Do you enjoy birdwatching, fishing, boating, or living along the shores of Protection Island, Miller and Quimper Peninsula? Would you like to continue to enjoy these waters in the future, while also helping ensure the area’s clean waters and fish and wildlife habitats are healthy for future generations to enjoy?

Protection Island and its surrounding waters are unique to Puget Sound! The shorelines and deep waters surrounding Protection Island support critical life stages of exceptional fish and wildlife. Seventy-two percent of Puget Sound breeding seabirds breed and rear their young here. It’s the last stand in Puget Sound for Tufted puffins, and supports one of the largest Rhinoceros auklet colonies in the world. It supports herring, shrimp and Dungeness crab, elephant seals, and harbor seals.

People For Puget Sound has nominated the state-owned tidelands and bedlands surrounding Protection Island as state Department of Natural Resources (DNR) aquatic reserve. Through an aquatic reserve, DNR sets aside aquatic lands that are of special educational or scientific interest, or of special environmental importance, and these lands are managed for long-term protection for the benefit of the public.

You can have a say in how State DNR manages its aquatic lands here now and in the future.  Please come to the open house meeting on Wednesday, March 25!


Time:  6:30 to 8:30 p.m.
Date:   Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Who:  People For Puget Sound and the Washington Department of Natural Resources
Where:  Gardiner Community Center, 980 Old Gardiner Road, Sequim, WA 98382

Please come hear a brief presentation on the Aquatic Reserve Program and the proposal for the state-owned aquatic lands around Protection. Then, stop by a display table to discuss your suggestions and concerns.   DNR seeks and considers public input through all stages of the process.  Ultimately, the reserve will only go forward if there is broad public support.

WE NEED TO HEAR FROM YOU!
Share your suggestions or concerns, tell us your ideas about the location of the proposed reserve, your local knowledge about the wildlife habitats and activities that occur in the area, and your thoughts about future DNR management of the proposed reserve.

Why an aquatic reserve?
The aquatic reserve program involves development of a community-driven comprehensive management plan that takes an ecosystem approach to protection, restoration, education, monitoring, and research. Designation of the aquatic reserve can ensure that these diverse and unique habitats are protected, enhanced, and restored for future generations to enjoy.  Benefits include:

•    Allow the public to have a greater say in the long-term management of these state-owned aquatic lands, which will continue to be managed by DNR
•    Identify actions for protecting and restoring clean water and healthy fish and wildlife habitats that also benefit recreational fishing, bird watchers, property owners and the public
•    Elevate the site as a high priority for oil spill prevention and recovery programs.

Will the proposal affect recreational boating, fishing, or crabbing, or limit the use of private land?
•    Aquatic reserves do not restrict access to fishing, crabbing or boating, nor do they set harvest restrictions. Such restrictions are not part of this proposal.

•    Aquatic reserves do not include privately owned tidelands or tribal lands, bluffs or beaches and do not impact private property. They include only state-owned aquatic lands managed by the DNR.

•    Privately owned tidelands, such as that owned by the Cape George, Beckett Point, Diamond Point and Sunshine Acres communities, are not proposed to be part of the aquatic reserve.


 Can’t attend the meeting but want to share your suggestions or concerns, or be involved in management discussion, or volunteer stewardship, monitoring, and research activities?

Contact Cyrilla Cook, People For Puget Sound, (206) 382-7007.