Vashon Nature Center receives grant
The Vashon Nature Center is among dozens of organizations in King County receiving grants from the King County Flood District for work restoring salmon habitat and watershed ecosystems.
The Nature Center received $32,000 from the flood district, Science Director Bianca Perla said.
The money will support the Nature Center’s Beach Nearshore Ecology Team (BeachNET) program, which gets youth and adult community members involved in community science projects for healthy shorelines, Perla said. As an example, the money will support six high school marine science interns who join the Nature Center each summer to research natural kelp beds and help monitor seven beach restoration projects on the island.
Grants also support community monitoring of beach health and fish use of island shorelines, including snorkel surveys and forage fish surveys.
The Nature Center is in a watershed area which includes the Green and Duwamish Rivers and central Puget Sound. It stretches all the way from Vashon-Maury Island to the Howard Hanson Reservoir and the many miles of upper Green River watershed. More than $4.2 million was allocated across 12 organizations in this region through the grant announcement July 10.
“Vashon and Maury shorelines are extremely important nursing grounds for juvenile salmon from all over the Puget Sound,” Perla said in an email. “Juvenile salmon from as far away as the Stillaguamish river have been found foraging along our shores. So, we are so happy to have this funding to involve our local community in learning more about, and helping protect, these amazing local resources for all of us.”
Local student recognized
Enrique Delzer was named to the spring 2024 Dean’s List at Kalamazoo College, which requires maintaining a 3.5 grade point average or higher.
Whale alert system improves
Augmentations to the Whale Report Alert System (WRAS) now allow the free app to automatically report to a larger alert system, improving commercial marine awareness of whales, according to a press release.
The improvements are a collaboration between Ocean Wise, Orca Network, and Quiet Sound (a division of aquatic transportation nonprofit Maritime Blue), according to a press release from Maritime Blue.
The improvement “has dramatically increased the effectiveness of WRAS in alerting commercial mariners to the presence of whales, thereby reducing potential impacts on these endangered species,” according to the release.
WRAS is an app used by mariners that alerts them when they’re within 10 nautical miles of a confirmed whale, giving them time to slow down and alter their course. Orca Network, a non-governmental organization in Washington, collects whale sightings in the area through social media, email and phone, and experts and Orca Network staff vet and map those sightings. The new system improvements allow those sightings to flow into WRAS’ system.
