Wildlife
Despite the industrialization of the Duwamish river, it remains an important habitat for the thousands of salmon and trout that visit the marshes and estuaries each year to spawn. The Duwamish supports chinook, coho, chum and steelhead, not to mention the more rare pink, sockeye, sea-run cutthroat trout and bull trout. Many of the animal species found in or around the river contain an unhealthy amount of contaminants. For example, other than salmon, any type of fish or shellfish found in the river is unfit for human consumption. It was found that PCB levels in fish and crab that live in the waterway most of their lives are 35 to 110 times higher than in Puget Sound salmon. The Ecological Risk Assessment also found that river otters from the Lower Duwamish River might be exposed to such high levels of PCBs that the growth or survival of their offspring may be reduced.
Read more about this topic: Duwamish River
Famous quotes containing the word wildlife:
“Russian forests crash down under the axe, billions of trees are dying, the habitations of animals and birds are layed waste, rivers grow shallow and dry up, marvelous landscapes are disappearing forever.... Man is endowed with creativity in order to multiply that which has been given him; he has not created, but destroyed. There are fewer and fewer forests, rivers are drying up, wildlife has become extinct, the climate is ruined, and the earth is becoming ever poorer and uglier.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)