Biodiversity Galiano News
Galiano Island harnesses iNaturalist to detect historical changes in the local bumble bee community
Andrew D. F. Simon, Lincoln R. Best, Brian M. Starzomski Three bumble bee species have disappeared from Galiano Island, where they have not been seen since 1990: the Western Bumble Bee (Bombus occidentalis), the Indiscriminate Cuckoo Bumble Bee (Bombus insularis), and...
Toward a Flora and Fauna of Galiano Island
Our community is formalizing the results of the last century and a half of biodiversity research on Galiano Island, BC, with a series of taxonomic data papers summarizing the island’s flora and fauna. The first instalment in this series was published in...
iNaturalist Photo Guide
A great new resource is now available to help you help others in the naturalist community identify your observations on the iNaturalist platform. The iNaturalist Photo Guide is a collaboration between the BC Parks iNaturalist Project, the BC Conservation Data Centre,...
Spring 2017 Bee Survey Preliminary Results
In the spring of 2017, with the support of melittologist Lincoln Best, Galiano community members participated in a coordinated effort to document the bees of Galiano Island. Our surveys took place during the months of April through to July and yielded a total of 628...
Web of Life
The Web of Life: biodiversity and the arts! Beginning January 4, 2020, you are invited to help illustrate a dynamic data visualization featuring the marine biodiversity of Galiano Island in a series of art workshops at the Yellowhouse. To date more than 3,500 species...
Fall 2019 Newsletter
Check out our Fall Newsletter, illustrated by Kath Boake Wüthrich, covering project highlights from 2019! You...
Spring 2019 Newsletter
Biodiversity Galiano Spring 2019 Newsletter! Click the image to scroll through this three-page newsletter. Artwork by Kath Boake
Pacific Marine Life Surveys (1968–2018)
Andy Lamb, author of Marine Life of the Pacific Northwest, and Donna Gibbs, a research diver with Ocean Wise, have been diving the waters around Galiano Island since the 1960s. Recently we received a massive influx of over 18,000 occurrence records from...
A Steller Sealion’s Diet
On Canoe Islets, a set of near-shore rocks off the southeast coast of Valdes Island, a large colony of Steller sealions (Eumetopias jubatus) can be found congregating during winter months. I had the chance to witness this spectacle up close the other year,...
Island Earth
Step out onto the Planet. Draw a circle a hundred feet round. Inside the circle are 300 things nobody understands, and, maybe nobody’s ever really seen. How many can you find? —Lew Welch Lew Welch had a good point. Though even on this scale he vastly...
Bioblitz Galiano 2017 Results
Through the month of May 2017 Galiano Islanders joined regional experts on a mission to document the island biodiversity. Surveys were conducted island-wide, covering a vibrant spectrum of marine, terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems of critical conservation concern...
A Curious Crop
The 20th of July was another in a long string of hot days, and so, naturally, I was watering the garden. The garden in question was on a strip of ALR land within the Galiano Conservancy's Ken and Linda Millard Learning Centre, but the soil could hardly be considered...
Mining for Moths
The diversity of insects is truly astounding. Not just the sheer number of different beetles, moths, wasps, grasshoppers and everything else but also the vast array of habitats and reproductive strategies they use. One example of an unusual life strategy is exhibited...
Mystery amidst a Sylvan Pool
Outside the rain is pouring, reminding me of a certain ephemeral pool that exists only during the wetter time of year. Surrounded by cedar, this seasonal wetland lies beneath the canopy of a grove of trembling aspen, rising up from the midst of an old-growth woodland...
Of rare butterflies and mosses rarer still
Last May Galiano Island was visited by a couple of bryologists and an entomologist—all in one day! How often do you get serious students of mosses and liverworts together with those who study insects? Present on island were bryologists Olivia Lee and Steve Joya from...