From Wash­ing­ton State Recre­ation and Con­ser­va­tion Office The Governor’s Salmon Recov­ery Office has named Olympia res­i­dent and long-time envi­ron­men­tal advo­cate Tara Galus­ka to coor­di­nate the state’s orca recov­ery efforts. As orca recov­ery coor­di­na­tor, Galus­ka will be work­ing with part­ners to help imple­ment rec­om­men­da­tions of Gov. Jay Inslee’s South­ern Res­i­dent Killer Whale Task Force and track­ing  Con­tin­ue Reading

From the San Juan Island Sculp­ture Park Join us from 8–10 a.m. Wednes­day, May 19 to watch for our fine feath­ered friends at the San Juan Island Sculp­ture Park locat­ed next to Roche Har­bor Resort. The event occurs every third Wednes­day of the month through Sep­tem­ber. Last month, atten­dees spot­ted more than 28 bird species.  Phil Green,  Con­tin­ue Reading

A Sun­flower Star is Born By Jason Hodin, senior research sci­en­tist, Fri­day Har­bor Labs.  Among the world’s hun­dreds of types of known starfish (or seast­ars as I’ll call them), our Pacif­ic coast sun­flower stars are true record break­ers. They are the largest seast­ar in the world, with an arm-tip-to-arm-tip “wingspan” of more than two feet when ful­ly  Con­tin­ue Reading

From the San Juan Islands Agri­cul­tur­al Guild It seems like only a few years ago that the San Juan Islands Agri­cul­tur­al Guild threw a grand open­ing par­ty for our com­mu­ni­ty’s beloved Brick­works build­ing and plaza, but in fact, the orig­i­nal his­toric build­ing is cel­e­brat­ing its 100th birth­day this year. May is “His­to­ry Lives Here” month and the  Con­tin­ue Reading

From the San Juan Coun­ty Mas­ter Gar­den­ers Healthy veg­gie starts and local­ly grown peren­ni­al land­scap­ing plants need new homes. Like last year, the San Juan Coun­ty Mas­ter Gar­den­ers’ sale is online at SpringSale.org, with curb­side pick­up at the Mullis Cen­ter. The sale begins 9 a.m., Wednes­day, May 5 and clos­es 5 p.m., May 12. Make your choic­es  Con­tin­ue Reading

From San Juan Islands Vis­i­tors Bureau Since May 2–8 is Nation­al Trav­el and Tourism Week, this is the per­fect oppor­tu­ni­ty to restart the dia­logue about the future of the San Juan Islands’ expe­ri­ence econ­o­my: tourism. Nobody in the world antic­i­pat­ed this vast, COVID-19 health cri­sis and result­ing eco­nom­ic cri­sis. Indus­try after indus­try ground to a  Con­tin­ue Reading

In 2019 Con­gress des­ig­nat­ed the area, which includes the San Juan Islands   By Car­o­line C. Grau­­man-Boss, exec­u­tive direc­tor, Sal­ish Sea Sci­ences Let the Wash­ing­ton Trust for His­toric Preser­va­tion know what being part of the new Mar­itime Wash­ing­ton Nation­al Her­itage Area means for you here in San Juan Coun­ty.  The Mar­itime Wash­ing­ton Nation­al Her­itage Area  Con­tin­ue Reading

What Hap­pened with the Group’s Rec­om­men­da­tions?   From The Whale Muse­um The Whale Muse­um will host a lec­ture on orca pol­i­cy updates and the new com­mer­cial whale-watch­ing licens­ing pro­gram at 6 p.m., April 28 online.  Julie Wat­son from the Wash­ing­ton Depart­ment of Fish & Wildlife will dis­cuss progress since the governor’s Orca Task Force deliv­ered  Con­tin­ue Reading