The Nature Conservancy in Washington - Skagit Delta spotlight

The Skagit Delta: A working landscape rich in wildlife

Snow geese spend the winter in the Skagit Delta
© Scott Church

The Skagit Delta is a vibrant rural community—one of the last strongholds of farming in Western Washington and a bread basket both regionally and nationally. The local farming community is rightfully proud and protective of its family farming heritage, which reaches back for generations. At the same time, the delta is rich in wildlife. Though altered over the years by diking and draining, the delta continues to support life-giving tidal marshes and riverine habitats—nurseries for salmon, cod, rockfish, and sole and vital habitat to hundreds of thousands of birds. The delta hosts one of the largest and most diverse concentrations of wintering raptors on the continent. And in recent winters, biologists surveying the delta have counted more than 150,000 dabbling ducks and more than 65,000 shorebirds, underscoring its status as a critical stop along the Pacific Flyway.

The Nature Conservancy has been working in the upper reaches of the Skagit River for more than 30 years. Recently, because of its immense importance to the region’s ecological health, we’ve extended our efforts to the delta. This is a complex place to work, a place where the conservation community and the farming community have often been at odds over natural resource issues. But as the Conservancy and its partners have come to realize, the delta’s ecological integrity and agricultural base are intertwined, and collaborative, locally based efforts at safeguarding both could help ensure that the Skagit Delta remains a healthy and vibrant rural community for generations to come.

The Conservancy is working with others to find and claim this common ground. In the spring of 2007 we began an innovative Farming for Wildlife program that will test new treatments for farmlands that will benefit both farmers and shorebirds. We also have a program that financially rewards farmers for planting wildlife-friendly cover crops, and we’re developing projects that restore habitat, provide flood protection, and improve drainage for farm fields.

These efforts are beginning to unfold at places like Fisher Slough, a tidally influenced channel where the Conservancy is developing a restoration plan that could improve not only estuarine habitat but also enhance the productivity of surrounding farmlands.

Strategically focused, innovative projects, such as these at the Skagit Delta, demonstrate the importance of working in partnership with all who have a stake in a community’s future. Only then can we begin to achieve on-the-ground results that truly make a difference—for both our natural heritage and the health of our communities.

Read an essay about Skagit River conservation by the Conservancy's Skagit River program manager