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 Department of Natural Resources used this funding to purchase a single ownership totaling approximately 600 acres of crucial wildlife habitat located within the Mount Si Natural Resources Conservation Area (NRCA). This property is a key parcel in the Mountains to Sound Greenway and was considered the largest and highest-quality private inholding that remained in the NRCA. The site is literally a mountain top in the heart of a contiguous conservation landscape with features that include talus, high and low elevation lakes, numerous streams, wetlands, old-growth and mature forests, cliffs, and landscape connections for wildlife. Wildlife within the site include a variety of birds, mammals, amphibians, and fish. Large mammals known to use the NRCA include cougar, bobcat, mountain goat, black bear, coyote, and elk. Red-tailed hawks, osprey, barred owls, pygmy owls, and pileated woodpeckers have also been observed. Great horned owls and screech owls are likely inhabitants of the older sections of the forests as well. In addition to the private inholding, DNR negotiated the release of the remaining interest of a 30-year mining reservation, which resulted from DNR’s 2003 acquisition of the adjacent property from the same landowner. By acquiring the remainder of the mining reservation, no further site excavation will take place, which will allow the property to continue self-reclamation and will allow DNR to establish low-impact recreational trails over washed-out roads that had provided access to the mining site. The combination of acquiring a high-priority, private inholding, along with the adjacent mining reservation, has successfully achieved the primary purpose of this grant: protection of significant wildlife habitat, natural resources, landscape and wildlife habitat connections, and provision of low-impact public use. Notes – For this project, DNR partnered with NGO Forterra, who served as facilitator between DNR and the private landowners. Scope Changes to this project include: 1. November 22, 2021 – Amendment adding Property B (Mining Reservation) to the grant, which allowed DNR to buy out the remaining interest in the Mining Reservation on the property adjacent to Priority Parcel A. 2. September 22, 2021 – Time Extension, amending the end date of the agreement to December 31, 2022. Due to temporary loss of work capacity caused by the Covid-19 Pandemic disruption, work on the project had not progressed, requiring a longer grant period. 3. December 16, 2022 – Time Extension, amending the end date of the agreement to June 30, 2023. PSA negotiation took significantly longer than anticipated and additional time was needed in order to complete the acquisition and close out the grant.