Connie and Tweets,

I emailed Jan Arntz this morning and copied my letter to my
SongbirdPhoto.com Facebook page. If you're on Facebook, you might
want to "like" my post so your other friends can see and take action
if they like:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/SongbirdPhotocom/172596339510761

If you haven't already emailed Jan about this issue, and want to,
feel free to use any or all of my letter as a template to save
yourself some time.

Good birding!

Marc Hoffman
http://www.SongbirdPhoto.com




At 06:46 PM 2/9/2012, Connie Sidles wrote:
>Hey tweets, I too just found out about this. As mentioned in earlier
>emails, the UW Athletics department is planning to dig up all the
>natural sod in the field north of Clark and replace it with artificial turf.
>
>If you care about this, then now is the time to let the UW know! The
>contact person is Jan Arntz. Her email is:
>
><mailto:jarntz at u.washington.edu>jarntz at u.washington.edu
>
>There will not be a public hearing, so this is our only chance to
>let our opinions be known. The comment period lasts until Feb. 27.
>Please, please help with this. Once the field is gone, it's gone for good.
>
>I hope we can generate two or three thousand emails expressing our
>reactions to this. Here are some relevant points you might want to
>make (and you can email me for more information if you want):
>
>1. The field is presently grass and is used sporadically by UW
>intramural teams. When people aren't using it, birds are.
>2. Birds who have come here to feed are:
>Cackling Geese
>Greater White-fronted Geese
>Snow Geese
>American Wigeons
>Gadwalls
>Mallards
>Canadas (of course)
>Glaucous-winged Gulls
>Mew Gulls
>Ring-billed Gulls
>California Gulls
>Thayer's Gulls
>Herring Gulls
>Western Gulls
>Killdeer
>American Pipits
>American Robins
>European Starlings (yes)
>Red-winged Blackbirds
>Brewer's Blackbirds
>Brown-headed Cowbirds
>Rock Pigeons
>Peregrine Falcons
>Northern Flickers
>Golden-crowned Sparrows
>White-crowned Sparrows
>Savannah Sparrows
>Song Sparrows
>Hermit Thrushes (in the bushes that line the western edge)
>American Crows
>
>and probably other species that I'm forgetting at the moment (I'm
>late to a meeting and must rush!).
>
>3. Right now, this field is a great example of people sharing space
>with wildlife. If artificial turf goes in, this will completely
>destroy habitat for wildlife.
>
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