7/6 Devil's Club, monitoring, Pilchuck dam, city geese, Black birders, San Juan ferries, Mason Co gravel, clam garden, sewage clues, Nancy DeVaux

Devil's Club [Native Plants of the PNW]

Devil's Club Oplopanax horridus
Devil’s Club was, and still is, an important medicinal herb for many native tribes.  The greenish, inner bark of the roots was the part most often used.  It was chewed or boiled to treat many ailments, including aches and pains (especially due to arthritis), sores and wounds, colds and flu, digestive disorders, lung ailments, cancer, diabetes and before and after childbirth.  It was also used for cleansing.  The inner bark was chewed during purification or power-seeking rituals by hunters, warriors and shamans.  The ash of stems was mixed with grease to rub on swellings and to make a reddish brown tattoo paint used by dancers.  The berries are considered poisonous but have been mashed, rubbed into a foam on the scalp to combat lice and dandruff, and to make the hair shiny.  The wood has been used to make lures and hooks for fishing.  Bark shavings were mixed with different berries to make paint or basket dye. The young, spring buds were sometimes boiled and eaten.  The spiny stems were used as protective charms against supernatural powers.  Devil’s Club was considered an all around good luck plant! (Native Plants of the PNW)

Boots on the ground: Local scientists resume modified field work
After spending spring indoors because of a global pandemic, scientists recently resumed some boots-on-the-ground field work in Skagit County. Staff of local nonprofits, Native American tribes and government agencies are again monitoring water quality, wildlife and plant growth along muddy intertidal shorelines and forested stream sides. Kimberly Cauvel reports. (Skagit Valley Herald)

A major fish barrier on the Pilchuck River is coming down
The blue-green waters of the upper Pilchuck River are ideal habitat for some of Puget Sound’s most endangered salmon. Large conifer trees line the banks, keeping the water shady and cool, while fallen trunks provide “hidey spots” for juvenile salmon to grow. The land upstream is mostly working forest, protecting the river from residential contamination. But much of this pristine habitat, a third of the entire Pilchuck River, is blocked by a 10 foot high by 60 foot wide hunk of concrete...Preparations to remove the major barrier to fish begin next week. Julia-Grace Sanders reports. (Everett Herald)

Why are there so many geese in Metro Vancouver?
You can't miss them as they strut around Metro Vancouver: hefty birds sporting brown and black feathers with white chin straps as they congregate in noisy gaggles. Yes, they're Canada geese — but why are they crowding parks, beaches, the seawall and even crossing busy streets? Urban biodiversity planner Jennifer Rae Pierce told The Early Edition host Stephen Quinn the geese were re-introduced to the area in the 1970s to boost the population for hunting and consumption purposes.  But, unlike their native cousins, Pierce said these geese don't migrate. Ashley Moliere reports. (CBC)

The tale of the Black birders and ruffled feathers on Facebook
When Armand Lucas goes out looking for birds, he doesn’t immediately bring his binoculars to his face...Lucas is an environmental scientist who works for a very large Seattle company. When he moved here from the East Coast about a year and a half ago, he wanted to connect with the local birding community. So he joined a Facebook group called Western Washington Birders, which has more than 10,000 members. Deborah Wang reports. (KUOW)

Necessary travel: ferries’ winter schedule in summer brings travel delays for locals, visitors in San Juans
On a regular summer-schedule day, a full Washington State Ferries (WSF) vessel approaches the Friday Harbor terminal, efficiently unloads walk-on passengers and cars, and reloads new riders for the return trip in around 35–40 minutes. This is “dwell time,” and it is factored into the overall arrival and departure schedule for the day to keep ferries running on time. Currently, several COVID-shutdown related factors require WSF to continue running on a limited schedule even as summer travel increases, creating travel delays and raising as-yet unanswerable questions about when things may change. Genevieve Iverson reports. (Salish Current)

Mason County officials accused of illegal actions related to proposed gravel mine
In a class-action lawsuit filed against Mason County, a dozen North Mason property owners claim that County Commissioner Randy Neatherlin and other county officials illegally benefitted a private gravel company in violation of county zoning laws. “On June 30, 2017, Mason County and the named individual defendants gifted a private company, Grump Ventures, LLC, with a valuable right to operate a 66.5-acre surface mine in a residential zone where mining is prohibited,” the lawsuit alleges. The civil-rights case, filed Monday in U.S. District Court, goes on to say that Neatherlin tried to cover up the “unlawful and unconstitutional” acts by “hiding” county documents at his house. A lawsuit demanding the missing records led to a $30,000 settlement, with a payment from Mason County government going to North Mason resident Brad Carey, who filed a separate lawsuit under the state’s Open Public Records Act. Chris Dunagan reports. (Kitsap Sun)

How to plan a clam garden
n the last several years, the Hul'q'umi'num and W̱SÁNEĆ (formerly Saanich) First Nations have been working with Parks Canada to restore ancient clam gardens in the Gulf Islands National Park Reserve in British Columbia. Now a third Coast Salish nation, the Swinomish tribe in Washington state, is embarking on the first new construction of a clam garden in modern history. The Swinomish effort was spurred by the tribe’s studies of how climate change is likely to affect its ancestral territories in central Puget Sound, as well as its development of a suite of Indigenous Health Indicators that bring traditional food and resource availability to the forefront. Sarah DeWeerdt reports. (Salish Sea Currents Magazine)

How our sewage could warn us of future outbreaks of COVID-19
Down a gravel pathway, past a scattering of needle caps and food wrappers and beneath a graffiti-sprayed overpass for Tacoma’s East 32nd Street, lies a portal into the public’s health. For millennia, sewer systems have carried off waste and disease. More recently, they’ve drawn coronavirus-searching scientists in their wake. Evan Bush reports. (Seattle Times)

Influential Islanders: Nancy DeVaux on San Juan Island
This interview with Nancy DeVaux is the first in a series by Janet Thomas about islanders who've left their mark on the San Juan Islands. DeVaux was the first director of the Friends of the San Juan and the San Juan Community Home Trust. (San Juan Islander)



Now, your tug weather--
West Entrance U.S. Waters Strait Of Juan De Fuca-  235 AM PDT Mon Jul 6 2020   
TODAY  Light wind becoming NW 5 to 15 kt in the afternoon. Wind  waves less than 1 ft becoming 2 ft or less in the afternoon. SW  swell 3 ft at 16 seconds. A slight chance of showers in the  afternoon. 
TONIGHT  W wind 5 to 15 kt easing to 10 kt after midnight. Wind  waves 2 ft or less. S swell 3 ft at 15 seconds. A slight chance  of showers.




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