This contribution will review the biodiversity of the Salish Sea and its regional components, the Puget Sound and Georgia Strait based on the incorporation into major database, i.e., FishBase (www.fishbase.org) for fish and SeaLifeBase (www.sealifebase.org) for other marine organisms, of a massive body of literature data. Because it incorporated in this massive databases, this information is also vetted for quality and can be compared with information from similar ecosystems. Over 238 fish species are documented for the Salish Sea (152 for Puget Sound, 193 for the Georgia Strait) in FishBase, and over 1600 species of non-fish vertebrates and invertebrates in SeaLifeBase, from a body of over 1800 published references. Though this documentation effort is ongoing, we can now say that overall, the Salish Sea is as biodiverse as can be expected of a temperate ecosystem of its size, i.e., 18,000 square km. This biodiversity has declined, however, and the causes for which are briefly discussed
