Tick activity is starting in the islands. Send us any you find theorcasonian.com/its-time-for...

We are honored to co-host the Food Sovereignty and Thriving Indigenous Plant Communities session at the 2026 San Juan Islands Agricultural Summit, alongside Protecting Knowledge of Land and Sea (PKOLS) and the Indigenous Plants Forum on Saturday February 28th.

Some of what we're working on to support food security, cultural landscapes, and agricultural biodiversity in the islands.

Want to learn more about our research in the marine waters around the San Juan Islands? Kwiaht director Russel Barsh will tell you all about it at our Marine Matinee on Sunday January 25th at Lopez Center.

We have a new book out! A guide to the moths and butterflies of the San Juan Islands. Available at the Lopez Bookshop (and on its way to other local booksellers) or by donation to Kwiaht www.kwiaht.org/donate.htm

You can support @arbutocrat.bsky.social's work on heritage and locally adapted seedling apples on Orcas through the Orcas Island Community Foundation. oicf.fcsuite.com/erp/donate/c...

We are working with WDFW and the Washington State Department of Health to monitor avian influenza in wildlife in the San Juan Islands. If you find dead wild waterfowl, raptors, or scavengers, do not handle them, contact us [email protected].

Old orchards have remarkable stories to go with their unique seedling varieties.

"[T]he photogenic foxes, brought to the island a century ago by fur farms, play a complex and as-yet poorly understood role in both changing and maintaining the landscape." www.islandssounder.com/life/life-an...

Tonight! Kwiaht ecologist Russel Barsh at the Lopez Library with Shining a Light on Local Moths starting at 6pm. And while you are there you can see local high school artist (and Kwiaht lab tech) Sophie Citro's moth art and buy a ticket (or many) for her moth sculpture raffle.

Learn about the research on herring that we are doing with Long Live the Kings and the Nisqually Indian Tribe www.youtube.com/watch?v=khz1...

Residues of home and garden pesticides sold and used on Orcas Island have been found in local wildlife, with some of the highest concentrations in bats and hummingbirds. www.sanjuanjournal.com/news/househo...

Everyone is invited to our 7th annual camas festival!

Join us for our 7th annual Camas Festival! A potluck featuring camas (Camassia leichtlinii) based dishes and presentations and discussion of camas cultivation. Saturday October 25th 12-3pm at the Stevens Center of the Padilla Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve. www.kwiaht.org/calendar.htm

"To recover the islands’ Julia Orangetips, could we simply plant more of their preferred host plant? Tower Mustard is native to the San Juan Islands, easy to grow and a part of meadow restoration projects being carried out elsewhere."

Our Camas Festival is moving to Padilla Bay this year! Save the date: Saturday October 25th for a camas focused potluck including a presentation by Sam Barr of the Coast Salish Youth Coalition on the revitalization of camas culture by Coast Salish youth.

More heritage apple events coming up in October! Our third annual apple tasting with the Orcas Museum is Saturday October 4th (12:30-2:30), and on October 11th we're joining the San Juan County Land Bank, apple ID expert Lori Brakken, and master orchardist Marguerite Greening for Apple-Palooza

The tasting scores for this year are in: Twenty Ounce was the favorite, followed by Esopus Spitzenburg and Glowing Coal. Our next tasting is Saturday October 4th at the Orcas Museum (12:30-2:30).

Some of the apples that will be at tomorrow's tasting with the Lopez Island History Museum: Belmont Esopus Spitzenburg Fameuse Gloria Mundi Glowing Coal Golden Ball Gravenstein (including Olga Red Gravenstein) King (of Tompkins County) Greensweet Northern Spy Twenty Ounce Wolf River

Can rediscovering heritage apples and sharing unique local seedlings help change apple culture in a way that values island orchards?

Western leafcutter bee (Megachile perihirta) taking off from a Cirsium vulgare (bull thistle) inflorescence near Cattle Point (San Juan Islands National Monument).

Do you need more ways to enjoy this years abundant crop of t’áqa7? We have added recipes to the Food Security section of our website.

We're raising funds through the San Juan Island Community Foundation to fund more apple genetic fingerprinting. To see some of the apples that grow in the islands take a look at this thread by our botanist @arbutocrat.bsky.social To donate to the project: sjicf.fcsuite.com/erp/donate/c...

Look for our apple table in the Ag Tent at the San Juan County Fair, and in the catalog of projects in the San Juan Island Community Foundation’s SJI Cares County Fair Program.

