FRIENDS OF SEWARD PARK
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Mission Statement
We are volunteers working in cooperation with park visitors and the Seattle Parks Department to preserve and enhance solitary pursuits and active recreation, environmental education and park stewardship, and forest and lake habitats for wildlife diversity and human enjoyment.
About This Cause
For 23 years, the Friends of Seward Park have worked to protect habitats and interpret the natural and human history of Seward Park, Seattle. The 270 acre park encompasses the mile-long Bailey Peninsula and adjacent shorelands of Lake Washington, including the Magnificent Forest, the most extensive old-growth forest in Seattle and in much of the Puget Sound lowland. The park is home to bald eagles, barred owls, and over a hundred other bird species, as well as 40 species of fish, beavers, otters, muskrats, raccoons, mountain beavers, opossums, squirrels, and the occasional coyote. Located in culturally diverse Rainier Valley, the park has a long history of festivals and musical and theatrical performances in the amphitheater. Japanese cherries and lanterns at the park entrance mark a history of international diplomacy, while a Clay Studio and Audubon Center provide educational opportunities in pottery and natural history. The Friends advocate for responsible stewardship of the park and provide a voice for community concerns. We work to restore damaged and fragmented habitat in the Magnificent Forest and Clark's Prairie, a remnant oak woodland, and remove invasive plants. We installed basalt trail signs and mile markers to provide way-finding while maintaining the natural character of the park. Our website provides information about the park's plants and birds, and we lead periodic natural history walking tours. We have done extensive research into the park's history that was published in our book Wild Isle in the City: Tales From Seward Park's First 100 Years, which won the 2019 Virginia Marie Folkins Award for outstanding historical publication in King County. We have also published the book Cherries, Lanterns, and Gates to document the history of the Japanese cultural gifts at the park entrance, and in April 2022 we celebrated the completion of our new torii, or Japanese gate, a symbol of welcoming friendship to all the communities that use Seward Park. The original torii was a gift of friendship from the local Japanese community in 1934, but was removed due to decay in the 1980s. We sought to honor the previous gift and restore this cultural icon. Our current projects reflect our interests in forest and lake stewardship. Starting in a small area in 2013, a mysterious die-off of sword ferns has extended over tens of acres and threatens destroy the forest understory within a generation. In cooperation with ecologists from the University of Washington and plant pathologists from Washington State University Extension, we have documented the spread of the die-off and attempted to identify a pathogen, so far unsuccessfully. Apparently similar fern die-offs in other locations suggest that this may become a regional problem. As we continue to search for the cause of the die-off, we also contemplate strategies to restore the barren forest understory. To look more broadly at forest health, we now work with at-risk youth from Choose 180 to conduct surveys of dying hemlocks and assess the health of Douglas-firs. We also are concerned about noise and pollution in Andrews Bay, one of the shallowest bays in Lake Washington and the only one that allows unlimited motorized boats to anchor. In the spring Andrews Bay provides shelter to migrating juvenile salmon. Eagles, herons, terns, ospreys, and kingfishers all fish in the bay through much of the year. Yet in summer motorized boats and their amplified sound keep neighbors awake and keep wildlife away. There are existing noise and anchorage regulations that are not enforced, and we hope to persuade the city to enforce the existing regulations.