The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is taking public comments on a proposal to amend the endangered species listing of the southern Selkirk Mountains population of woodland caribou to recognize a anew population segment of the animals and include a broader range of mountain caribou in British Columbia.
Many Chinook salmon eggs laid in the Skagit River system last fall faced grim prospects for survival amid challenging water conditions. But a coordinated effort by Seattle City Light working with state and federal resource agencies and tribes along with an exceptionally wet March and April gave more than 300,000 of them the chance to grow up.
Seattle City Light recently purchased three separate riverfront properties to protect salmonid habitat in our region. The purchases cover 44.5 acres on Pressentin Creek, one acre on the Skagit River and half an acre on the Tolt River. The property on the Skagit River is adjacent to other protected parcels owned by City Light.
Osprey and electrical equipment don’t belong together, and City Light is working hard to separate the two.
Natural Resources and Environmental Planning field surveys carried out this spring showed that steelhead redd (or nest) counts in the 27 miles of river below City Light’s hydroelectric project are 20 percent higher than any other year since 1997.
Seattle City Light will receive 640 acres of old-growth forest in the Skagit River watershed for conservation purposes. The land, which is along Pressentin Creek, formerly was managed by the Washington State Department of Natural Resources.
City Light has purchased two properties totaling more than 32 acres of fish habitat through a Salmon Recovery Funding Board grant and the utility’s Endangered Species Act Early Action Program.
