Announcing Washington Wild's 2013 Summer Photo Contest!

Love to get out in the wild? Are you planning any trips this summer for hiking, backpacking, climbing, rafting, or any other fun outdoor activity? We want to see where you go!

Photo by 2012 contest entrant Andy Porter - Sunrise at Shi Shi Beach, Olympic National Park
 
Washington Wild’s Summer Photo Contest will be held until August 15th, 2013. Simply take your camera on trips into Washington’s wonderful wild places (see details below) and snap some photos of landscapes, flora & fauna, recreation, people out in the wild, or whatever captures your eye. Then, send us your best shots!


Photos must be taken on federal lands within Washington State, both protected and unprotected, including the following (for a detailed map of these places, click here):

• Any of Washington’s National Forests
• Designated Wilderness areas
• Inventoried Roadless areas
• Any of Washington’s National Parks
• Any wild rivers, streams or lakes on federal land
• Any areas within pending proposed wilderness including the Alpine Lakes Additions and the Wild Olympics proposals

The photos that you send in will be entered into a photo contest and the TOP 3 PHOTOS will win a cash prize from Washington Wild!

• First Prize = $100
• Second Prize = $50
  
• Third Prize = $25
  

These TOP 3 PHOTOS will also be printed in large format, matted, framed, and displayed during our annual dinner and auction this fall! Those top 3 photos will then be auctioned off at our annual dinner in the fall, with the proceeds going to support Washington Wild’s efforts to protect wild lands and waters in our state.

In addition, all winners and runner-ups will receive a one-year membership with Washington Wild! This includes regular updates in our e-newsletter, special invitations to our events, and a subscription to our print newsletter.


SUBMISSION DETAILS:

• Please email your photo entries directly to christine@wawild.org
• Please submit the following with your photo:
  
  • Be sure to include the location of your photo! We don’t need GPS coordinates, but tell us where you took the photo, including which wild area, and what the subject of the photo is (a specific mountain, river, roadless area, or trail).
  • Please submit your photo in one of the following photo formats: JPEG, TIFF, or PNG.
  • Please submit the highest quality (largest size) version of your photo – if your photo is too large to email, please contact christine@wawild.org or 206-633-1992.

• The deadline for this photo contest is Thursday August 15, 2013 @ 5:00pm.
• The Washington Wild Board of Directors and staff will make their decisions on the top 3 photos by September 1, 2013. The winners will be notified via phone and email, and will also be announced on our web site, our blog, and our Facebook page.

LEGAL RULES:
This photo contest is only open to people over the age of 18. By entering this contest, you agree to give over all legal and intellectual property rights of your photo(s) to Washington Wild. All photo entries (not just the winning photos) will become the sole property of Washington Wild and Washington Wild retains the rights to use those photos. All photo entries will be added to our media library; and photo entries will be eligible for public display on our website and/or any print or promotional materials including (but not limited to) brochures, postcards, posters, newsletters, calendars, handouts, and educational materials. If Washington Wild chooses to use a photo submitted during this contest for any printed material(s), the photographer will receive full photo credit in the form of his/her name and subject of the photo listed under the photo. If we auction off your photo, we are simply selling a copy of that photo to the purchaser. The purchaser does not have the right to reproduce or use that photo in any way.


Thank you for your interest in helping us capture the beauty of Washington’s wild places! If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact Christine@wawild.org or 206-633-1992.  

Come Hiking With Us!

It's that time of year!  Time to brush the cobwebs off your hiking boots, dig out your trail maps, and start planning your summer hiking trips.  We'd like to help you ease into planning mode, by organizing a most excellent early season outing for you! 

Next Saturday May 25^th, long-time conservation advocate and Washington Wild friend, Harry Romberg, will be leading a hike for our members and supporters. The hike will follow the newly reconstructed Pratt Connector trail in the Middle Fork Valley.  It travels through part of the proposed Alpine Lakes Wilderness Additions area and runs next to the Pratt River, which we are working to permanently protect with a Wild & Scenic River designation. 

