Thornton Creek

Thornton Creek is 18 miles of urban creeks and tributaries from southeast Shoreline through northeast Seattle to Lake Washington. Its 12-square-mile watershed, the largest in Seattle, exhibits relatively dense biodiversity for an urban setting; it is home to frogs, newts, ducks, other birds, and an occasional beaver, in addition to more than 200,000 people. From west of Jackson Park Golf Course in Shoreline, from Sunny Walter-Pillings Pond in Licton Springs–North College Park, and north Northgate Thornton Creek flows through Maple Leaf and Lake City, including the Victory Heights, Meadowbrook, and Matthews Beach neighborhoods, and empties into the lake at Matthews Beach Park.

Thornton Creek flows through Meadowbrook Pond, visited by migratory birds and an occasional transient beaver or coyote. Before European settlement, Native Americans lived around Lake Washington. One of the 18 historic home sites was identified near the mouth of Thornton Creek.
Early in the 1900s, the creek was a spawning ground for at least five species of Pacific salmon and trout, as well a habitat for insects, amphibians, muskrats, bats, coyotes, and birds. The areas surrounding the creek were developed without regard for that habitat and the riparian corridor; species' diversity declined, and the creek became a typical degraded urban watershed. Storm water retention, sites restoration, an Environmental Learning Center next to a school, and a fish ladder contributed to restoration and the return of native plants and wildlife.

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