Blog
Bringing Back the Beach: How Island Bulkhead Removal Relates to Salmon Health
As I drove over the West Seattle Bridge last week, Mt. Rainier wore a bank of clouds like a mourning cloak. I had just learned that particulates from car tires washing into streams are likely responsible for mysterious Coho salmon die-offs around the Sound. As my...
Vashon Nature Center Welcomes First Board of Directors
By Kathryn True With its state nonprofit status completed, Vashon Nature Center is excited to welcome its first board of directors (national 501 c3 status is expected by October 2018). The board, VNC staff, and their families celebrated this milestone last month with...
Living with Wildlife: Be Proactive, Be Prepared
This guide, developed in collaboration with island farmers and wildlife managers, is one resource available to download free from our website (see link below). We’ve received four reports of mountain lion sightings since early summer, but we have not been able...
High School Biology Students Will Share Field Science Experiences and Findings at ED Talks: June 4
By Kathryn True “This is your job?” a high school biology student asked incredulously, knee-deep in Shinglemill Creek, as she helped Maria Metler catalog juvenile salmonids. The awe and admiration she heard in the question made Metler smile, who as Vashon Nature...
VNC Co-Hosts Island Biodiversity Web Summit
Possibly for the first time in history, islanders from the entire length of the Salish Sea met to make conservation connections and discuss ways to champion biodiversity. The Vashon Nature Center crew loaded into the VNC Science Adventure Lab (AKA: Bianca’s VW van)...
Winter Science Adventures
The weather is getting frightful, but citizen science remains delightful! Vashon Nature Center volunteers are contributing to some amazing projects. See below for a short photo summary of winter activities so far: VNC Salmonwatchers: November brought the first photo...
A BioBlitz Retrospective: Why Everyone Counts
Six years ago, I met Vashon Nature Center’s director Bianca Perla at Vashon Tea Shop. I had read about the center in an article in The Beachcomber and I wanted to learn more. I was looking for a new volunteer venture and as a longtime naturalist, the organization’s...
Thank you Stream Team 2017!
Over the last few days we had an intrepid team of 10 volunteers join our stream team, rearrange their schedules to beat the oncoming rains, and conduct our 5th annual stream invertebrate survey of Vashon creeks. We finished exactly 1/2 an hour before the fall rains...
Why? A wildlife management perspective on Vashon’s late cougar
by Bianca Perla As I left the wilderness and drove back into cell service my phone exploded with texts. The cougar had been killed. Both kids and adults cried at the news, wondering why. Many in our community disagreed about this cougar but most people seemed to...
Header Photo: Bianca Perla