Leave No Trace Speaker Series comes to San Juan Island this fall

On Sacred Ground sends along the details about their upcom­ing series of events.

The sum­mer craze has crescen­doed and is quick­ly tran­si­tion­ing into the calmer win­ter months. Islanders pro­claim that the San Juans have been returned to them. So what are our oblig­a­tions as we try to fos­ter recov­ery of the land and ani­mals that have been viewed so heav­i­ly in the sum­mer months? How can we con­tin­ue to pro­tect our imper­iled ecosys­tems with bound­ing vis­i­ta­tion and a ris­ing local population?

On Sacred Ground’s Leave No Trace Speak­er Series touch­es on those top­ics as we cycle back to our 2014 vol­un­tary com­mit­ment as a coun­ty to uphold Leave No Trace ethics. The Speak­er Series is fund­ed by a Lodg­ing Tax Advi­so­ry Com­mit­tee grant from San Juan County.

Leave No Trace and the Island Mar­ble Butterfly
Sun­day, Nov. 13, 5–6 p.m.
San Juan Island Library Con­fer­ence Room

Come learn about the endan­gered island mar­ble but­ter­fly (Euchloe ausonides insu­lanus), how it copes with win­ter storms, and the sim­ple things we can do to best its chances of sur­viv­ing anoth­er year. Wildlife Biol­o­gist Jen­ny Shrum, for­mer­ly of the Nation­al Park Ser­vice and cur­rent­ly On Sacred Ground’s Island Mar­ble But­ter­fly Pro­gram Direc­tor, will share high­lights of her nine sea­sons study­ing this quirky crit­ter and what LNT prac­tices on the prairie will do to sup­port the island mar­ble butterfly.

Leave No Trace and the South­ern Res­i­dent Killer Whale
Sun­day, Dec. 4, 12–1 p.m.
San Juan Island Grange

Lis­ten to Dr. Deb­o­rah Giles, Sci­ence and Research Direc­tor of Wild Orca and UW’s Cen­ter for Con­ser­va­tion Biol­o­gy, share whale tales of the Sal­ish Sea and how LNT on the water is vital­ly impor­tant to our way of life in the San Juans. Learn about her par­tic­u­lar twist on LNT prac­tices to sup­port South­ern Res­i­dent killer whales.

Leave No Trace – Where Do We Go From Here Workshop
Mon­day, Dec. 12, 6–8 p.m.
Wayfind­er Well­ness, Suri­na Busi­ness Park

What does Leave No Trace look like when you start to apply these ethics to your every­day life and not just your back­coun­try or front­coun­try expe­ri­ence? What does it mean now for San Juan Coun­ty to be a vol­un­tary LNT coun­ty eight years after we have declared that inten­tion? Is it just for tourists? Should it be applied even more rig­or­ous­ly to our way of life in light of our recent pop­u­la­tion growth? Join Sarah, On Sacred Ground’s Exec­u­tive Direc­tor and Co-Founder, for con­ver­sa­tions on how to up our LNT game and what actions we can take local­ly to imple­ment LNT ethics. Please RSVP for this work­shop as space is limited.

You can support the San Juan Update by doing business with our loyal advertisers, and by making a one-time contribution or a recurring donation.