Project Period: 2009-2011
Pocket estuaries in the Puget Sound basin are valuable rearing habitats for juvenile out migrating salmon and important nursery grounds for some other marine fish species. Many pocket estuaries have been developed and lost as rearing habitats.
At Cannery Pond, a freshwater pond system and located next to the Washington State Ferry Terminal on northwest Fidalgo Island, research was conducted to determine whether it was historically a pocket estuary with a channel connection to the marine waters of Guemes Channel.
Findings suggest that Cannery Pond has likely always been predominantly a freshwater wetlands system and that there is little evidence that it served as a historical pocket estuary, although it may have been periodically affected by temporary channels connecting it to Guemes Channel or by high tide storm surges. Results of beach seine sampling showed that juvenile salmon, which could use Cannery Pond if it were a pocket estuary, are present in the marine waters offshore of the Cannery Pond area.
Click here to read the full report: Investigation into the Historic Status of Cannery Pond and its Potential as a Future Pocket Estuary (pdf).