957 species at risk in Puget Sound area
Six-year effort tallies creatures and plants dying from habitat loss
From the Olympic Peninsula's verdant rain forests to the depths of Puget Sound, this region is unusually rich in its variety of plants and animals. But many of those species are at risk of vanishing or are already gone, according to a sweeping report card released today by environmental groups.
Scores of imperiled creatures "are getting so little attention," said Stephanie Buffum Field, executive director of Friends of the San Juans, a conservation group that worked on the assessment with the national Center for Biological Diversity.
The report recognizes the need to save species through complete ecosystem conservation. To protect rare Western gray squirrels, for example, the focus is on saving the oak woodlands and prairies where they live -- benefiting other fragile species at the same time.
Some of the conservation measures recommended in the report are already in the works.
A "biodiversity" council, formed quietly last year, is developing a 30-year strategy aimed at helping protect the Puget Sound area's diverse ecosystems. The 23-member council, charged with issuing recommendations by 2007, includes representatives from government agencies, industry, tribes and environmental groups.
"We've lost a lot of the habitat already," said Elizabeth Rodrick, land conservation manager for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. "We need to protect most of what is left to retain the species that are here," she said.
The report by the environmental groups identifies the loss of wild places where imperiled species live as the No. 1 cause of their decline. Pollution, climate change and invasions by non-native species are also blamed for shrinking populations of rare plants and animals.
"We have pre-empted the environment in which they live either by paving it over or making it a subdivision, or we've changed it in ways that make it unsuitable for them," said Gordon Orians, a University of Washington ecologist.
The report identifies more than 7,000 species of fungi, lichens, plants, seaweed, bugs, fish, amphibians, birds and mammals in the Puget Sound region extending from the Cascades to the Olympic Peninsula.
Of those, 957 -- or 14 percent -- were deemed imperiled. Up to 19 species have already disappeared from the region, according to the report.
Continue reading this story from the Seattle P-I:
957 species at risk in Puget Sound area
