Salish Sea Facts

What is the Salish Sea?

The Salish Sea is one of the world’s largest and biologically rich inland seas.

The Salish Sea is the indigenous Coast Salish people’s name for the unified bi-national ecosystem that includes Washington State’s Puget Sound, the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the San Juan Islands as well as British Columbia’s Gulf Islands and the Strait of Georgia.

Politically the Salish Sea is governed by the USA and Canada, but the international boundary separating the Puget Sound Basin (USA) from the Georgia Basin (Canada) corresponds to no natural barrier or transition. The border is invisible to marine fish and wildlife. Species listed as threatened or endangered under the US Endangered Species Act or the Canadian Species at Risk Act, including Southern Resident killer whales (Orcinus orca), marbled murrelets (Brachyramphus marmoratus), and some ecologically significant units or species of Pacific salmon (Onchorynchus spp.), traverse the boundary daily. Oceanographic processes such as freshwater inflows and wind driven surface currents exchange biota, sediments and nutrients throughout the larger ecosystem.

Salish Sea Facts:

• Coastline length, including islands: 7,470 km (1:250,000 scale World vector Shoreline and TEOPO2 topographic/bathymetric GIS grid)

Number of species listed as threatened, endangered or are candidates for listing: 64 (Brown and Gaydos, 2007) http://www.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/whc/seadoc/pdfs/brown-gaydos07.pdf

Population Map of the Salish Sea

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