Known as Cha-cha-ne-cuk or Cha-cha-nu-cah by the S’Kallam tribe, named Isla de Carrasco by the Spanish in 1790, and finally Protection Island by George Vancouver in 1792, this 380-acre island just north of Discovery Bay in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, is home to over 47,000 breeding, nesting, and migrating marine birds.

Protection Island, after 100 years of farming, being shelled for artillery practice during the Second World War, importing pheasants for hunting, and a failed attempt at creating a summer home subdivision (stopped in part because no wells drilled found drinkable water), has been a National Wildlife Refuge since 1982.  Only one person not associated with the government still lives on the island, an inholder (someone who owns land completelly surrounded by government lands) named Marty Bluewater who has lifetime use of his cabin on the island’s southern bluffs.

Until you get there, it looks like uninhabited, dry and boring. Don’t be fooled!

Getting the (juvenile) bald eagle glare to remind us to stay 200 yards away.

As a designated National Wildlife Refuge, Protection Island is off limits to people, but I was fortunate enough one summer to take a boat tour around the island. This is the place to go to view seabirds. Dozens of species of birds, including approximately 70 percent of the nesting seabird population of Puget Sound and the Strait of Juan de Fuca inhabit or visit the island, including one of the largest breeding populations of Rhinoceros Auklets in the world, and the largest nesting colony of Glaucous-winged Gulls in Washington. The island contains the last nesting population of Tufted Puffins in the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Puget Sound region.  And you’ll see plenty of  eagles, cormorants, pigeon guillemots, scoters, murres and murrelets as well.

Tufted puffins always remind me of what a truly bad hair day can look like!

Sporting bright red-orange legs, pigeon guillemots bobbing alongside the boat.

If you’re not into birds, Protection Island is home to marine mammals as well.  Roughly 1,000  harbor seals and elephant seals dot the shoreline.

It’s the first location in Washington where northern elephant seals were seen to come ashore and give birth. On a lucky day, you might even see some orcas swimming through the waters (though I was not quite that fortunate!)  And first spotted in 1991, about 70 black-tailed deer live on the island as well.

This elephant seal is leaving quite the drag marked trail behind it as it heads to the water.  

In 2010, Washington State’s Department of Natural Resource established the Protection Island Aquatic Reserve, consisting of 23,778 acres of state-owned aquatic lands around Protection Island. 

Links of Interest:

• US Fish & Wildlife Protection Island – official website
• Protection Island Aquatic Reserve – Washington State Department of National Resources
• The Last Man on Protection Island, 1889 Magazine, February 16, 2017
• Protection Island, a post from Washington Secretary of State, From Our Corner blog about a 1908 attempted murder case involving the border between Jefferson and Clallam County

Location:

Strait of Juan de Fuca, just north of Discovery Bay