Name: Smarty Pints! Pinniped Conflicts and Urban Birds
Start: 2026-06-15T18:30:00-07:00
End: 2026-06-15T20:30:00-07:00
Location: Burke-Gilman Brewing Company

Smarty Pints! Pinniped Conflicts and Urban Birds

Join us for an evening on human-wildlife interactions with a wildlife educator and an evolutionary biologist!
About this Event

Seattle summer is here! Hot tip for June 15: go to the Ballard Locks in mid-June to see the veeeery beginning of the sockeye salmon run (🤞) – then hop right onto the Burke-Gilman trail and don’t stop until you get to Burke-Gilman Brewing, where Ellen Weatherford will share the literally explosive history of trying to keep seals and sea lions out of there. We’ll keep the human-wildlife interactions going with Dr. Valentina Alaasam, who will cover how birds are coping with the rapid urbanization of their natural habitats.

🦭 Ellen Weatherford

Host and Producer, “Just the Zoo of Us” podcast

“Man Vs Pinniped: How the humans of Seattle have tried (and failed) to keep seals and sea lions out of the Ballard Locks”

Throughout the 1980's and 90's, the steelhead trout of the Ballard Locks were decimated by sea lions and harbor seals. Attempting to save their beloved state fish, humans took up the task of keeping the pinnipeds out of the locks' waters, but outsmarting these agile and intelligent marine mammals proved a lot more challenging than anticipated. From boat chases and explosives to psychological warfare, this is the story of the decades-long rivalry between the pinnipeds and humans of Seattle.

🐦 Dr. Valentina Alaasam

NSF Postdoctoral Fellow, UW Biology

"Bright lights and hot summer nights: how birds are coping with urbanization"

Cities are some of the most rapidly altered environments on our planet. Light, noise, cars, habitat fragmentation, etc. all represent novel disturbances that animals must cope with to persist in these human-dominated habitats. Nonetheless, many bird species are abundant in cities and have seemingly adjusted to city life. Dr. Valentina Alaasam is an evolutionary biologist studying the behavior, physiology, and genetics of urban-adapted birds. In this talk, she will discuss some ways in which birds are responding to urbanization and some simple things we can do to help mitigate negative consequences.