3/22 Red currant, sea grass sanctuary, Nuchatlaht rights, BC oil production, gray whales, Tokitae, gas price, Theler Wetlands

 

Red currant [Alan Fritzberg]

Red currant Ribes sanguineum
This plant grows from British Columbia to California. This plant grows on both sides of the Cascades crest and at the coast in Washington. Red-flowering currant tolerates poor soil and grows in sunny to partly shady areas making it a great landscaping or restoration shrub. Spring flowers provide a nectar source for hummingbirds, bees, and other pollinators. The berries are eaten by birds and mammals, and the leaves are eaten by deer and elk. Many moths and butterflies use the leaves as forage during the caterpillar stage. Pacific Northwest tribes (Skagit, Salish, Quileute, Hoh and many others)  ate the berries. The berries were collected and eaten fresh, stewed, canned, boiled, or dried and saved for winter months, sometimes they would be added to soups for flavoring. (Washington Native Plant Society)

WA creates first sea grass and kelp sanctuary off Everett
A first-of-its-kind sanctuary has been created offshore of Everett, where 2,300 acres of state tidelands have been put off-limits to development for 50 years. Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz created the protection zone with the stroke of a pen, withdrawing the tidelands from potential development. Protected are kelp forests and eelgrass meadows near Hat Island and in the Snohomish River estuary. “We are just getting started,” said Franz, who added that the protection zones will be only part of a new state effort under a measure, SB5619, just passed by the Legislature to conserve and restore 10,000 acres of kelp and eelgrass by 2040. Lynda Mapes reports. (Seattle Times)

The Nuchatlaht Legal Fight Is a Big Deal. Here’s Why
The Nuchatlaht rights and title case, claiming about 200 square kilometres of Nootka Island, off the west coast of Vancouver Island, is the first to apply the precedent-setting 2014 Tsilhqot’in decision, in which the Supreme Court of Canada granted the Tsilhqot’in First Nation title to 1,750 square kilometres of territory. It is also the first title case to test the province’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, passed in 2019. Judith Lavoie reports. (The Tyee) Lawyer for B.C. First Nation says historic land title case is about reconciliation and justice   (CBC)

To limit global heating to 1.5 C, Canada must end oil and gas production by 2034: report
Canada is among a handful of rich countries that must end its oil and gas production by 2034 if the world is to have even a 50 per cent chance of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius, a new report has found.  The report, released Monday on commission from the International Institute for Sustainable Development, offers a framework to ween the world of fossil fuels by targeting 88 producer countries, which together account for nearly 100 per cent of the world’s oil and gas supply. Stefan Labbé reports. (Times Colonist)

Special group of gray whales shows up earlier than ever in Puget Sound
A special group of gray whales takes an annual detour from their coastal migration to feed on ghost shrimp in the tidelands of Puget Sound. They’re known locally as “the Sounders” and most often seen near Whidbey Island. Normally they start showing up in March and feed for a few months before continuing north to their feeding grounds in the Alaskan Arctic. But they have been arriving early for the past two years and growing in number. Bellamy Pailthorp reports. (KNKX)

Tribal members, community offer prayer and cedar for the return of orca
In continuing to offer prayer for the repatriation of southern resident orca Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut from the Miami Seaquarium to her home waters of the Salish Sea, Lummi Tribal members and the Bellingham community gathered Sunday, March 20, at the sacred site of Cherry Point — named Xwe’chi’eXen in the Lummi language. Led by enrolled Lummi Tribal members Ellie Kinley and Raynell Morris, president and vice president of the non-profit Sacred Lands Conservancy known as Sacred Sea, the group prayed with songs from the Bob Family singers. Natasha Brennan reports. (Bellingham Herald)

How Oil and Gasoline Prices Actually Work
Gas prices—and therefore oil prices—wield a tight grip on the American consumer psyche. No other commodity’s prices are tracked so closely, advertised so prominently, and hold such significance in the minds of the American people as gas prices. It is also a market few people understand.  When gas prices are low, people are pleased, or at the very least do not complain about gas prices. But when gas prices are high—which everyone immediately knows because they’re posted in giant signs at hundreds of thousands of public locations across the country—people get mad, politicians react to that anger, and lots of hemming and hawing is done. Aaron Gordon reports. (Vice)

Fish and wildlife preparing to take over Theler Wetlands from North Mason School District
Theler Wetlands in Belfair will soon be under new management, transferring from the North Mason County School District to Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. The property consists of approximately 90.41 acres and is composed of five separate parcels, which will continue to be open for public use and recreation. Jesse Darland reports. (Kitsap Sun)

Now, your tug weather--
West Entrance U.S. Waters Strait Of Juan De Fuca-  242 AM PDT Tue Mar 22 2022   
TODAY  SE wind 5 to 15 kt. Wind waves 2 ft or less. W swell  7 ft at 11 seconds. A chance of rain in the morning. 
TONIGHT  SE wind to 10 kt becoming SW after midnight. Wind  waves 1 ft or less. W swell 6 ft at 11 seconds. A chance of rain  after midnight.

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