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https://www.yahoo.com/news/science/articles/largest-restoration-project-stillaguamish-river-012325152.html>
“The Stillaguamish Tribe completed its largest restoration project on the
Stillaguamish River on Friday, when water from the North Fork rushed into a
side channel for the first time in more than 150 years.
The project is the latest installment in a large-scale effort by the Tribe to
restore the river to how it flowed before the area was colonized in the 1800s.
The two-mile stretch of river, 230 acres of surrounding land, and the projects
to come will be vital to restoring salmon habitat, reducing wildfire risk, and
protecting homes from flood damage, according to Jason Griffith and Kadi
Bizyayeva with the tribe.
The footprint is easily visible from aerial maps.
"You can see this project is that large, and that's the scale of habitat that's
been lost." Griffith said, "We've lost thousands of acres of fish and wildlife
habitat, and we're working piece by piece to put thousands of acres of fish and
wildlife habitat back on the landscape."
Griffith, the environmental program manager, has helped the Tribe buy the land
that was a former golf course, cattle ranch, and tree farm.
Construction and acquisition combined cost close to $15 million.
The Endangered Species List has coho salmon as endangered of extinction and
chum salmon as threatened with extinction. This project primarily intends to
help protect these types of fish.
Bizyayeva, the fisheries director and vice chair for the Stillaguamish Tribe,
says the project will help fish on both sides of their migration.
"Salmon are going to go right by us upriver. They're going to spawn...They need
the side channel habitat to provide them with a little bit of relief."
Bizyayeve said, "Those baby salmon are out migrating— they'll need this type
of habitat to just to grow to get bigger and to rest up for the journey back
downstream."”
Via Susan ****
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
