Protected Species
The SEATTLE POST reported that there are 17 species currently under protection from the Federal Endangered Species Act in the Puget Sound area. There are:
Endangered:
- Sei whale
- Finback whale
- Gray wolf
- Brown pelican
- Marsh sandwort (plant)
Threatened:
- Marbled murrelet
- Canada lynx
- Steller sea lion
- Bald eagle
- Chum salmon (Hood Canal)
- Chinook salmon
- Orcas (southern resident)
- Grizzly bear
- Bull trout
- Spotted owl
- Golden paintbrush (plant)
- Water howellia (plant)
- Kincaid's lupine (plant)
Unprotected species that are "critically imperiled:
Sea otter: Weasel relative that was nearly hunted to extinction for its pelts. One of the few non-primates known to use tools.
Pallid bat: Large, pale bat with doglike face. Feeds at night on large insects. Emits a skunklike odor when disturbed.
Oregon spotted frog: Green-, brown- or magenta-colored, with black blotches on its head and back. Now absent from 90 percent of former range.
American peregrine falcon: Removed from federal endangered list in 1999, but still endangered in Northwest. Cliffs were preferred nesting sites, but today many nest on high-rises.
Yellow-billed cuckoo: Adults are a foot long, with an exceptionally long tail marked with three large black spots. Only breeds in riparian forests and wetlands.
Green sturgeon: Olive-green fish grows to 7 feet (2.1 m) in length, 350 pounds and 70 years in age. First appeared more than 200 million years ago.
Walleye pollock: Member of the cod family. Annual catch in Alaskan waters is nearly 2 million metric tons. Important prey for marine mammals.
Sea cucumber: Relative of starfish and sea lilies; popular in Asian cuisine. Fourteen species found in Northwest waters.
Pacific giant earthworm: Grows to 3 feet (0.91 m) in length. Emits peculiar, flowerlike aroma. Oregon giant earthworms live in moist soils of riparian forests.
Marsh shrew: Insect-seating aquatic shrew with fringe of hairs on toes to aid swimming. Can run on top of the water for several seconds.
Read more about this topic: Environmental Issues In Puget Sound
Famous quotes containing the words protected and/or species:
“If one really wishes to know how justice is administered in a country, one does not question the policemen, the lawyers, the judges, or the protected members of the middle class. One goes to the unprotected—those, precisely, who need the laws’s protection most!—and listens to their testimony.”
—James Baldwin (1924–1987)
“Books, gentlemen, are a species of men, and introduced to them you circulate in the “very best society” that this world can furnish, without the intolerable infliction of “dressing” to go into it. In your shabbiest coat and cosiest slippers you may socially chat even with the fastidious Earl of Chesterfield, and lounging under a tree enjoy the divinest intimacy with my late lord of Verulam.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)