It starts by crossing the impressive arch bridge over the Middle Fork Snoqualmie River and then heads southwest, following the Middle Fork downstream.  This hike features deep river pools, cliffside views, and an 8-foot diameter old-growth Douglas Fir!  There are many spectacular lunch and rest stops on the river or under the thick mossy canopy, weather depending.  Total distance is 5 to 8 miles round-trip (depending on the group’s preferences).  This is a relatively flat to slightly rolling hike. 

The updated version of the Pratt Connector Trail is likely not found in any guidebooks, as it was revamped by Washington Trails Association  trail crews so recently.  Old descriptions of this hike make it sound like a nightmare: tough route-finding, significant bushwhacking, mud, water crossings... there will be none of that!  Trails crews eliminated all of those difficulties, so this trip should be straightforward and fully enjoyable.

Date: Saturday May 25th

Time: 9:00am

Meeting Place: Middle Fork Trailhead, 11.8 miles up the Middle Fork Snoqualmie Road (Forest Road 56) just outside of North Bend.  A NW Forest Pass is required to park at the trailhead.

Cost: Free! 

  

If you would like to attend, please email Christine 

(christine[at]wawild[dot]org) 

or call our office at 206-633-1992.

 

Brewsheds and Seattle Beer Week

I spent the better part of this glorious Friday afternoon touring Seattle.  Specifically, I visited a sampling of Seattle's best pubs and breweries to meet with the owner's about BREWSHEDS!  

Rest assured, Washington Wild is not hanging up its conservation hat in order to enter the brewery promotion business; we remain staunchly committed to protecting Washington's wild lands and waters through Wilderness and Wild & Scenic River designations.  Our Brewsheds project, however, is a simple and logical way help Seattle's faithful craft beer drinkers connect with our watershed protection work. 

Watersheds are Brewsheds. Most of the delicious craft beer that we enjoy in these parts is made all the tastier by the water that wets it.  This water comes from the Cedar River Watershed, the Skagit River, from springs around Snoqualmie, from Icicle Creek... the list is long, varied, and depends entirely on geography. 

So while you're out enjoying Seattle Beer Week (May 9th-19), see if you can spot some of Washington Wild's Brewshed fliers around town. Talk with your friends about Brewsheds.  Talk with the local and regional brewers who'll be converging on Seattle to share their products, and tell them why watershed health matters for their businesses.  Talk with your families or total strangers!  Help us spread the Brewshed word.

Washington Wild's Brewshed project is small, but growing quickly - because it's a simple and logical way to connect something many love (local craft beer) to something that typically exists somewhere in the cluttered junk drawers of many minds (watershed health).  We are grateful to the business that enthusiastically support our Brewshed project, and we look forward to growing our Brewshed network of brewers and breweries in the future.  

Have a phenomenal weekend, and don't forget to talk about Brewsheds! 

The Seattle Foundation’s GiveBig Campaign is Wednesday May 15th!

GiveBIG gives us more.

Every dollar you donate will be augmented by a percentage of the Foundation’s funding!  

In 2012 the Seattle Foundation’s GiveBIG campaign generated $7.43 million for more than 1,100 local nonprofits. More than 37,800 individuals from all 50 states and 23 foreign countries donated between 12:00am-11:59pm. The Seattle Foundation stretched these gifts further, matching a share of every contribution with a pool of funds provided by corporate sponsors, individual contributors and the Foundation. (source)

 Your donation will help Washington Wild fulfill its mission.
Your donation will help Washington Wild protect and restore places like these:

• If you gave in 2012 or 2011, please consider giving again in 2013.
• If you have been thinking about donating to or becoming a member of Washington Wild, May 15th is the perfect day to make that happen, as every dollar you donate will be matched by the Seattle Foundation!
• If you have never given to a charitable organization before, Wednesday May 15th is a phenomenal day to start.
• Every dollar counts, so instead of getting a latte on May 15th, get a delicious cup of drip and donate the balance to Washington Wild – those dollars add up fast!

