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 Access to marshes like this will be improved to provide resting and feeding habitat for juvenile salmon and steelhead. Click photo to enlarge |
Lower Columbia River habitat will be restored for salmon, deer
Marshes, swamps, sloughs and shoreline forests are being restored on several islands in the lower Columbia River for the benefit of fish and wildlife, particularly juvenile salmon and Columbian white-tailed deer.
Through the Council's Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program, the Columbia Land Trust is acquiring 426 acres on Crims Island and 109 acres on Walker Island. Both islands are near Longview, Washington. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will acquire an additional 90 acres on Crims Island. The project is partially funded with $500,000 provided by the Bonneville Power Administration in 2003.
The project calls for enhancing 75 acres of tidal marsh by excavating canary grass wetland and connecting channels to the mainstem Columbia. In addition, tidal flow will be re-established to 100 acres of wooded swamp by excavating a man-made plug in a channel, and 100 acres of riparian forest will be re-established on upland areas of the island to improve deer habitat. Invasive plants like purple loosestrife and reed canarygrass will be controlled on about 150 acres of marsh on the two islands to improve fish habitat.
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Columbian white-tailed deer, an endangered species, will be reintroduced to these and nearby islands to assist in a reintroduction effort that began in 1999. The deer are native to the lower Columbia area. Successful reintroduction of the deer to all the islands would create a new subpopulation for at least 50 animals on secure habitat. If successful, recovery goals for the deer would be met, and the species could be considered for delisting.
Estuary wetlands like those on Crims and Walker islands provide habitat for all Columbia basin salmon stocks at some period in their life cycle. Over time, some 20,000 acres of tidal swamps, 10,000 acres of tidal marshes, and 3,000 acres of tidal flats in the lower Columbia River have been lost by diking, dredging, and filling. The original extent of tidal marsh and swamp in the Columbia River estuary has been reduced by more than half.
The islands project will address several actions to improve wetland habitat identified in the 2000 Biological Opinion issued by NOAA Fisheries on behalf of threatened and endangered species of salmon and steelhead.