REVIEW BAINBRIDGE ISLAND
Friday, September 18, 2015 | Vol. 90, No. 38 | WWW.BAINBRIDGEREVIEW.COM | 75¢ ISLAND RIDER CLAIMS BIG DOWNHILL WIN AT NORTHWEST CUP
INSIDE: Spartans in it to win it, A12
COYOTE UGLY: The cost of development?
Photo courtesy of Michael Belkin
Sebastian Belkin, 14, a freshman at Bainbridge High School, claimed the overall first-place spot at the recent downhill mountain biking Northwest Cup at Stevens Pass.
Photos courtesy of Rasham Riely-Gibbons
Rasham Riely-Gibbons’ five-month-old Shih-poo, Bart, was seized by coyotes last week from her family’s farm.
Belkin claims top spot Residents fear loss of habitat leading to more coyote-pet conflicts in NW championship race BY JESSICA SHELTON Bainbridge Island Review
BY LUCIANO MARANO Bainbridge Island Review
When most 14-year-olds hop on their bikes, they maybe grab a helmet and then they’re on their way. Sebastian Belkin gears up like a gladiator. Of course, his ride’s usually a little more intense than a quick jaunt ‘round the neighborhood. Belkin, 14, a freshman at Bainbridge High School, is a rising star in the extreme sport of competitive down-
hill mountain bike racing. Recently, he concluded his first serious season on the competitive circuit by bringing home the first-place medal from the Northwest Cup, the premiere mountain bike racing event in the region, in Category 2, boys age 15 to 18, at Stevens Pass. Downhill mountain biking — or “DH” — is a specific kind of bike race that is run on steep, rough tracks and
Rasham Riely-Gibbons was standing in her yard, closing the door to her henhouse, when it happened. She had five minutes left in her morning routine when she heard Bart’s tiny scream; she was 15 feet away when they took him. Barefoot, she sprinted through her four-acre clearing, the silent bandits already well into the bordering wetland, with her two Great Pyrenees trailing. The rescue was not easy. She crawled with Trent, her husband, through dense brush, her unpro-
TURN TO RACE | A2
tected hands and knees bleeding as she fended off thistle and blackberry vines. After half a mile, the path became impassable, and they were forced to start again, but the second slog was no more successful. Surrounded by forest growth, they could not see, and Odin and Solace were now too far away to guide them with their barking. An hour had passed and Bart — the family’s beloved puppy — still was missing. Devastated, Rasham and Trent doubled back to the farm, and jumped in the car to round up the Pyrenees. But as they turned onto Sands Avenue, a neighbor’s grand-
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son flagged them down; he had found Bart’s body. “I don’t care that he’s dead, just, please, take me to him,” Rasham remembered crying. Bart’s stomach was bloody and there was a puncture wound behind his hind leg; Rasham surmised that the coyote had gripped him in his jaw, and that the momentum, from being carried, is what caused his little neck to break. “I never thought that this was a possibility; never did it even cross my mind that it would be a possibility,” Rasham said later. TURN TO COYOTE | A16
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