Tag Archives: iNaturalist

The Pacific Herring Spawn and Nurseries Project

A citizen scientist project to photograph Pacific herring spawn along the West Coast, from Alaska down to California, has been underway for close to two months. It is based in the Comox-Courtenay area, and one of its many partners is the Friends of Cortes Island (FOCI).

Project lead Jacqueline Huard, a scientist with Project Watershed,  explained, “I work with the Coastal Forage Fish Network. We are very community scientist based and working on a herring project in iNaturalist just was a natural fit for us. I wanted to encourage the folks that we work with to put their data somewhere where they could also access it. The goal is twofold, both to collect some data and address a gap, but also to get it out to the public and have a publicly available data set for the public created by community scientists.”

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Summer offerings from FOCI

The Friends of Cortes (FOCI) have just released their summer program of daily offerings for 2022. 

“It’s about educating people about the natural environment, but also really having people getting out there, having fun and enjoying themselves. So whether it’s locals or visitors, we’re really pleased to welcome anyone  who wants to come along,” explained Helen Hall, Executive Director of FOCI.

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Cortes Island’s latest Citizen Scientist Project: Monitoring Dungeness Crabs 

Cortes Island’s newest citizen science project, monitoring Dungeness crab larvae, was announced last Friday. Local diver Mike Moore,  Helen Hall from the Friends of Cortes Island (FOCI) and Kelly Fretwell from the Hakai Institute joined Manda Aufochs Gillespie on CKTZ’s Folk U Friday.  

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The Discovery Islands Sea Star Monitoring Program

Friends of Cortes Island (FOCI) has become the Hakai Institute‘s first partner in a new citizen science sea star monitoring program.

As Helen Hall, Executive Director of FOCI explained, “”We just launched a really exciting joint project with the Hakai Institute. They are initiating a project to monitor the health of Sea Stars in the Discovery Islands and we can contribute from Cortes Island.”

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