An Update on Progress on Protecting Protection Island and Dungeness National Wildlife Refuges: Our Website is Now Live!

Our informal coalition has had a lot of success in elevating community awareness of the threats to Protection Island and Dungeness National Wildlife Refuges, and the entirety of the Washington Maritime National Wildlife Refuge Complex, home to many tens of thousands of nesting, feeding and migrating seabirds, shorebirds and waterfowl. Here are some highlights:

Together, we were able to deter the Jefferson County Commissioners from sending a letter of support to the Tribes, after many of us testified and raised our strong concerns.

We have had an impressive number of letters to the editors published in many local papers, and further afield.

Several articles have been written by journalists in the past month, and some got it right! A recent story in the Seattle Times that heavily featured Marty Bluewater, elicited over 122 response comments. Those comments were over 90% in favor of keeping the Refuges in public ownership with public oversight of these sensitive ecosystems.

We have been successful in our letter writing campaign both to our elected officials and to news outlets. Many of you have written compelling letters, please keep it up! And we successfully arranged for a letter signed by a dozen prominent scientist who have worked on and around Protection island Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge to be hand-delivered to Senator Cantwell, Senator Murray, and Congresswoman Randall. The letter expressed the scientists strong recommendation to keep the refuges in federal ownership with continued joint management with the Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe. The letter also incuded an appendix of more than 70 of their published papers. 

AND, our website is now live: ProtectRefuges.org 

Check it out and share this link! Thanks to our talented, but bashful webmaster for putting this together! Please share and encourage others to sign up for our newsletter and attend events.

Upcoming Events:  

We have scheduled an in-person meeting with staff from Congresswoman Emily Randall's Office to discuss our concerns with the plans to transfer the Refuges out of public ownership which would break up the jointly-managed refuge complex, The Washington Maritime U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Refuge Complex, as described in this article in Post Alley. If you receive this email, consider it your invitation to attend this in-person event at the Cape George Clubhouse, 3 PM September 23. 

https://maps.apple/p/0.wGTAmeoHSuLU 344 Marina Drive, Cape George.

Mark your calendars for another event: Eleanor Stopps Appreciation Day!  Let's remember and honor her contributions and the successful citizen-led, grass-roots campaign she headed up to create Protection Island National Wildlife Refuge, home to thousands of nesting seabirds and other wildlife, as well as the founding of the local Audubon Chapter, Admiralty Audubon, now the Rainshadow Bird Alliance. We will enjoy a showcase of Eleanor's life and photos. Invitations to follow for this fun event on October 16th at the Quimper Grange in Port Townsend, October 16, 4-6 PM.