Raincoast Education Society
Shaping an environmentally sustainable future for the Clayoquot and Barkley Sound region through education and community stewardship
My giant buddies: ocean sunfish and the joy of studying them. They idle about at the ocean surface like lazy orbs, occasionally waving at the world without haste. They look like strange dinosaur fish from the deep, yet they are ultra-modern by evolutionary design. It is of course the strangely shaped ocean sunfish, Mola mola, […]
Jellyfish have been in the oceans for 600 million years – they are one of the oldest animal lineages that are still around today. Unfortunately, jellyfish are often seen as pests because of the negative interactions that they have with people. In fact, jellyfish are integral for healthy ecosystems, but they don’t get much credit […]
Photo: Basking Shark / Chris Train Not that long ago, Basking Sharks, the second largest fish in the world were a common occurrence along the west coast of Vancouver Island. The last time this species was regularly observed on the BC coast was in Clayoquot Sound in the early 1990s. In this presentation Scott will […]
Rorquals - what a beautiful word, it rolls around your mouth before unfurling on your tongue. Rorquals - what beautiful creatures, the ethereal giants of the deep. Including the two largest animal species on planet Earth, rorquals are a group of baleen whale species which are characterised by deep ventral grooves that extend from the […]
What is a giant squid? Many different species have been referred to by this name, from the "calamar gigante" that Danna studied in Mexico and California to other species alternately known as warty squid, clubhook squid, and colossal squid. Danna will give a tour of the unique features and record-holders of each species, with plenty […]
Come and learn all about garter snakes (what they eat, where they live, how they spend their time) and the cool part .... they play in the west coast ecosystems around us.
Life At Night, Speakers Series 2023 Working the night shift: Urban racoons in Canada They work at night, traveling unseen through the city like masked bandits, one of the true success stories of species adapting to human disturbance. How do raccoons (Procyon lotor) survive so well in the urban jungle? And are humans unwittingly creating […]
Nature has developed amazing chemical sensors which greatly surpass man-made sensors in sensitivity and speed. A male Manduca sexta hawkmoth can sense the female's pheromone in concentrations as small as 1 in 10^17 molecules of air! To learn more about and mimic the way moths locate food and mates, I equipped a small palm-sized drone, […]
Life At Night, Speakers Series 2023 The Magical World of Bats Like bats or not, you will after hearing and seeing for yourself what Dr. Tuttle has learned about these mysterious but magical animals. As you’ll see bats come in an amazing variety, as cute as any panda or as strange as any dinosaur, ranging from […]
Since 1984 my wife Patsy and I have studied owls in Manitoba, Canada. Recently we wanted to start a new research project using camera traps to record owl breeding behaviour. In 2015 a pair of Long-eared Owls nested on our farm literally a stone's throw from our house. This was a great chance to test […]
Life At Night, Speakers Series 2023 Galactic Archaeology - This is the encore presentation of February 23 The history of our universe spans 13 billion years, 99.998% of which humanity did not yet exist. Our own galaxy, the Milky Way, is at least ten billion years old, having survived what we believe is a violent […]