June 2024 eNews

Last Friday (May 31, 2024) SJPT Operations Manager (and special projects field assistant) Marianne Tynan discovered and photographed an adult (likely female) Island Marble Butterfly at the Preservation Trust’s Phelps Preserve. This is a very exciting development, as the sighting took place almost three miles (as the butterfly flutters) northwest of this exceedingly rare butterfly’s tenuous population center on the American Camp prairie. This is the farthest north an IMB has been positively identified since the late 1990s, when the species was rediscovered after scientists thought it was extinct.

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Bonus: Tour the IMB habitat plots at Phelps Preserve, along with a Western Bluebird nesting site. Sign up while there's still space! Learn more.

We're thrilled to announce our new Director of Communications and Outreach, Kelvin Baker, who joins the Preservation Trust staff on June 10. He succeeds Craig Canine, who is retiring at the end of June.

Kelvin comes to us from Michigan and is excited for a big move to the Pacific Northwest. After graduating from Oberlin College, Kelvin began working with regional arts organizations by applying his interests and skills in communications, marketing, and visual storytelling. ...

Each year, the San Juan Preservation Trust’s staff selects a volunteer whose efforts exemplify the best qualities of our members—cheerful diligence and dedication to our conservation mission. 

Thom Pence is the ultimate embodiment of these qualities. Our staff unanimously chose him as our 2023-24 Volunteer of the Year. Learn more by clicking the button below. You can also watch our video tribute.

The San Juan Preservation Trust is pleased to announce this year’s Climate Leadership Scholarship winners: Congratulations to Eve Eon (Orcas Island High School) and Ava Martin (Friday Harbor High School).

For the fifth year in 2024, a committee of Preservation Trust board members selected a pair of high school seniors from a truly impressive group of applicants from across San Juan County. Eve and Ava will each receive a $4,000 scholarship, awarded in two $2,000 increments for each of their first two years of college. ...

Meet them in this video.

How did an island in the Salish Sea come to be named after a Fijian chief? Vendovi Island Preserve caretaker Thyatira Thompson explains.

We invite you to join SJPT staff for a guided tour around parts of San Juan Island, where we'll head to different locations to observe Western Bluebird and Island Marble Butterfly habitats.

Join us for a day of weeding and general tree care in a young grove of Garry oaks that we planted a few years ago at the Phelps Preserve on San Juan Island.

Follow along with SJPT staff, ecologist Christina Mitchell, and biologist Owen Cass as we explore Shaw Island's Ellis Preserve in search of insects and other tiny critters.

Accompany SJPT staff for a day at the Peach Preserve on Guemes Island, where we will be brushing back vegetation along the trail, removing invasive plants, and doing a beach cleanup.

Tours of the Tharald Homestead on Shaw Island provide an opportunity to learn more about the cultural legacy we have inherited and ponder the one we will leave behind. No registration necessary.

Join SJPT staff and author Jane Billinghurst as we explore Shaw Island's Ellis Preserve for a thought-provoking forest walk.