Welcome to Puget Sound!
Whether you’re a lifelong resident of Puget Sound, a transplanted citizen or just visiting, you know how special this place is. If you’ve never visited this part of the United States, then you’ve missed out on what many consider to be the jewel of the Pacific Northwest .
The postcards don’t lie. Puget Sound’s magnificence lies in its rich and varied land and seascapes, spectacular scenery and diverse plant and animal life.
Majestic mountain ranges flank the eastern and western edges of the Sound and reign over flowing rivers, gentle streams, deep green forests and lush alpine meadows. Mt. Rainier, the tallest mountain in the continental United States at 14,410 feet, stands as a sentinel keeping watch on the Sound. On a clear day, you can see Mt. Rainier from just about anywhere on Puget Sound.
- Water
- Habitat
- Biodiversity
- People
- Economy
- Environmental challenges
- New approaches to protecting the Sound
Water
Carved by glaciers and fed by 10,000 rivers and streams, Puget Sound is an ecosystem defined by the movement of water .
Beginning as snow in the Cascades and Olympics, fresh water flows down from these mountain ranges through creeks, streams and fertile river valleys into the Sound, connecting to a complex network of salt marshes, wetlands, smaller estuaries, bluffs, beaches and bays.
Puget Sound is a vast and beautiful estuary—a semi-enclosed, glacial fjord—where salt water from the Pacific Ocean mixes with fresh water draining from the surrounding watersheds.
Puget Sound is the second largest estuary in the Unites States. From the Canadian border south to Olympia and west to the Pacific Ocean, the Puget Sound basin comprises 2,800 square miles of inland marine waters and 2,500 miles of shoreline.
Nearly 85 percent of the Sound basin’s annual surface water runoff comes from 10 major river systems: the Nooksack, Skagit, Snohomish, Stillaguamish, Cedar/Lake Washington Canal, Green/Duwamish, Puyallup, Nisqually, Skokomish and Elwha.
Made up of a series of underwater valleys and ridges, Puget Sound is deep—averaging 430 feet. The maximum depth of 930 feet occurs just north of Seattle.
Habitat
The Puget Sound estuary is one of the most productive and biologically diverse ecosystems on earth. The following is just a sampling of major aquatic communities that provide habitats for thousands of species:
- Rivers provide the freshwater rearing grounds for all species of salmon that move on to the Sound and beyond in their adult lives. Rivers have their own complex ecosystems supporting resident fish, rare freshwater mussels, amphibians and aquatic insects.
- Mudflats make the ideal habitat for native Olympia oysters. The biomass of burrowing clams, worms, shrimp and other invertebrates rivals many of the more conspicuous community types.
- Rocky shores are home to crabs, mussels, sea stars, ribbon worms, barnacles, anemones, sponges and various algae. Because of the large mass and structure of many of these critters, they form habitat in themselves for other more cryptic animals.
- Eelgrass beds house and provide food for herring , shrimp, crabs, mussels, snails and small fish species. Every part of the living eelgrass roots and blades calm ocean swells to create a protected environment. Even the dead grass blades are a rich food source for many types of invertebrates.
- Salt marshes are a world not completely wet or completely dry. Species that live in this ecosystem have adapted to these unique conditions. Grasses provide ladders above the tide for those animals that need to be dry, such as some snails and insects. Roots retain moisture for species that need to stay wet such as shore crabs and certain shrimp. Salt marshes filter water quality for the entire Sound’s food web.
- Gravel beaches are ideal spawning territory for forage fish such as surf smelt and sand lance. Shorebirds remove tiny shrimplike animals and worms from beaches exposed by the tides. The dissipation of wave energy by gravel beaches creates backshore communities that support rare plant species, birds and butterflies.
- Bluffs are the sediment source for most Puget Sound beaches and support their own unique mix of species. Belted kingfishers and pigeon guillemots make their burrows into bluff faces below the red, bending branches of madrone trees. Mink and river otter also use bluffs as habitat.
Biodiversity
Puget Sound supports a spectacular array of life. More than 200 species of fish, 100 species of marine birds, 26 kinds of marine mammals, and thousands of other plant and animal species make their home in the lands and waters of Puget Sound.
Orcas and salmon have earned the status of iconic species of the Pacific Northwest. But Puget Sound also harbors lesser known—yet fascinating—plant and animal life that most people only see in an aquarium. The elusive giant Pacific octopus, for example, can weigh up to 125 pounds and reach 30 feet in length. The six-gill shark , which can grow up to 15-feet long, is the third largest predatory shark in the world and lives year round in Puget Sound. Coralline red algae secrete a calcium skeleton and play a key role in building reefs.
People
The Puget Sound region, with all its natural beauty and unsurpassed scenery, draws people from all over the world: to live, to work and to visit. People have a strong connection to the area and believe it’s important to protect Puget Sound for future generations.
The current population of Puget Sound is 4.1 million people living in 12 counties. About 1.5 million people live in cities and towns that directly border Puget Sound. Projections show the region’s population will reach 5.4 million by 2025.
>> Learn more about population trends in Puget Sound
Economy
Much of the current output as well as the promise and potential of this region is based on natural resources and the industries, tourism and recreation these resources support.
Puget Sound plays an integral role in the region’s economy. The ports of Seattle and Tacoma combined are the second largest U.S. port for container traffic. And Puget Sound generates 80 percent of all tourism revenue for Washington State.
>> More facts about Puget Sound’s economy | PDF
Environmental Challenges
Much of Puget Sound looks as beautiful as the postcards vacationing visitors send home. But the simple truth is: We’re in danger of loving Puget Sound to death.
While parts of the Sound are healthy, recent growth and development in the region are threatening the health of this complex and fragile ecosystem.
Puget Sound faces significant environmental challenges, from water pollution and sediments laden with toxic compounds to sharp drops in populations of salmon, orcas, marine birds and rockfish. A steady loss of habitat, alarming declines in some fish and wildlife populations, and closures of shellfish beds are signs that the very best of Puget Sound is at risk.
Climate change too, intensifies many of the challenges facing Puget Sound.
New approaches to protecting the Sound
Puget Sound has a rich history of committed and caring people working tirelessly to protect the Sound’s natural resources and to restore areas that have been damaged by pollution and poor land-use decisions. But these earnest efforts have been fragmented and not always well coordinated to address problems from a large-scale, ecosystem level.
In 2007, the governor and legislators of Washington State demonstrated their commitment to and concern for Puget Sound’s health by passing a comprehensive suite of bills that will ensure a thriving natural system that exists in harmony with a vibrant economy.
At the heart of this legislation is the Puget Sound Partnership, a new agency created to coordinate and lead the effort to restore and protect Puget Sound
You can help! Get involved in the Puget Sound Partnership through a variety of ways.
Puget Sound Basin. Click to see larger version.
Puget Sound's major river systems. Click to see larger version.