Kwiaht botanist @arbutocrat.bsky.social presents on local apples and community resilience for the San Juan Grange on July 17th theorcasonian.com/heritage-app...

Our 2nd annual Hummel Lake fishing derby starts at 8am on Saturday June 28th. Weigh-in ends at 4:30 and prizes are awarded at 5pm. Register at the WDFW boat launch on the day of the event. Contact [email protected] with questions.

Join Kwiaht herpetologist Christian Oldham at the Orcas Island Public Library at 1pm on Saturday June 28th to learn about ongoing snake research and the sharp-tailed snakes on Orcas and San Juan Islands theorcasonian.com/orcas-librar...

Kwiaht's hard working lab technician Matilda Twigg gets some well deserved recognition as she heads off to college www.facebook.com/100064773128...

Dasysyrphus intrudens, a common and widespread North American hoverfly, enjoying a meal of Fragaria vesca (woodland strawberry) nectar. Syrphid hoverflies like this one should be welcomed in Northwest gardens; their larvae eat aphids voraciously.

It's too windy! We're rescheduling the seine for Sunday June 1st.

We're seining at Watmough Bight this evening (4pm). Everyone welcome to help pull the net and sort fish.

Community science volunteer Anita Holladay documented an extensive Noctiluca scintillans bloom around Indian Island. Noctiluca is a native, non-toxic dinoflagellate; blooms are triggered by warm weather and nutrients in runoff.

Today is our first beach seine of the 2025 season with our Lopez Community Salmon Team. We'll be at Watmough Bight (Bay) around 4pm and everyone is welcome to help. Yesterday our community team at Cowlitz Bay counted over 2,000 juvenile Chum and Pink salmon and lavaged 5 juvenile Chinook.

Our juvenile salmon research season starts this coming week. The Lopez Community Salmon Team will be beach seining at Watmough Bight on Wednesday (May 14th) starting around 4pm. Everyone is welcome to help pull the net and see what the fish are up to

"Wildfire seasons are lengthening and intensifying, particularly in the western U.S. Parts of the eastern U.S. have seen smaller but impactful increases in fire weather days." 🌏

Orcas Middle School student Solomon Ross has been selected as this year’s Indian Island Youth Steward! Solomon is enthusiastic about marine biology, but he says that his real reason for seeking this particular position is his interest in people. theorcasonian.com/middle-schoo...

We are asking for donations to support our stewardship and research program at Indian Island -- in particular, our 2025 Youth Steward, who will begin looking after Indian Island on minus-tide days next month! You can donate through the Orcas Island Community Foundation May 6-15

@kwiaht.org is part of Give Big this year. We're raising funds for our stewardship work in the San Juan Islands.

Today (May 1st) is our first beach seine of the season with our Indian Island Marine Health Observatory! We use an 80ft net to sample fish in the eelgrass meadows. Fish are transferred to chilled aerated buckets, counted, measured, and then returned to the eelgrass as the tide comes back in.

We found two Kennerly clams (Humilaria kennerleyi) during the first day of our annual bivalve census with at Indian Island. These distinctively ridged clams are named in honor of C.B.R. Kennerly (1830-1861), the naturalist who surveyed island wildlife for the boundary commission in the 1850s.

This variety has been grown throughout the San Juan Islands since at least 1891. The large, green apples are excellent for baking, keep well, and add body and flavor to sweet cider.

Shore lupines (Lupinus littoralis) are in bloom at Cattle Point (San Juan Islands National Monument), and the Silvery Blue (Glaucopsyche lygdamus) butterflies are everywhere!

An Echo Azure butterfly (Celastrina echo) on garden bluebells.

Thanks to everyone who joined us on Sunday at Hummel Lake!

Big gratitude to everyone who helped out with our Earth Day work party at Hummel Lake!

If you got a "Brown Crab" from me in the last few years I think it is also this variety (we had two trees from Orcas genotyped, and I have them grafted next to my crab from the Brown orchard and they look alike and are all about to bloom!)

Bees do it! For solitary bees flowers are the place to find mates. Male bees hang around flowers and wait for female bees to come in search of pollen and nectar. Here one of our native miner bee species (Andrena barbilabris) take advantage of early blooming big leaf maple (Acer macrophyllum)

The first qwlhól (qʷɬáʔəl, Camassia leichtlinii) are opening in the islands. An important food source for native pollinators, qwlhól was a critical Traditional crop and where it now grows untended it is the legacy of generations of Coast Salish gardeners' stewardship of the islands' landscapes.