Beach Naturalists

Beach Naturalists2023-03-20T10:31:41-07:00

Working to protect our nearshore area

The Bainbridge Beach Naturalists create opportunities for the public to explore our Bainbridge Island beaches and nearshore areas with trained naturalists. During low tide events, we are on the beach looking for the amazing sea life that shares our shores with us.

Bainbridge Beach Naturalists also provide beach monitoring for organizations such as the Bainbridge Island Land Trust and the City of Bainbridge Island. This work enables us to observe changes in beach composition, elevation, and variety and density of species on our beaches.  We also work on the mussel cage program with Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife to assess pollutants in stormwater runoff.  And we participate in the Washington Sea Grant Green Crab monitoring program.

The beach naturalists have been trained by the WSU Extension Beach Naturalists program and the Seattle Aquarium Beach Naturalist program.

Beach explorations are announced via email to interested citizens and by articles in the monthly Sustainable Bainbridge enewsletters.  To sign up to receive announcements of scheduled explorations, sign up at the bottom of this page, enter your email and select “beach explorers” from the list of options.

Join us on the beach!

What We Do and How We Inform

Beach Explorations

Opportunities to join us on the beach!

Citizen Science

Mussels and Sea Stars and Crabs, Oh My!

Beach Monitoring

What’s in our nearshore area?

Actions You Can Take

Chehalis River Dam?

The Chehalis River in western Washington supports several salmon runs.  The river also can cause damage from flooding as a result of logging of trees in the upper watershed.   Now there is a plan to dam an upper stretch of the river, which will destroy important salmon spawning habitat.  You can learn more about the project in this video.

Dangerous Floating Fish Farms

If passed, the AQUAA Act would fast track giant floating fish confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) in federal ocean waters (America’s largest public resource, now protected by the Magnuson-Stevens Act). Other countries that have opened their oceans to this toxic industry (e.g., Canada, Denmark, Argentina) are now backing away due to its catastrophic consequences for marine ecosystems, threats to the wild-caught fishing industry, and other problems. Land-based marine-fish farms can and do supply all of the benefits of ocean fish farms with none of the harms, making ocean-based fish CAFOs outdated and unnecessary.

Protect America’s oceans from floating fish CAFOs and corporate piracy by signing and sharing the following link widely among your private networks.

https://addup.sierraclub.org/campaigns/protect-our-oceans-from-floating-fish-cafos

Beach Naturalist Events

Sustainable Bainbridge Board Meeting

March 25 @ 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm

Sustainable Bainbridge Board Meeting

April 22 @ 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm

Sustainable Bainbridge Board Meeting

May 27 @ 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm

Sustainable Bainbridge Board Meeting

June 24 @ 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm

Sustainable Bainbridge Board Meeting

July 22 @ 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm

Beach Naturalist News

Newsletter Signup

Subscribe to any of our Sustainable Bainbridge newsletters here. There is a general monthly newsletter that compiles articles submitted by the various SB programs and campaigns. There are also newsletters specific to certain programs.

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