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PLACES
Habitats of Puget Sound
Puget Sound-- its marine life, its habitats, its
people-- is a complex web of life, varied and abundant, sometimes
unique, beautiful, always fascinating.
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Bluff and Beaches
Where the land meets the sea, waves and wind erode bluffs left by retreating glaciers to create and replenish sand and gravel beaches. |
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Estuaries, Marshes and Mudflats
These are the nurseries of the marine ecosystem where crabs, shrimp, marine fish, salmon and birds feed and grow among the salt-tolerant marsh grasses and in tidal sloughs. |
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Rocky Shores and Kelp ForestsHere, black, wave-swept basalt outcrops are encrusted with barnacles and mussels, quite tide pools swirl with pink and purple sea stars and green and orange tentacles of anemones, and river otters play among undulating fronds of bull kelp. |
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Deep Water Rocks and LedgesThere are no colorful coral "reefs" in Puget Sound like in tropical waters but there are cold-water corals like Gorgonian corals in deep water ledges home to striped and spiny rockfish and fierce-faced eels. |
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The Open WaterWhere currents of plankton-rich waters eddy and flow among schools of herring and where killer whales feed among schools of returning salmon |