Last year we set our goal at $8,000 for GiveBIG day, and we met that goal. Our goal of this year is $10,000. We know this goal is attainable – and we need you to help us get there! 

Our Incredible Interns

Interns are essential to enabling Washington Wild to accomplish its mission. As a small non-profit organization with a small staff, interns increase our capacity to protect and restore wild lands and waters in Washington State. Although we are unable to financially compensate the talented people who are hired as interns, we try really hard to make our internships a meaningful and enjoyable experience for both the interns and our organization. Through interesting and varied projects, work that occasionally consists of hiking or attending a trivia night, and many learning opportunities, we hope that our interns understand how much we need and value them.

With the 2013 summer intern season about to ramp up, we’d like to take a moment to acknowledge the work of our bright and hardworking 2012 interns. We wish we had great photos of all of them and promise to be more active with our cameras in the future!

The Great Washington Wild Interns of 2012 

Whitney at Duwamish Alive Earth Day event

Winter/Spring Wildlands Conservation Intern: Whitney Cox played an integral part in helping Washington Wild become familiar with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) process for creating their Resource Management Plans (RMP). Whitney prepared two detailed memos, one on the RMP process and another on BLM areas with potential wilderness characteristics. She then went on two separate field trips to Eastern Washington spread over multiple days exploring BLM lands and providing photo documentation and detailed notes of the areas.

Faith Outreach Intern: Kara Tebeau did original research on conservation ethics for several different faith denominations resulting in a 40-page report entitled “Conservation Ethics in Religious Contexts: A guide to faith outreach on wilderness and conservation issues.” Her work has helped enhance Washington’s Wild’s continued outreach efforts to religious leaders on conservation issues. 

TIPS (Teens in Public Service) Social Media Intern: Amy Bearman created an integral social media plan for Washington Wild, helping find new pathways for us to reach potential members and supporters. Additionally, she wrote blogs on conservation issues such as the return of fish to the upper White Salmon River after the removal of the Condit Dam. She also helped update website content for the Conservation Department. 
  
Amy is a gymnast, too!

Darcey enjoying some ferry time

Communications Intern: Darcey Whitney helped to implement and maintain Washington Wild’s communications and marketing plan, while updating and improving all of our communications tactics. Darcey created a new membership brochure, assisted with our logo contest and implementation, and gave our web site an update.

Bureau of Land Management Mapping Interns: Karissa Kingerly worked on the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) project. She went on three separate field trips to Eastern Washington spread out over multiple days. She explored BLM lands and photo documented and took detailed notes on the wilderness characteristics of these areas. Phoebe Reid worked on the Bureau of Land Management project. She went on one field trip to Eastern Washington spread out over multiple days. She explored BLM lands and photo documented and took detailed notes on the wilderness characteristics of these areas. Whitney Cox went on two separate field trips to Eastern Washington spread over multiple days exploring BLM lands and providing photo documentation and detailed notes of the areas.


Education Interns: Karissa Kingerly created basic curriculum for Washington Wild's first youth trip with Seattle Parks and Recreation. Phoebe Reid attended the hike at Lower Grey Wolf Ridge, an area within the Wild Olympics Campaign. She then wrote a blog about the conservation and education aspects of the trip.

Phoebe, excited by the Grey Wolf River

Conservation Outreach Intern: Nick Lannoye led Washington Wild’s outreach efforts throughout the summer of 2012. By attending a few dozen events (i.e. a lot!), Nick spread the word of Washington Wild’s work throughout the Puget Sound area, helping us to reach hundreds of new people and educate them on our campaigns. Nick also assisted with volunteer trainings for field-based volunteer opportunities.  

