Category Overview
Urban Wildlife Habitat projects fund close-to-home places to play and explore nature. As our urban areas are increasingly expanding and densifying, these grants protect important fish and wildlife habitat within five miles of densely populated areas, creating green refuges that help keep our ecosystems healthy and provide places to enjoy nature right in our backyards.
Project Highlights
This project will acquire 331.94 acres of land in Central Kitsap County tying together approximately 15,000 acres of managed open space lands. It will provide the key link to an identified north-south wildlife corridor by purchasing the last key large parcels in an urbanizing area, just one and a half miles from Bremerton’s city limits. It will preserve a prime wetland and headwaters of Chico Creek. Chico Creek is the most productive salmon stream in Kitsap County, producing as many salmon as all other streams combined. These purchases will provide linkages for terrestrial wildlife corridors between the large blocks of protected open space along Big Beef Creek/Green Mountain/Gold Mountain/Bremerton Watershed area. Species benefiting include bobcats, bats, squirrels, otters, band-tailed Pigeons, pileated woodpeckers, furous hummingbirds, willow flycatchers, downey woodpeckers, Wilson’s warblers, gold-crowned kinglets, salamanders, toads, snakes and pond turtles. The Seattle Mountaineers and the Great Peninsula Conservancy are donating a total of $600,000 toward this purchase.