[Tweeters] Fir Island Game Range

[J Christian Kessler]

creating/recreating intertidal areas means high tides have to reach/cover
the ground.  the trees taken down at Wylie Slough were on land several feet
above normal high tides, which ran up the channel a few tens of feet away.
I'm not understanding ...

Chris

On Fri, Sep 30, 2022 at 9:14 PM HAL MICHAEL <ucd880 at comcast.net> wrote:


> Create/recreate intertidal areas.

>

> Hal Michael

> Board of Directors, Ecologists Without Borders <http://ecowb.org/>

> Olympia WA

> 360-459-4005

> 360-791-7702 (C)

> ucd880 at comcast.net

>

>

> On 09/30/2022 8:35 PM J Christian Kessler <1northraven at gmail.com> wrote:

>

>

> but it's not at all clear to me why salmon restoration entails - or

> requires - destruction of avian habitat.  I would think maintaining the

> tree and brush along the shore was important to enhancing the sought after

> characteristics of the water column.  mud in the water is antithetical to

> what salmon fry need.

>

> Chris Kessler

>

> On Fri, Sep 30, 2022 at 8:19 PM HAL MICHAEL <ucd880 at comcast.net> wrote:

>

> Pretty sure that Wylie Slough project is for salmon restoration. Nothing

> else matters.

> Hal Michael

> Board of Directors, Ecologists Without Borders <http://ecowb.org/>

> Olympia WA

> 360-459-4005

> 360-791-7702 (C)

> ucd880 at comcast.net

>

>

> On 09/30/2022 7:23 PM Patti Loesche <patti.loesche at gmail.com> wrote:

>

>

> Gary,

>

> I visited Wylie today and actually thought, I am very glad that Gary isn’t

> here to see this. The trees you described have not just been removed, they

> have been butchered. It’s painful to witness. Whatever the goals of the

> Wylie project, those goals are hostile to trees and birds. And as you

> wrote, that mean little blind sticks out in the wide open now. The cattail

> monoculture is doing fine.

>

> Patti Loesche

> Seattle

>

> On Sep 30, 2022, at 4:51 AM, Gary Bletsch <garybletsch at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Dear Tweeters,

>

> Greetings from Chautauqua County, NY. Thanks to one and all for the

> interesting discussion about the Montlake Fill or UBNA, if I have the

> toponymy right. At least there is some discussion about what trees to plant

> and what to remove.

>

> As best I can tell, at the Fir Island Game Range, or Wylie Slough, habitat

> "improvement" continues to "progress" without much public discussion. This

> site has been the premier birding spot in Skagit County for a long time. In

> late July, the last time I birded there, signage stated that the site would

> be closed for all of August and September. That alone was enough to make me

> scratch my head--WDFW would close the place for the best shorebirding time

> of the year, but have it open just in time for hunting. That is usually how

> they roll at that agency--hook and bullet, hook and bullet.

>

> A few days ago, a friend sent me some recent photos taken at the Game

> Range. The project there must have been completed a few days ahead of

> schedule. My friend was dismayed at what he saw. Apparently, the riparian

> corridor between the Headquarters Parking Area and the Dike Junction has

> been damaged, to say the least. Many of the good-sized trees were removed.

> That includes the big Sitka Spruce, a tree that has attracted all sorts of

> interesting birds over the years. Many alders were taken down, some of

> which had nest cavities used by Tree Swallows and Downy Woodpeckers.

>

> The so-called Viewing Blind is apparently now clear of brush. I call this

> the Skull-Cracking Blind. Countless people have smashed their foreheads

> when trying to enter this absurdly low structure. A friend of mine nearly

> lost an eye after suffering a detached retina in such a mishap.

>

> Pardon the digression, but over the past few weeks, I have visited ten or

> twelve lovely blinds here in Chautauqua County, including a brand-new one

> that is nearly complete. They all have ample headspace, generous viewing

> ports, and comfy benches. It does not take Frank Lloyd Wright to design a

> blind. Nowhere in the world have I seen a blind like the one at the Game

> Range. Even in such places as Papua New Guinea and Madagascar, where the

> per capita income must rank among the lowest in the world, wildlife areas

> feature proper, roomy, comfortable blinds, or hides, as the British say.

>

> I had been grumbling about the Skull-Cracking Blind for another reason.

> Since it was constructed, WDFW had allowed a towering growth of brush to

> obscure the view from the blind. Between retinal detachment and an opaque

> screen of vegetation, this structure offered a new twist on the meaning of

> "blind."

>

> Now it seems that no one who succeeds in entering unscathed will complain

> for lack of view. The shoreline of the slough has been scalped.

>

> It would be interesting to read some accounts and descriptions of the

> changes at the Game Range, if any birders visit there in the coming weeks,

> before waterfowl hunting gets going. It would be good to learn the status

> of the cattails in the main pond; those cattails had been slowly colonizing

> the mudflat, making it less and less attractive to shorebirds, and harder

> and harder for people to observe the ones present. That was the vegetation

> that I was hoping to see removed--not trees and brush!

>

> Yours truly,

>

> Gary Bletsch

>

>

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>

> --

> "moderation in everything, including moderation"

> Rustin Thompson

>

>


-- 
"moderation in everything, including moderation"
Rustin Thompson
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