To their credit, marine resource advocates and users work together as representatives on the MRCs to protect and enhance the marine environment. Absent any real effort to save these resources by outside interests, there are few incentives for commercial users to protect and enhance the marine environment. Both Whidbey and Camano islands, once home to abundant bottom fish populations, today are in desperate need of wholesale restoration. The restoration is necessary for the animals well-being and that of Puget Sound s as well to ensure future access by commercial and sports fishers. The unrestricted destruction of such marshes and wetlands long since justified the consideration for their restoration lies within the umbrella of marine resources protection.
Shipping also affects the waters of Island County.
Comprehensive scientific reviews of the region over a period of years have independently recognized that several of the most important commercial fisheries together with wholly unrelated mammalian populations have declined precipitously in the last two decades. Such losses are established by confirmed fisheries reductions. Such population declines are not attributable to the normal ebb and flow within a species historic census variations. To the contrary, the metropolitan Seattle area has become wholly urbanized and the broader region constitutes one of the Pacific Rim s primary economic crossroads. With this success just as in every other region that experiences intense growth comes traffic burdens, housing sprawl, infrastructure overload, habitat losses and woefully unfounded local fiscal crises.