Environmental group seeks volunteers for local restoration work

Dabob Days promotes stewardship in south county

Posted

The Northwest Watershed Institute has launched a new, monthly volunteer program called Dabob Days in response to growing community interest and stewardship needs for protect and restore the local ecosystem.

Once a month from November through June, local youth leaders and watershed institute staff will guide small groups of community volunteers in supporting ongoing habitat restoration projects along Tarboo Creek and Dabob Bay.

“Dabob Days is a fun way for people to join together to restore habitat for wildlife, avoid cabin fever, and experience more of this special area of Tarboo Creek and Dabob Bay,” said Megan Brookens, education and outreach director for the nonprofit.

Monthly projects will include removing tree protectors from thriving young trees, cleaning debris from beaches, propagating plants in the Northwest Watershed Institute (NWI) nursery, planting trees, preventing non-native weeds from overpowering restoration sites, and other projects depending on the time of year, Brookens added.

Since 2002, NWI has worked with 45 partnering organizations on a landscape scale effort to conserve and restore wild salmon and wildlife habitat in the Tarboo Creek and Dabob Bay watershed along the Hood Canal.

The institute owns and stewards the Tarboo Wildlife Preserve    500 acres of land in the heart of the Tarboo Valley and north of Dabob Bay — and the institute works with neighboring landowners and agencies on habitat conservation from the headwaters of Tarboo Creek to the far reaches of Dabob Bay.

“Once an initial restoration project is completed, like a tree planting, we need to maintain and steward the site for at least several more years to ensure success,” Brookens said. “Dabob Days is a natural outgrowth of NWI’s work with local schools and community organizations on volunteer projects such as the annual Plant-A-Thon.”

Plant-A-Thon is a program that involves local students planting thousands of trees each year around the Tarboo Creek watershed to help restore native salmon populations.

“Dabob Days also gives high school students who have been educated in NWI’s annual Youth Environmental Stewards course an opportunity to help lead these events for people of all ages,” Brookens said.

While the first Dabob Days event occurred
Nov. 19, interested parties can still get involved in the program by emailing Brookens at megan@nwwatershed.org.

Funding to run Dabob Days is made possible by the Clif Family Foundation and Washington state’s No Child Left Inside grant program.

To learn more about the watershed institute, go to nwwatershed.org.