Tag: Puget Sound Vital Signs

Golden-crowned kinglets in Puget Sound have seen a steep decline since 1968

Golden-crowned kinglet (Regulus satrapa). Photo: Minette Layne (CC BY-NC 2.0)
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The number of golden-crowned kinglets in the Puget Sound watershed has declined by more than 91% over a recent 50-year period, according to data from the North American Breeding Bird Survey. The data was reported by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, which tracks the information for the Puget Sound Partnership’s terrestrial bird indicator. The indicator was established to monitor the health of Puget Sound’s species and food webs. The findings come amid widespread bird declines across North America. Overall, bird numbers across the Continent dropped by almost 30% […]

Puget Sound Leadership Council revises list of ‘Vital Sign’ indicators

The current Vital Signs wheel. Image courtesy of the Puget Sound Partnership.
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It was ten years ago this summer that the Puget Sound Partnership first established what it called Puget Sound’s ‘Vital Signs,’ 25 indicators of Puget Sound health ranging from levels of toxic chemicals in fish to the abundance of Chinook salmon and southern resident orcas. Those indicators have now been revised and expanded, setting off a new chapter for Puget Sound recovery efforts.  The Vital Signs and their indicators have been central to Puget Sound policy since their inception in 2010. They were designed to help scientists and policymakers measure […]

Are some streams in Puget Sound getting cleaner?

Benthic invertebrates range in size from those easily seen with the naked eye to those that cannot be spotted without the use of a microscope. Photo: Christopher Dunagan
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Scientists are reporting some potentially good news about the health of Puget Sound’s streams. Ten years of data from 126 stream sites within King County have shown a slight improvement in water quality, according to the county’s Water and Land Resource Division. The study examined the variety of insects and other invertebrates that were collected from stream sediments. Twenty-one percent of the streams showed an increase in sensitive stream bugs in 2019, earning them a higher score on what is known as the Benthic Index of Biotic Integrity, or B-IBI […]

The state could be revising its Puget Sound ‘Vital Signs’

Puget Sound Vital Signs wheel
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By Jeff Rice The Puget Sound Partnership is re-evaluating the way it measures the health of Puget Sound. A newly published study could greatly expand the Partnership’s portfolio of Vital Signs, a collection of health indicators for the Puget Sound ecosystem that have been central to state and federal funding and planning. A key goal of the state’s Puget Sound recovery strategy has been to identify and focus on the most critical areas of concern for the ecosystem. The Partnership, the state agency coordinating the effort, has officially adopted 47 […]

The State of the Sound: Looking ahead to 2020

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By Jeff Rice, Puget Sound Institute Ten years ago, then-governor Christine Gregoire set an ambitious goal to clean up Puget Sound by 2020. The talk of that time is still familiar. Puget Sound was in trouble then as it is now. Our resident orcas had diminished to dangerously low numbers and contaminants like PCBs and stormwater were well-known threats to the ecosystem. Now, with 2020 less than three years away, we are learning that Puget Sound faces even more extensive problems than Governor Gregoire may have imagined. Ocean acidification was […]

Implementation strategies will target Puget Sound ‘Vital Signs’

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When a scientist wades into an eelgrass bed or measures the weight of a Chinook salmon, their connection to the environment is clear. Much of what we know as the ‘scientific process’ takes place on the ground at a local scale. Measurements and observations are made and extrapolated. Scientists get their feet wet. But what do you do when you are studying an entire ecosystem? In the case of Puget Sound, you can’t wade — or even see – the whole thing. To some degree, such a large system is […]