Locals worked to protect harbor as wildlife habitat

By Sandi Doughton
Seattle Times staff reporter

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She raised her binoculars to watch a pair of eared grebes dive into water coated with a thin layer of sheeny oil, and sighed.

"It's disheartening," said Holtz, who helped lead a long campaign to keep Vashon and Maury islands' beaches and eel-grass beds safe from the development and industrialization that has claimed so much of Puget Sound.

The islanders thought they had succeeded when the National Audubon Society recognized Quartermaster Harbor for providing some of the country's best bird habitat, and the state designated Maury Island's southern stretches a marine reserve.

"We felt like we really had protected this area for the future," Holtz said. "It's protection on paper, but you can't protect against an accident like this."

She picked up a rock encrusted with barnacles turned brown by a layer of oil.

Though it's not thick and black, she predicted the oil will undoubtedly be poisonous to many of the beach-dwelling creatures, from tiny snails to anemones.

Those animals in turn become food for the fish and birds that make the islands their home.

Prime among them are the herring and Western grebes that both return to the deep waters of Quartermaster Harbor each year — the fish to spawn and the birds to spend the winter feasting on the fish.

Nearly 10 percent of Puget Sound's grebes winter there, and the herring population is one of only a handful that still survives in the state.

Like many others, Holtz is dismayed that the state's oil-spill-response planning didn't leave the area better equipped to keep the oil off beaches.
 
"We really deluded ourselves into thinking we would have enough of a response that we could stay ahead of something like this."

But if there's anything good about the spill, it's the fact that it came during a seasonal lull in the bird migrations.

Species that head south for the winter have mostly pulled out, while those like the Western grebes that arrive as the weather turns cold are just beginning to show up.

A founder of the local Audubon Society, Holtz's favorites are red-breasted mergansers, with their long, narrow bills and jaunty crests.

A friend spotted a group of the birds off the northern end of Vashon Island this week — a safe distance from the areas soiled by oil.

Normally, Holtz would be eager to see the mergansers hopping around the island, but this time, she wants them to stay away.

"I'm really hoping they don't stop off in Quartermaster."

Sandi Doughton: 206-464-2491 or sdoughton@seattletimes.com