Nick, helping with a volunteer training at Seward Park

Fall Wildlands Conservation Intern: Kiki Contreras composed a 5-part blog series profiling various species of animals that are found in Washington Wild’s campaign areas. In the future, this information will be used to update the wildlife section of the WW website. Her work on this subject will also be part of the upcoming WW print newsletter. 

Kiki backpacking in Montana 

In 2012, the interns contributed 1,796.5 hours of their time to Washington Wild. We are grateful for every minute of that time, and hope they enjoyed working at Washington Wild as much as we enjoyed having them.

Washington Wild’s busy summer intern season is almost upon us, and we are so excited to meet the new group! If you, or someone you know is looking for a summer internship opportunity, please click here.

Washington Wild is joining Friends of the Cedar River Watershed to Celebrate Earth Day on April 20th!

Celebrate Earth Day by volunteering to reclaim the 

Cedar River Watershed Education Center for native plants! 

Cedar River Watershed Education Center (source)

The Education Center sits on a site with a rich and varied history. The many invasive plants that – until recently – have crowded out native species around the Education Center represent part of our past. Volunteers will help reclaim this area for native plants that are good for fish and wildlife; reshaping our future by removing invasive blackberries, sycamore maple (Acer pseudoplatanus) seedlings, and other invasive plants along Rattlesnake Lake to prepare the ground for planting native trees and shrubs later in the year. Volunteers will also have the opportunity to take a free, guided tour of the protected watershed during the event!

Date: Saturday April 20, 2013
Time: 9:00am-3:00pm
Meeting Place: Cedar River Watershed Education Center (19901 Cedar Falls Rd SE North Bend, WA 98045)
For more information: Click here  

If you live in Seattle, chances are excellent that your tap water comes from the Cedar River Watershed. From the Friends of the Cedar River website:  
“The upper watershed is a protected area known as the Cedar River Municipal Watershed. About 90,000 acres, or 143 square miles, is owned by the City of Seattle and managed as an ecological preserve to provide drinking water for about one million King County residents. The municipal watershed is one of only six protected watersheds in the country, and is the only municipal watershed owned by the people it serves.  

Chester Morse Reservoir- Drinking water holding area (source)

It takes over 100 million gallons of water per day to fulfill the water needs of the communities that drink the waters of the Cedar. The forest acts as a kind of natural water filtration system. As a result, the Cedar River is one of the few rivers in the United States used for drinking water without requiring specially fabricated filtration. Chester Morse Lake is the main storage reservoir of the Cedar River Watershed system. Pipelines route water to the Seattle area from Landsburg Dam at the western edge of the protected watershed. Public access is restricted and the area is being managed to promote old-growth forest conditions in order to protect water quality. Costing rate-payers less than one half of one cent per day, users of Cedar River water have access to some of the cleanest, least expensive, and best-protected water in the world.” (source)

A tour of the protected watershed is an amazing opportunity to see the source of Seattle’s drinking water! Volunteering on Saturday is a fantastic way to contribute to the health of your watershed! 


Washington Wild works to protect Washington’s wild waters
Washington Wild works to protect Washington’s watersheds through various place-based campaigns. Currently we are working on protecting wild waters in the following campaigns: Alpine Lakes Wilderness Additions, Wild Olympics, Cascades Wild, and Volcano Rivers.

 
Follow these links for more information about the Cedar River Watershed:
Seattle Public Utilities  
http://www.seattle.gov/util/EnvironmentConservation/Education/CedarRiverWatershed/index.htm  
Friends of the Cedar River Watershed
http://www.cedarriver.org/

If you would like to volunteer on Saturday, please RSVP to Christine Scheele (christine[at]wawild.org) no later than Thursday April 18th.

P.S. – After improving the Cedar River Watershed, there will be a Brewshed gathering at Snoqualmie Brewery (8032 Falls Ave. S.E., Snoqualmie, WA) in Snoqualmie at 3:30pm. The Brewshed project celebrates the link between water from clean healthy watersheds making better beer. Watershed improvement and watershed/Brewshed celebration all in one day?! Yes! This event is open to folks of all ages! Click here for more information.

