Thank you… its a great site and I’ve only just skimmed through it.
PO/SK has a super amount of space for parks and people and a delight to see it.

It was a tickle to notice the Parks Board asked for comments and I made mine as follows:

“Dear Parksboard,

I’ve only just discovered your website and Pandora’s Box of information and haven’t fully explored the site beyond noticing the south end has the largest amount of superb planned parks and recreation spaces, including Bandex (sp) Park..

Two quick comments beyond congratulations on the saved park spaces throughout the county:

1) I noted the Kingston plan seemss choppy and I couldn’t find a planned people trail system around the different park sites.

2) For the south end:

In light of the current economic situation, will you consider taking back the tax dollar gulping Howe Farm off lead dog park property and turn it into community vegetable plots for people to rent for a nominal fee? They would be able to feed their families and the dogs still have the other two parks to visit. It doesn’t seem right that people can’t afford good food when the Howe Farm prime cropland is available.
Will you please put hungry families and their need to grow food ahead of the Howe Farm and 3rd south end off lead dog park?

The area could be turned back to the dogs in a year or two when the economic crisis is over.”

Sincerely,
Sharon O’Hara

Thanks again, BL.

Here’s a link to a page containing information on all the county parks.

http://www.kitsapgov.com/parks/regionalparks/County_park_inventory.htm

The south end is ahead with their two heritage parks…great planning for the future!

I didn’t know about the others.
Does the county have a map so people can visit the heritage parks? I have no idea where they are.
Thank you!

Kitsap County has 5 “heritage” parks totaling 2900 acres. Banner Forest is one (635 acres). There is another one in SK, Coulter Creek heritage park, that is almost 1200 acres. Illahee Preserve (380 acres) and Newberry Hill (247 acres) heritage parks are in central Kitsap. The North Kitsap heritage park is 443 acres. All of these are passive parks, meaning trails (no ballfields).

A problem is we human types are crowding them out of habitat and forcing them to live side by side with us….which they seem to adapt to quite well.
Several times I’ve had the opportunity to watch coyotes work together to catch prey. We had a pond critters visited on a regular basis ( incl. Blue Herons until they fished out the rainbows)…and they once worked hard to lure one of my puppies into the bush and woods on the west end of the pond.
Luckily, though she wanted to play, she was too smart to be drawn into the woods. Eventually she got close enough that I could grab her.
Banner Forest is supposed to be a great place for people and critters … what other protected places in KC do we have to equal BF in PO/SK?

I think its great that Conservation Northwest is working to restore the tiny amount of old-growth forest we have left in our state, which is less than 5% of what was originally here. That such a charismatic creature like the Fisher is returning from extinction is a great achievement.

I think the fears about fishers are somewhat misplaced. The difference between here and the east is that there is a (comparatively) vast area of wilderness for these fishers to call home, whereas the areas cited in the above article where from suburbs where development has taken over established fisher habitat. I hear your concerns, but I really don’t think there is any reason to be afraid.

Long live the fisher!

I’ve read such nonsense for years from people who should know better. Maybe here and now someone can explain to me how a wild ‘voracious predator’ can tell the difference between the acceptable squirrel and rabbit meat meal and the unthinkable and unacceptable…the human child as a meal?
Meat is meat is… to the ‘voracious predator’.

Blue Light: “Makes you wonder about “critical habitat” designations made by other “experts” for other species, doesn’t it?”

Unless the ‘experts’ lived in the wild WITH the species in question, I don’t wonder at all. How can they know unless they live in the field and have a degree of common sense?

Now, hopefully, the experts will explain – especially why any wild meat-eating critter wouldn’t consider a human baby/child a meal?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/10/science/10fish.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&ref=science