- Fir Island Farm Reserve Wildlife Area Unit (wdfw.wa.gov)
The Fir Island Farm Reserve is a Game Reserve with over 200 acres of restored intertidal estuary and managed agricultural land in southwest Skagit County. The reserve attracts thousands of snow geese, swans, ducks and shorebirds in the fall through early spring. The unit is managed to provide an undisturbed feeding and resting area for wintering waterfowl adjacent to Skagit Bay. Hunting and trapping is NOT allowed on this unit, but a short trail along the dike offers views of Skagit Bay and opportunities for shorebird and waterfowl viewing. A recent restoration project completed in 2016 restored approximately 130 acres of farmland to intertidal estuary providing critical juvenile rearing habitat for Endangered Species Act-listed chinook and other salmon.
- Chordate (Wikipedia)
A chordate (/ˈkɔːrdeɪt/ KOR-dayt) is a deuterostomic animal belonging to the phylum Chordata (/kɔːrˈdeɪtə/ kor-DAY-tə). All chordates possess, at some point during their larval or adult stages, five distinctive physical characteristics (synapomorphies) that distinguish them from other taxa. These five synapomorphies are a notochord, a hollow dorsal nerve cord, an endostyle or thyroid, pharyngeal slits, and a post-anal tail. The name “chordate” comes from the first of these synapomorphies, the notochord, which plays a significant role in chordate body plan structuring and movements. Chordates are also bilaterally symmetric, have a coelom, possess a closed circulatory system, and exhibit metameric segmentation.