Strait Ecosystem Recovery Network geography, the “Strait Action Area”, is contiguous with the Strait of Juan de Fuca Action Area and includes the marine waters and associated watersheds from the northwestern tip of the Olympic Peninsula (Cape Flattery) to the eastern end of the Strait of Juan de Fuca (Point Wilson at Port Townsend). It is home to the Makah, Lower Elwha Klallam, and Jamestown S’Klallam Tribes (Note: Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe also has interest within the Strait Action Area); Clallam and Jefferson Counties; the Cities of Port Townsend, Port Angeles, and Sequim; the Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge; much of Olympic National Park and Olympic National Forest; and numerous state, Tribal, county, and city parks and recreation areas.

The Strait of Juan de Fuca links the inner Puget Sound to the Pacific Ocean. It provides an essential pathway for exchange of incoming cold, dense saltwater and freshwater runoff from Puget Sound and Georgia Basin rivers. This exchange is assisted by strong ocean currents in the western end of the strait and intense tidal action in the eastern end.

The Strait Action Area includes a rugged and diverse marine shoreline of 217 linear miles that includes the Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge. The uplands and lower watersheds are either forested, used for agriculture, or are developed for housing and commercial purposes. Most of the upper watersheds are in federal, state, or private ownership including Olympic National Park, Olympic National Forest, Washington State lands (e.g., WDNR, WDFW, etc.), and commercial timberlands.

The Strait of Juan de Fuca is the migration corridor between Puget Sound and the Pacific Ocean for many species of fish, marine mammals, birds, and humans. The marine shoreline and nearshore contain the majority of Washington’s coastal kelp resources. The Strait Action Area geography has 95 linear miles of floating kelp, 161 linear miles of non-floating kelp, and 75 linear miles of eelgrass. The kelp forests and eelgrass meadows provide food and cover for outbound and returning runs of salmonids from all over Puget Sound, as well as birds, marine mammals, and the prey species they depend on. The connectivity of kelp and eelgrass habitat in the Strait Action Area geography is essential to the function of the Puget Sound ecosystem. Sheltered bays (e.g., Discovery Bay, Sequim Bay, Dungeness Bay, and Port Angeles Harbor), bluffs and beaches, and two major river mouth (Dungeness and Elwha Rivers) and 22 “pocket” estuaries, the latter of which are mostly at the terminus of creeks entering the Strait of Juan de Fuca, also provide critically important habitat and/or a migratory corridor for salmonids, forage fish, and shellfish.

Unique populations of raptors, marine birds, Roosevelt elk, black‐tailed deer, marmots, and other mammals, as well as anadromous and resident fish, are found throughout the Strait Action Area geography. Notable bird species include the federally protected northern spotted owl and marbled murrelet. Olympic National Park recently reintroduced the fisher, a larger relative of the weasel, which has been locally extinct for decades. The population of sea otters that migrates between the outer coast and the Strait of Juan de Fuca has increased from the initial 59 animals reintroduced in 1969–1970 to 800 animals, but is still small enough to be highly vulnerable to a catastrophic event such as an oil spill. Protection Island, part of the Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge, is a critically important marine bird rookery for Puget Sound. This island and other portions of the Strait Action Area geography are important haul‐out areas for seals and sea lions.

More than three-quarters of the private land west of the Elwha watershed is zoned for commercial forest, and some areas in the western portion of the Strait Action Area geography are in their third rotation for timber harvest. Timber harvest remains an important economic sector, providing logs for domestic and export uses and raw materials for active paper mills in Port Angeles Harbor and adjacent geographies. Agriculture also is part of the rural landscape within the Strait Action Area geography, with approximately 5,000 acres of irrigated farmland in the dry Sequim-Dungeness Valley. Smaller-scale agriculture occurs in other scattered areas, particularly the Salt Creek area west of Port Angeles and in the Discovery Bay watershed.

Many other economic activities in the area also depend directly on the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Puget Sound, both as a transportation corridor and for the value that ecosystems provide, including ship building/repair; marinas; shellfish culture and harvest; Tribal, commercial, and recreational fishing; and tourism. A large retirement population, drawn by the relatively dry climate, scenic environment, and other community features, has shifted the economy in the eastern portion of the Strait Action Area geography toward more service‐based activities. Commercial and residential development associated with these activities, both within the uplands and along marine and freshwater shorelines, is more common here. Most of that development is within and around the urban and urbanizing areas of Port Angeles, Sequim, and Port Townsend, where human-induced pressures on the ecosystem are prevalent. Marine transportation is hugely reliant on the Strait of Juan de Fuca, as almost all the vessels entering or leaving the seaports of Puget Sound and the Georgia Basin pass through it.