Members of the Polge family from Raleigh, N.C., from left, parents Tami and Steven, and siblings Sebastian, 18, Anna, 15, Christina, 18, and Nico, 7, examine an informational display at the Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge north of Sequim in June 2022. The refuge is sanctuary to a variety of Northwest wildlife and serves as the access point to the Dungeness Spit and the New Dungeness Lighthouse. (Keith Thorpe/Peninsula Daily News)

Members of the Polge family from Raleigh, N.C., from left, parents Tami and Steven, and siblings Sebastian, 18, Anna, 15, Christina, 18, and Nico, 7, examine an informational display at the Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge north of Sequim in June 2022. The refuge is sanctuary to a variety of Northwest wildlife and serves as the access point to the Dungeness Spit and the New Dungeness Lighthouse. (Keith Thorpe/Peninsula Daily News)

Tribe seeks to manage refuges

Allen: ‘We can bring a lot more resources’

SEQUIM — The Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe is in negotiations with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to lead operations at both the Dungeness and Protection Island national wildlife refuges.

W. Ron Allen, the tribe’s CEO and tribal chairman, along with fish and wildlife officials, said the Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge would remain open to the public while Protection Island National Wildlife Refuge would remain closed to visitors.

Allen said the tribe is negotiating a two-year renewable agreement that he expects will be signed on Aug. 16.

The Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe’s interest in taking over management of the refuges came in a confluence of events, Allen said, stemming from the tribe’s work to clean up pollution as it prepared operations for its 50-acre oyster farm in Dungeness Bay.

“We had to jump through a lot of hoops in 13 years, trying to clean up the pollution problems,” Allen said.

“In doing that, we ran into a buzzsaw with the refuge. They tried to make the argument that we don’t know about stewardship of the refuge. [But] we were the original stewards of the habitat and environment [there].

“We had a sharp difference [of opinion]. We said, ‘We could run this refuge better than you.’”

At the same time, Allen said, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland was pushing for more protection of public lands, making investments with numerous tribal communities and facilitating more U.S.-tribal government co-management programs.

“A lot of these issues are lining up at the same time,” Allen said. “The [Dungeness] refuge was in our backyard; our original village was there. We have a strong nexus to the refuge and we want to manage it.”

He said the tribe already has a grant worth about $200,000 to help with refuge improvements at the Dungeness site.

“We can bring a lot more resources,” he said.

The whole process of requesting consideration of management of the refuges took about two years, Allen said.

Limited potential changes

Tribal management would oversee the Dungeness and Protection Island national wildlife refuges’ including habitat, wildlife and cultural resource management, visitor services, county and state partnerships and volunteer opportunities along with the refuge Friends group and other partners according to the Comprehensive Conservation Plans, said Megan Nagel of the office of communications with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Pacific Region.

“The refuge would remain a refuge,” she said.

Allen said the tribe had to agree to the USFW’s plan, which included the Dungeness refuge remaining open to the public.

“None of those were problems for us,” he said.

“The facilities themselves [at Dungeness] are in pretty good shape,” he said.

The tribe is looking at adding more accommodations, such as tiny homes, to help provide housing for volunteers during the summers, when a lot of work needs to be done.

Allen also noted the tribe is looking at adding properties adjacent to the Dungeness refuge with the possibility of expanding it.

Tribe officials also are looking to partner with Clallam County as the county seeks to improve access at its adjacent 216-acre Dungeness Recreation Area.

He said the tribe also will look to link efforts between the Dungeness refuge and the Dungeness River Nature Center, helping provide more education to the community and volunteer services between those two sites.

“I see the two collaborating a lot; we have a lot of the same overlapping volunteers,” Allen said.

Meanwhile, Protection Island National Wildlife Refuge would remain closed to the general public, Nagel said.

“Visitors may view the island by boat, but a 200-yard off-shore buffer is enforced to ensure adult birds are not flushed from their nests,” she said.

The tribe also would participate in local and regional planning and conservation efforts, Nagel said, including the Straits Ecosystem Recovery Network, Dungeness River Management Team, Oil Spill Response Task Force, Salmon Recovery Council, Washington Sea Grant Crab Team and Protection Island Aquatic Reserve, as well as “monitoring and research activities associated with climate change, oil spill response, removal of derelict fishing gear and other activities that may impact refuge resources and habitats.”

Four staffers currently work at the refuges as part of the Washington Maritime National Wildlife Refuge Complex. Nagel said those employees would focus entirely on the other four refuges in the complex — Flattery Rocks, Quillayute Needles, Copalis and San Juan Islands national wildlife refuges — while under a potential management agreement the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe would be responsible for staffing Dungeness and Protection Island refuges.

Allen said the tribe already has hired a couple of those staffers to stay on at the Dungeness site.

Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe leaders did not ask to take over management of the four other refuge sites within the Washington Maritime National Wildlife Refuge Complex, Allen said, as they are outside of the tribe’s traditional lands.

Nagel said no other entities have requested management of the refuges.

About the refuges

More than 770 acres in size, the Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge contains within it the 5.5-mile-long Dungeness Spit — the longest natural sand spit in the United States — along with Graveyard Spit and portions of Dungeness Bay.

It was designated a National Wildlife Refuge in January 1915 by President Woodrow Wilson.

According to the USGS Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center, the refuge is home to 250 species of birds and 41 species of land mammals.

Protection Island National Wildlife Refuge was designated in 1982. About 70 percent of the nesting seabird population of Puget Sound and the Strait of Juan de Fuca nest on the island, which includes one of the largest nesting colonies of rhinoceros auklets in the world and the largest nesting colony of glaucous-winged gulls in Washington.

More in News

Poplars to be removed in spring

Boat Yard expansion part of larger project

Jeffco Aquatic Coalition launches pool survey

Results intended to inform design process

A snow-covered Mount Angeles is seen from Black Diamond Road a few miles south of Port Angeles. While the Peninsula has seen temperatures below freezing this week, a warming trend is expected by this weekend with highs reaching the upper 40s and overnight lows in the 30s. (Dave Logan/for Peninsula Daily News)
Winter snowscape

A snow-covered Mount Angeles is seen from Black Diamond Road a few… Continue reading

JoAnn declares bankruptcy; Port Angeles store to close

The Joann fabrics and crafts store in Port Angeles… Continue reading

Cheri Sanford of Port Angeles, right, hands a piece of metal debris to her grandson, Damien Millet, 9, after it was located with a metal detector and dug from the sand at Hollywood Beach in Port Angeles on Wednesday. They were combing the beach in search of whatever hidden treasures they could find. (Keith Thorpe/Peninsula Daily News)
Beach combing

Cheri Sanford of Port Angeles, right, hands a piece of metal debris… Continue reading

Six Peninsula school measures passing

Sequim voters approve bond, levy

Port Townsend, Chimacum pass school levies

Funds will support facilities, supplies, transportation

Counties can collect up to $1.80 of property tax per $1,000 of assessed value, but they are only allowed to increase their property tax collection amount by 1 percent each year, excluding new construction, without voter approval.
Clallam already eyeing 2026 cuts

If county can’t raise revenue, it may cut employees, services

Port Angeles School Board to conduct community conversation

Port Angeles School Board members will be available to… Continue reading

After-school art program returns to Stevens Middle School

Let’s Make Art, a free after-school program at Stevens… Continue reading

Department of Licensing offices to be closed

PORT ANGELES – The Department of Licensing office of the Clallam County… Continue reading

Voters approving all Peninsula school measures

Sequim bond passing with required supermajority