From the north ballfield, I proceeded directly down the trail to the north end of the beach. Right at the spot where LP transitions to Lowman Beach, I saw the following:
(Tracy, please let me know if I need to blur this guy’s face. Thanks.)
Now this is a sight you can see any time you go to the beach, here at LP, or anywhere along Beach Drive or Alki. People letting their dogs run on the beach and play in the water, despite signs that say, “No dogs on the beach, period.”
In this particular case, I saw the dog squat near the waterline a couple times, but I don’t know whether it was defecating or just urinating.
The guy in this picture looked local to me. Very local. So I doubt that it was a case of him not knowing the law. Rather, I think it was a case of him not caring. (Laws are for suckers, right?)
Perhaps we need to have a public education campaign surrounding this issue, because people really don’t seem to get it. Dogs on the beach are not cool for a number of reasons, including the following:
1) Wet dogs running up and down the beach interfere with park visitors’ ability to quietly enjoy the place. It’s basically just rude.
2) Dogs spook waterfowl that hang out around the beach and they may be especially threatening to baby seals – which is why Seal Sitters freak out whenever they see a dog on the beach.
3) Dogs poop on the beach and the bacteria from their poop gets into the water, where it is absorbed by the creatures living there, to whom it may be very harmful. There are times when it could be dangerous for the dog, too, like when there’s a red tide.
And speaking of red tides, lots of poop in the water can actually cause those. Red tide is nothing but a mass algae bloom, after all, and algae feed on the nitrogen that’s present in things like . . . you guessed it . . . DOG POOP.
Sure, one dog pooping on the beach is not going to cause an environmental crisis. But it’s NOT one dog pooping on the beach any more. It’s HUNDREDS of dogs pooping on the beach. And each single dog that does it is a contributor to the problem.
But I guess that’s what irresponsible people like these off-leash dog folks just don’t get . . .
