At the westernmost tip of West Seattle, Alki Beach looks out over Puget Sound toward Bainbridge Island and the Olympic Mountains. A freighter moves slowly, silently, up the channel. Two harbor seals float offshore, their heads bobbing above the soft waves of a late summer day. Despite its proximity to the pollution and industry of the city, this beach is one of the richest intertidal ecosystems of the region. We’re there with my cousin Laura, a marine biologist who points out common invertebrates like barnacles and limpits, and rarer ones such as sponges and a chiton.
This is a fragile ecosystem, and one made more fragile (surprise!) by human greed and stupidity. This August, over 160,000 Atlantic salmon escaped from a fish farm on Cypress Island. Although the state government declared open season on Atlantic salmon, fewer than one-third of the escaped population has been caught. Atlantic salmon not only out-eat the endangered Chinook salmon native to these waters, but they also have no natural predators here. Resident orcas need nearly 300 pounds of Chinook a day to survive, and their population is now in steep decline.
While the government terminated Cooke Aquaculture’s lease at its fish farm in Port Angeles, and the Wild Fish Conservancy is suing the corporation for violating the Clean Water Act, the damage they’ve already done may be irreversible. If you’d like to help preserve fragile, interdependent ecosystems like those of Alki Beach and Puget Sound, you may donate here to aid in the Wild Fish Conservancy’s lawsuit and ongoing conservation efforts: https://wild-fish.networkforgood.com/
Thank you.
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