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
The Bainbridge Island Land Trust (Land Trust) acquired 20.37 acres of privately-held forest and wetland habitat, expanding the protected lands of the Gazzam Lake Nature Preserve area to 480 acres. The Land Trust removed invasive plants and performed wetland delineation, wildlife survey, and cultural resources survey work to better inform protection and restoration work. Stewardship plans were written for both properties, discussing history, natural features, manmade features and uses, any legal constraints on management, goal for each, and actions to be undertaken to reach those goals. These efforts mapped 1.4 acres of previously undocumented forested slope wetland on the Yeh parcel. Fencing was determined to be unnecessary to protect natural resource values on these parcels. The lands were under high threat of development and are now part of a protected core area critical for maintenance of the Island’s forest-dwelling species. The beautiful forest and wetlands on the properties provide habitat for five species of woodpecker, three species of owls, Douglas squirrel and northern flying squirrel, bats, red-legged and Pacific chorus frogs, as many as five species of salamander, and numerous other wildlife species. The lands provide opportunities for passive recreation in a natural setting, including hiking and bird watching, within easy travel distance from Seattle. The high monetary value and desirability of the lands in the Gazzam area for development were factors in our inability to acquire as many parcels as we had proposed. We were unable to come to terms with the owners of the G or P parcels, although there is still future potential for P and for additional lands owned by the family who sold us Parcel J. Negotiations for Parcel K seemed to be proceeding well but the developer ultimately opted to keep and utilize the entire parcel, given high base costs of infrastructure improvements.