Marine Life
Quartermaster Harbor hosts the largest spawning population of Pacific herring in south Puget Sound, and is also a major spawning area for surf smelt. The narrow strip of land between the two islands contains a small saltwater marsh. It is part of the Washington State Department of Natural Resources Maury Island Environmental Aquatic Reserve.
Due to the high concentration of forage fish and shellfish, the harbor is a major wintering area for 35 bird species. The most abundant bird is the Western Grebe, which totals eight percent of Washington's wintering population. There are hundreds of scoters and other diving sea ducks that feed on the shellfish during the winter. The grebes, loons, mergansers, diving sea ducks, gulls, and dabbling ducks, in addition to other species, make a total of about 3,000 individual birds wintering there annually.
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