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Whidbey Island Game Farm to be preserved

Saturday, June 19, 1999

By REBEKAH DENN Mail Author
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

A wildflower-studded expanse of rare prairie land on Whidbey Island will be preserved for ecological studies rather than sold for development.

The state Department of Fish and Wildlife announced yesterday that an environmental group had bought the 175-acre Whidbey Island Game Farm for its full assessed value of $700,000.

The Michigan-based Au Sable Institute for Environmental Studies plans to work with conservation groups to restore and protect the prairie and to teach restoration ecology, state officials said.

The game farm was one of several surplus parcels the state had planned to sell to make up a budget shortfall. The Department of Fish and Wildlife had used the farm to raise game birds for decades, but used it only for pheasant holding pens in recent years.

The sale was a heartfelt victory for Island County environmentalists, who sued Fish and Wildlife last year in an attempt to stop what they called the destruction of an irreplaceable piece of public land.

The land, which is about two miles east of Coupeville, was scheduled to be sold for residential development.

Supporters, in arguing for preservation, pointed to:

  • The remnant of a glacial prairie on the land, an almost extinct ecosystem.

  • The value of keeping a chunk of open space in the fast-developing island.

  • The land's status as part of the Ebey's Landing Natural Historical Preserve, a collection of private and public lands identified as a U.S. "cultural landscape" and administered by the National Park Service.

Spurred by their protests, state Rep. Kelly Barlean, R-Langley, sponsored successful legislation that directed that the property be sold to an agency that would preserve it in its natural state.

Supporters had anticipated a long process of patching together small contributions from different agencies to raise enough money for the purchase, but then a single buyer came through.

"We're just so lucky that we connected with our one-in-a-million buyer," said Ebey's Landing manager Rob Harbour.

"This is doubly sweet, because it's a case of private funds preserving open space, but also . . . this is going to be some pretty actively used open space that's going to benefit everyone."

Steve Erickson of the Whidbey Environmental Action Network said the non-profit group will drop its lawsuit and looks forward to working with Au Sable to preserve the land.

The Department of Fish and Wildlife initially tried to retain a 10-acre parcel of the property for pheasant holding pens, but instead compromised on leasing 10 acres from Au Sable for two years and using part of the sale money to set up pheasant pens elsewhere.

P-I reporter Rebekah Denn can be reached at 425-774-6625 or rebekahdenn@seattle-pi.com

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