News Features

Courtesy of Amie Heddle

Los Altos Hills residents Nyx Swildens, left, and Val Swildens cuddle with puppies they’re helping their mother, Amie Heddle, foster for Pets In Need.

In addition to upending the retail and services industries, the coronavirus pandemic has forced disruption among local animal services operations; shelter-in-place orders from the County of Santa Clara Public Health Department and Gov. Gavin Newsom mean the temporary shuttering of Pets In Need, or PIN, which serves Los Altos and Los Altos Hills. The animal rescue organization is unable to process adoptions at this time. 

Megan V. Winslow/Town Crier

A bench outside the closed Los Altos Hills Parks and Recreation building hosts free dog biscuits and pathways maps.

No town picnic. No Pathways Run or hopping hounds scouring Byrne Preserve for milk bones. All three Los Altos Hills events – and many more – have been canceled due to coronavirus concerns. 

Members of the public are encouraged to avoid the Palo Alto Flood Basin Thursday (March 26) morning as a helicopter applies an aerial mosquito treatment to the marshy and otherwise inaccessible area. 

The Mountain View City Council members approved a $500,000 program to provide rent relief to tenants impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. 

Billions of dollars in federal aid – along with political clout – could be flying out California’s proverbial door unless people fill out their 2020 U.S. Census materials. 

Courtesy of Ken Hickman

Independent wildlife researcher Ken Hickman photographed a blue-eyed coyote, which National Geographic reports to be a one-in-a-million phenomenon, in January.

Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District officials recently spotted an unusual sight on one of the trail cameras at Rancho San Antonio Open Space Preserve – a blue-eyed coyote.

Caught on film early this year, the canine is a rarity; Midpen officials said it’s the first confirmed sighting of a blue-eyed coyote at the preserve.