Our mission is to protect the habitat of Puget Sound tidelands from the underregulated expansion of new and intensive shellfish aquaculture methods. These methods were never anticipated when the Shoreline Management Act was passed. They are transforming the natural tideland ecosystems in Puget Sound and are resulting in a fractured shoreline habitat. In South Puget Sound much of this has been done with few if any meaningful shoreline permits and with limited public input. It is exactly what the Shoreline Management Act was intended to prevent.

Get involved and contact your elected officials to let them you do not support aquaculture's industrial transformation of Puget Sound's tidelands.

Governor Inslee:

Saturday, June 14, 2014

Sea Star (star fish) Wasting on Pickering Passage

June 14, 2014: Today's minus 3.6 tide revealed the extent of the starfish die-off on Pickering Passage's intertidal tidelands. Below are pictures from 2013 and pictures from today taken just north of Hammersley Inlet on Pickering Passage. After one year scientists are still unclear what is causing the die-off of Puget Sound's keystone species, something occurring all along the West Coast. (For the University of Washington's Robert Paine's paper on the role of starfish as a keystone species click here.)

June 2013 
Ochre starfish firm, intact, full color.
 
June 2013
Ochre and sun star starfish.
 
June 14, 2014
Ochre legs separated from body.
 
June 14, 2014
Ochre body with missing legs.
 
June 14, 2014
Dead Ochre starfish.
 
A transformation of Puget Sound's ecosystem is occurring before our eyes. Whether it is simply a cyclical die off to be followed by a re-emergence in the near future, or a permanent fixation will be seen. What is important to note is there are changes occurring in Puget Sound and they involve more than simply shellfish.
 
Posted by Protect Our Shoreline at 9:16 PM
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