Tulalip wildlife staffer Amanda Shelton maintains a meadow on the Tulalip reservation

The Daily Herald has a story about Tulalip Tribes’ efforts to create foraging meadows for wildlife on the reservation:

Tulalip and other local tribes also are part of efforts by the state and a national elk hunters group to improve and maintain several forage meadows in the North Cascades foothills.

“It makes me feel good when I see it now,” (tribal member Gary) Baker said of the Bluff Meadow. “It’s beautiful here, and it’s gonna work.”

What’s working is a growing deer population attracted to the meadows on the Tulalip reservation. Motion-activated cameras at each of the meadows record the numbers and mark the progress.

First there was a single deer. Then a group of bucks. Today, the camera in the Bluff Meadow is recording the return of young does and their babies, said Mike Sevigny, wildlife manager for the Tulalip Tribes.

“They eat day and night. We don’t see skinny animals anymore. The females are healthier and they have healthier young,” Sevigny said.