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 acquisition project is located on the northern border of WRIA 13, on Henderson Inlet, in Thurston County. The project is at the lower (southern) end of Henderson Inlet, on the eastern shore, and contains nearshore, estuarine, tributary, wetland and upland habitat. This project conserved approximately 155.91 acres and 9,300 feet (1.8 miles) of Puget Sound shoreline. The project consists of two adjacent properties, the Stillman Tree Farm (52.48 ac) and Harmony Farm (55.43 ac), and a third property 800 feet to the north called the Brown property (48 ac.) All properties contain multiple priority habitat types for many priority species including Chinook, steelhead, coho, chum, forage fish, shellfish and numerous bird species. A large part of this project site, with its diverse and increasingly rare habitat, is planned for an outdoor education preserve, which will provide outdoor education opportunities to area schools. Funds from this grant paid for land acquisition, due diligence, relocation, surveying, gate installation, administration costs and demolition of several dilapidated structures.