New WWU report cites these key threats to the Salish Sea ecosystem
Urban sprawl and climate change remain a major threat to the Salish Sea, according to a new report from Western Washington University.
Lead author Kathryn Sobocinski and others examined the region’s diverse creatures and habitat as a single ecosystem in the 275-page report, which was published May 20 by WWU’s Salish Sea Institute.
Their research is the first in-depth look in more than 25 years at the Salish Sea, which encompasses the Puget Sound, the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Strait of Georgia — a massive estuary where the Pacific Ocean mixes with rivers and streams that flow from the surrounding mountains, according to a statement introducing the report.
More than 8 million people make their home in a region that 200 years ago was inhabited by indigenous people of the Coast Salish tribes.
“In 25 years a lot has happened,” said Sobocinski, an assistant professor of environmental studies at WWU.
“Our population has nearly doubled and we’ve seen a lot more growth and development and urbanization to outlying areas from the major cities,” she said during a February online preview of the report.
Their goal was to provide a credible assessment of the Salish Sea ecosystem, highlight specific threats, identify ways that population growth and climate change are affecting the environment, and look for gaps in scientific research, said Sobocinski, who has a doctorate in marine science.
“In short, the Salish Sea is under relentless pressure from an accelerating convergence of global and local environmental stressors and the cumulative impacts of 150 years of development and alteration of our watersheds and seascape,” Sobocinski said in the report.
”Some of these impacts are well understood but, many remain unknown or are difficult to predict,” she said.
Singled out for special study were the eelgrass that provides a nursery for small fish and other marine organisms, herring that provide food for seabirds and larger fish, salmon, orcas and toxic runoff.
Their findings encourage the area’s tribal governments, Washington state and British Columbia to establish an international science panel to coordinate and collaborate on research.
Meanwhile, ecosystem decline around the Salish Sea is moving faster than habitat restoration efforts, the report said.
And sea-level rise, ocean warming and acidification, and severe weather events such as “atmospheric rivers” that cause flooding are further altering the ecosystem.
But some efforts in Bellingham were singled out for praise.
“Although Bellingham Bay cleanup is not yet complete, it is significantly cleaner today than 20 years ago and a step closer to regenerative use of Bellingham Bay shorelines and the connected marine waters,” according to a section on “legacy contaminants.”
This story was originally published May 26, 2021 at 12:21 PM.