Wilderness Campaigns are wildlife campaigns, too! PART 4: Cascades Wild

Washington Wild works hard to protect the wild forests and rivers of Washington State. Washington Wild recently led a coalition that succeeded in designating the first national forest Wilderness in Washington in more than 20 years. The Wild Sky Wilderness Act, enacted into law in 2008, covered more than 100,000 acres of forestland in Western Washington, helping to protect old growth forests and pristine rivers from development and degradation. Washington Wild’s Alpine Lakes Wilderness Additions, Wild Olympics, Volcano Rivers, and Cascades Wild campaigns promise to deliver similar results.

But every acre of wilderness safeguards much, much more than stands of ancient Western red cedars and free flowing waterways. Each acre also ensures protection for every living thing that calls the forest or stream its home. Washington’s native species would be nothing without the expansive natural forest ecosystems we work so hard to protect, nor would the forests be as healthy and vibrant as they are without the wildlife inhabiting them. That’s why Washington Wild’s wild lands and waters campaigns are wildlife campaigns, too.


Cascades Wild Campaign—A Puget Sound Headwaters Initiative
The Cascades Wild Campaign is a long-term Puget Sound Headwaters Initiative advocating for new Wilderness additions to the Mt. Baker, Noisy Diobsud, Glacier Peak, Boulder River, Henry M Jackson and Alpine Lakes Wilderness Areas and new Wild and Scenic River designations for important rivers, streams and their tributaries. This effort is a crucial push to protect vital wild lands and waters on the west slope of the North Cascades from the I-90 corridor to the Canadian border.


Wildlife Profile #1: Grizzly Bear (Ursus arctos horribilis) 

Image from Public Domain Images website (source)

There are two Distinct Population Segments of grizzly bears in Washington—one in the Selkirk Range in the northeast corner of the state, and one in the North Cascades. Distinct Population Segments are groups within a species that are separate from each other geographically, behaviorally, or ecologically. Grizzlies are large bears, and in the lower 48 females typically weigh 250-350 lbs. and males 400-600 lbs. Although they’re also known as brown bears, their fur can range from light blond to black. It’s thought that the variation in fur color comes from regional differences in diet and climate patterns rather than genetics. When available, small mammals and fish make up most of grizzly bears’ diets, but they’re extremely opportunistic and will eat berries, roots, grasses, and tubers as necessary. These bears need abundant food to build up sufficient fat and protein stores to last them through their 4-6 month long hibernation during the winter.

Although grizzly bears are solitary for the most part, habitat connectivity and interaction between individuals is essential for their success. Fragmentation of forests makes male-female encounters very rare. Recent research shows that human settlement in mountain valleys and major highways have broken up bear populations and caused a significant decrease in female migration. With only male bears migrating to find mates, the likelihood of successful mating and population growth decreases. Grizzly bear numbers in the North Cascades are already very low (fewer than 20 individuals), so it’s imperative that the bulk of the North Cascades Ecosystem remains wild and roadless to facilitate the recovery of this iconic Western species. A Wilderness area like Cascades Wild would give grizzly bears the protection they need.


Wildlife Profile #2: Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) 

Photo Credit: Skagit River Bald Eagle Interpretive Center

Bald eagles are large sea eagles native to North America, with wingspans that can reach almost 7 feet. Although Benjamin Franklin was rooting for the wild turkey, the bald eagle was selected as the national emblem of the United States in 1782. These raptors may appear regal while sitting perched atop a tree or soaring through the sky, but they make a living for the most part by harassing other birds and stealing their food. Their diet varies regionally, however, and in the Pacific Northwest most of their nourishment comes from salmon they’ve caught themselves. Bald eagles are easily identified by their stark white head and tail plumage, but juveniles don’t get these characteristic markings for about five years and are completely covered by mottled brown and white feathers. For most of the year, bald eagles only associate with their mates, which they remain with for life, but during the winter hundreds (and sometimes thousands) of bald eagles will travel many miles to congregate in specific wintering grounds. Wintering grounds are usually selected for high food availability, such as large salmon runs. There are also resident bald eagles that don’t migrate in the winter—these birds usually live farther south where the rivers and lakes they live by don’t freeze.

