State grant will help expand one of Key Peninsula’s best-kept wildlife secrets

A state grant is adding acreage to a wildlife preserve at Filucy Bay on the Key Peninsula, a critical salmon habitat that is being crowded by development.

The grant of $350,000 will be used by the nonprofit Great Peninsula Conservancy to purchase 20 acres and about 1,000 feet of additional of shoreline in the bay’s North Cove near Longbranch, said Ali Erskine, a conservation associate.

“This kind of habitat is getting harder and harder for salmon to find, so preserving it is a top priority” for the Bremerton-based conservancy, Erskine said. “It’s a sheltered inlet, with two arms that hug around, and young salmon find it a food-rich area where they have shallow, cooler water” due to the overhang of trees.

The grant comes from the Estuary and Salmon Restoration Program of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. It is part of $15.7 million the WDFW and the state Recreation and Conservation Office are distributing to fund local projects to protect or restore natural shoreliines around Puget Sound.

The Filucy Bay Preserve presently covers about 99 acres wrapping around the North Cove of Filucy Bay, and includes about 3/4 mile of wooded shoreline, much of it adjacent to Mahnke Road. The first 38 acres were donated in 2013 by a local resident, Melissa Haumerson, who bought the land to save it from development. The conservancy has added steadily to it ever since — 21 acres in 2014 and another 40 acres in 2021.

At times, it has been a race — some of the purchased land was already destined for housing.

“It’s developing quick, so we’ve had to move fast,” said Erskine.

Coupled with donations, the newest grant will grow the preserve to about 120 acres over the next two years, she said.

This estuary is vital for chinook salmon, steelhead trout, fall chum salmon, coho salmon, and cutthroat trout, according to the conservancy website. A small, shallow creek empties into the upper end.

“Because of the sheltered waterline, the water is cooler there, and there is downed woody debris that provide food and habitat for fish,” Erskine said.

The woods include the usual Northwest mix of fir, cedar and hemlock, with some maple and red alder, she said. They provide habitat for a variety of wildife.

“There are deer, bears, blue herons, “ Erskin said. “I’ve heard tales of owls; I’ve seen woodpeckers.”

The site is inaccessible except by boat. Volunteers maintain a small landing spot with a bench and an interpretive sign on the west side that is popular with kayakers. (Tides can be extreme here. Visitors are advised to come at high tide.)

“It’s a nice spot for a picnic,” Erskine said.

Another grant of $94,500 went to the Pierce Conservation District for bulkhead removal and shoreline preservation at the DeMolay Sandspit Nature Preserve, a 3.5-acre spot on the northeast tip of Fox Island. Numerous requests to the conservation district for information about this project went unanswered.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misstated the name of the nonprofit that operates the Filucy Bay nature preserve. It is the Great Peninsula Conservancy, not the Greater Peninsula Conservancy.

This story was originally published June 30, 2021 at 6:46 AM.