Cancelled: Sharing the Coast

Sunset Bay, Gregory Point, and the entrance to Coos Bay.\Photo by Rena Olson.

Cancelled:  This event was cancelled as a precaution due to the spreading COVID-19 virus.  See the article on this page.

Time to mark calendars for this year’s 11^th annual Sharing the Coast Conference, as always a collaboration between CoastWatch and the Northwest Aquatic and Marine Educators (NAME). The main event takes place on Saturday, March 14, beginning at 9 a.m. (registration opens at 8:30) in the auditorium of the Hales Center for the Performing Arts at Southwestern Oregon Community College (1988 Newmark Ave.) in Coos Bay.

The day will be filled with talks and breakout sessions on beaches and dunes, marine reserves and marine debris, birds and mammals found on shore and rocky shore habitats.  Saturday's activities will be capped by a party and King Tides wrap-up event at Dave’s Pizza at 5:30 p.m.  Field trips will take place on Sunday. For the complete schedule, go here: https://tinyurl.com/uhxeqmh.

One notable speaker will be Sally Hacker, a professor of integrative biology at Oregon State University, where she has been a faculty member since 2004. She is a coastal ecologist interested in natural and managed systems and has studied coastal dune ecosystems for over 15 years.  Her topic will be how invasive grasses and climate change (prompting sea level rise) are interacting to affect coastal ecosystems.

Kicking things off on Friday evening (March 13), the conference is joining forces with the college's Geology Lecture Series to host a talk by Dr. Eric Steig on what we know about the melting polar ice caps and how this may affect the ocean.  See separate listing in the Climate section.  This talk is free and open to the public.

Conference fee for the general public is $35, and includes lunch.  There are a variety of discounts available.  The fee is $25 for Oregon Shores members (and just $15 for CoastWatchers, as well as students or those Living Lightly); other discounts are available when the conference fee is combined with a new or renewed membership. For more information and a link to the online registration form, go here: https://tinyurl.com/STCC2020.  Or, to go straight to the registration form, go here: https://tinyurl.com/wde2ang.

To download the registration materials and mail in the form, go here.

For more information, contact Jesse Jones, CoastWatch volunteer coordinator, at (503) 989-7244, jesse@oregonshores.org.