apparently trying to rip it off.
It’s been relatively quiet the last few weeks, so maybe the Grim Wipers have discovered another fetish.
Lend a hand
Volunteers are needed for Operation Shore Patrol Days on Sept. 16 and 17. State agencies and many organizations are coordinating clean-up opportunities on land and underwater.
State parks with projects include those in Ilwaco, Auburn, Hoquiam and Westport. For information, call the park volunteer line at 360-902-8582 or the Pacific Northwest 4-Wheel Drive Association, 800-537-7845.
On the bookshelf
Mark Highberger’s “An Explorer’s Guide to Oregon” ($20) tops most typical travel guides because of his down-to-earth observations. The 504-page book is encyclopedic yet never dull, whether you’re looking for a great place to sleep or the best canoeing opportunity.
Columnist Sharon Wootton can be reached at 360-468-3964 or www.songandword.com.
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