Dear Vashon Nature Center community,

We are THRILLED to announce our new 501 c3 federal non-profit status! We are official! And we are all doing a happy dance!

Our mission statement: Creating transformative nature experiences through community science, research, and education for the benefit of our island home and the entire Salish Sea.

VNC board, from left: Jeff Adams, Roxanne Lyons, Jen Williams and Paul Kampmeier; Kimi Healey (not pictured). Photo by Kathryn True.

Our amazing founding board: Read about our founding board.

We also have a fantastic scientific advisory council: Meet our science advisers.

Vashon Nature Center staff, left to right: Bianca Perla, Kelly Keenan, Maria Metler, Kathryn True. Read about us here.

Celebrate with us!

You can now donate to Vashon Nature Center on our donation page!

… or through the mail:

Vashon Nature Center

23509 Landers Rd SW Vashon 98070

Building community around nature

The foundation of our work is building community around nature. Becoming a non-profit gives us a stronger and more sustainable way to grow this community. We are so grateful to all of you for helping us create this organization from scratch by going out into the field with us; volunteering your time, expertise, and good energy; contributing to our Facebook page; and trying to answer essential nature questions important to all of us who live here.

Click the photo below to enter a google slideshow tour of this year’s highlights!

Adria Magrath and Rusty Knowler show off their trout (it was this big!) in a stream survey of Gorsuch Creek. For more photos of highlights of our work click the photo or here.

Highlights of our 2018 field season

• While rooted on Vashon, we have expanded our mission to use our island-based projects to positively influence the health of the entire Salish Sea which sustains us. We are becoming a hub for research, education, and community science in the Salish Sea.
  

  Vashon Nature Center worked in partnership with IslandWood and Conservation Research and Education International (CREOi) to offer what may have been the first ever web summit for conservation practitioners on islands throughout the Salish Sea. Photo by Kathryn True.

• In the spirit of casting wider while rooting deeply we held the first Salish Sea Island Biodiversity summit. This summit brought together (probably for the first time ever) conservation practitioners from over 30 islands stretching from Hornby Island, BC, all the way to Harstine Island in the south sound to discuss conservation topics and challenges common to island communities. Thank you IslandWood and CREOi!
  

  Salmonwatch coordinator Kelly Keenan’s son helps measure and take a DNA sample of a chum salmon on Shinglemill Creek as part of a Salish Sea-wide effort to better understand genetics and relatedness of different salmon stocks so that we can better preserve them. Photo by Kelly Keenan

• Our Salmon Watchers program has added an exciting new DNA analysis of our salmon using fin clips of dead salmon in our creeks. We are now contributing to a Salish Sea-wide international effort to create a genetic library of salmon stocks in our region. This will help us better understand the diversity, habits, and status of salmon at a local-watershed scale and create better ways of saving unique populations rather than using a blanket approach for all.
  

  Alex Koriath, a 2017 VHS graduate, shares her joy of marine animals with the younger generation at the 2018 BioBlitz encompassing Ellis and Ellisport Creek watersheds and including Chautauqua Forest and Ponds. Photo by Angela Hodge.

• We involved more than 750 public school students in our May BioBlitz! Holy cow.
• We finished a curriculum for our Stream Invertebrate Program in McMurray 6^th grade biology that is aligned with state science standards. Thank you PIE and Schools Foundation!
  

  VNC scientist Bianca Perla and a 6th grade biology student discuss an aquatic macroinvertebrate he found. This is our 5th year running the Scientists in Schools program at McMurray with support from PIE, Rose Foundation, and Schools Foundation! Photo by: Susie Fitzhugh

  

  BeachNET volunteers Steve Fogard, Paulina Barry and Pearl Barry measure beach wrack cover in a long-term monitoring study exploring the effect of bulkhead removal on island beaches. Photo by Maria Metler.

• We completed 3 years of beach monitoring that involved over 190 community volunteers and students and over 850 hours of volunteer work that helped us develop a baseline picture of key beaches before shoreline armoring was removed by King County. King County removed shoreline armoring at these sites in September and now we are in a great place to track the changes that occur on 3 different beach sites in Maury Island Aquatic Reserve! We are currently working on a report summarizing our work which we will post soon on our research page. Thank you BeachNET volunteers, Land Trust, King County, Washington DNR, University of Washington, and Rose Foundation.
  

  Will the owls be back again this year? Thank you OwlCam supporters and willing landowners for a successful first year bringing George and LIzzie and their brood of young ones to followers all over the globe. photo by: Kelly Keenan

• We livestreamed our owlcam for the first time and brought the lives of barn owls George and Lizzie to more than 400 different living rooms and classrooms! Thank you OwlCam supporters!
  

  Wildcam operators thank you all for helping us learn more about our wide-ranging mammals on these islands. WildCam photo by Bob Lane.

• Our WildCam operators helped us monitor coyote and other wildlife populations (still no 2018 cougar photos), and have collected DNA samples from coyote scat to answer questions about population growth, inbreeding, and origin of our coyotes. We helped pioneer a new technique for DNA extraction with the Prugh wildlife lab at UW and turned in 20 scat samples of which 12 came back as confirmed coyote and high enough quality to conduct analysis down to the individual. When those results come in, we can map individuals based on where the scat was found on Vashon and determine level of relatedness between coyotes throughout the island. Exciting stuff. Thank you WildCam volunteers!
  

  VNC’s stormwater action group (SWAG) takes water samples from the IGA parking lot before rain garden installation. Thanks to the far-sighted decision-making of IGA’s Shawn Hoffman, as soon as next season this water may be clean enough to drink (but don’t hold us to it)! Michael Laurie and Bianca Perla pictured, photo by Diane Emerson

• VNC’s work monitoring stream invertebrates over the past 5 years has instigated an exciting restoration opportunity in Shinglemill Creek. Due to initial findings of possible stormwater impacts by McMurray and VHS students in VNC’s stream invertebrate program, rain gardens will soon be installed in the IGA parking lot to curb stormwater run-off from town into Shinglemill Creek. Make sure to stop by and give Shawn Hoffman, IGA owner, major kudos for looking out for the health of our salmon, ourselves, and the Salish Sea. Thank you King County Groundwater Protection Committee, McMurray students, Rose Foundation, stream team volunteers, and IGA!

Some things to look forward to:

• Nature Lounge December 6^th 7-9 pm at the Hardware Store gallery. Grab a drink with us and talk about gardening and landscaping with native plants on Vashon and Maury. Bring photos, questions, ideas, and challenges and join the informal but informative conversation!
• Wild Wonder: Throughout 2019 Vashon Nature Center and Vashon Heritage Museum will be hard at work creating an amazing exhibit highlighting our island’s natural history! We can’t wait to share it with you when it opens in April 2020. Look for exciting lead ups to the exhibit throughout 2019 and concurrent projects offered by us and our partners including Vashon-Maury Island Audubon, Vashon Center for the Arts and others. This will be a year to celebrate nature.
• Winter Forage fish surveys with BeachNET. Email Maria Metler.
• Many more exciting field opportunities, classes (we will be offering a beach naturalist course this spring!), and educational blog posts in the works for your enjoyment coming soon!

When donating to Vashon Nature Center (vashonnaturecenter.org/donate) also consider Vashon-Maury Island Land Trust who stewards many of the properties where we conduct our programs. Just as it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to care for our natural heritage as you can see from the many partnerships mentioned in this letter!  We are grateful for all of you who make up our nature community.

Happy salmon season, happy holidays!

Bianca, Kathryn, Maria, Kelly, John, Paul, Roxanne, Kimi, Jen, Jeff