These raptors are one of the biggest success stories of the Endangered Species Act. Due to hunting and trapping, and reproductive failures caused by the pesticide DDT, bald eagle numbers dropped drastically throughout the first half of the 20th century. By the 1950’s, there were a little more than 400 breeding pairs in the lower 48. In 1967 the bald eagle was listed as federally endangered and a few years later in 1972 the use of DDT was banned. Over the next few decades, bald eagle populations rebounded dramatically and in 2007 they were delisted. The future looks bright for these birds, but protecting their habitat and the rivers where they get their food is still extremely important. Bald eagles are thought to be very ecologically important—the decaying salmon carcasses they leave on the forest floor provide massive nutrient flows to plants, fungi and bacteria. The Cascades Wild proposal will protect important wintering grounds for bald eagles, as well as year-round habitat. The Sauk and Suiattle Rivers provide excellent eagle habitat, and nearby Illabot Creek hosts one of the largest wintering populations in the lower 48. Rivers like the Sauk and Suiattle and the wildlands around them would be permanently protected with the passage of the Cascades Wild proposal, likewise ensuring the permanent protection of bald eagles in the area.


Wildlife Profile #3: Killer Whale (Orcinus orca)

Photo Credit: NOAA

Few native wildlife species in Washington are as iconic as the orca, and while you’d be hard pressed to find one while backpacking through the proposed Cascades Wild Wilderness, this marine mammal is an important recipient of the benefits of intact upland ecosystems that the Cascades Wild proposal promises to protect. Killer whales belong to a group of mammals called cetaceans, and are characterized by a marine and carnivorous lifestyle. Although we call them whales, orcas are actually much more closely related to dolphins and porpoises than they are to other whales like blue whales and humpbacks. Orcas are highly social animals—they exhibit a matrilineal social structure, meaning that groups are comprised of a female, her sons and daughters, and her daughters’ offspring. It is rare for individuals to leave the pod for even a few hours. Pods hunt together, and in this region their main food source are large, fatty Chinook salmon. Washington’s waters see three populations of orcas regularly. The transient and offshore populations spend much of their time elsewhere, but the southern resident population resides here for much of the year. There are three known resident pods in the southern resident population—J, K, and L pods. These pods consist of 20-40 whales and spend most of their time in the waters surrounding the San Juan Islands. Orcas are known as apex predators, meaning they are top-level predators with no predators of their own. Apex predators are very ecologically important because of the role they play in controlling the populations of smaller prey species and maintaining ecosystem diversity.

While apex predators have a large impact on populations of their prey, changes in abundance of their prey can in turn greatly influence predator populations. Such is the case with Washington’s orcas and Chinook salmon. Due to the decline in Chinook salmon populations in Puget Sound over the last several decades, the opportunity for orca population growth in Washington and British Columbia is limited. Maintaining healthy salmon populations is extremely important to protecting Washington’s southern resident orcas, which were added to the US Endangered Species List in 2006. The Cascades Wild proposal will protect important salmon spawning grounds in the North Cascades, and this will in turn greatly benefit Washington’s vulnerable orca populations.

By supporting Washington Wild you will not only be helping to protect our wild lands and waters but also the wildlife that depend on them. To learn more about our campaigns visit our website.

Read parts 1-3 of the Wilderness Campaigns are Wildlife Campaigns blog series:
Part 1: Wild Sky Wilderness
Part 2: Alpine Lakes Wilderness Expansion
Part 3: Wild Olympics Campaign