Speakers \ Meetings
Meetings take place on the 2nd Tuesday of the month at Princeton & District Museum and Archives, 167 Vermilion Avenue at 7 p.m. Monthly meetings are followed by a guest speaker who makes a presentation on a topic dealing with the natural world. Refreshments are served after the presentation. The public is welcome to attend.
2023 List of Speakers
(Click on the meeting name for more information)
Presentation: Birds and Beasts of Okanagan Mountain Park with Les Gyug
October 10th, 2023
Meeting starts at 7:00 PM at Princeton Museum
Birds and Beasts of Okanagan Mountain Park Before and After the 2003 Firestorm with Les Gyug
The Central Okanagan Naturalists’ Club has been doing a “Bird and Critter Count” annually in Okanagan Mountain Provincial Park since 1993. This has made for an ideal and unique opportunity to compare the effects of fire on birds and other animals with a reliable base-line before the fire to compare to long-term results after the fire. Les will present the sometimes expected, and sometimes startling, results of those counts.
Les is a self-employed biologist who has lived and worked in the southern interior of B.C. for the past 35 years. His work has included environmental consulting and monitoring, habitat modelling, and designing and conducting wildlife research and inventories for all manner of wildlife from mice to moose and birds to bears. He has conducted bird surveys of many sorts for over 40 years, but lately has specialized in working with species-at-risk, particularly sapsuckers and woodpeckers. He has been an active member of the Central Okanagan Naturalists Club for 30 years.
Presentation: The Nature Conservancy of Canada with Danielle Cross
November 14th, 2023
Meeting starts at 7:00 PM at Princeton Museum
This session will be an introduction to Nature Conservancy of Canada, who they are, what they do and where they work. Danielle will then talk about how that relates to BC and the southern interior. She will provide an overview of the conservation areas that the NCC has in the interior, its conservation values and some of their management and current projects.
Presentation: Travels in Japan with Nienke Klaver & Ed Staples
January 9th, 2024
Meeting starts at 7:00 PM at Princeton Museum
In the spring of 2023 Ed and Nienke travelled through Japan. During this session they will share some of their Japanese experiences accompanied by some of Nienke’s superlative photographs.
Nienke and Ed are local world travellers who actively engage with the lands and peoples they visit.
Presentation: An Avian Trip Down Under with Gary Davidson
February 13th, 2024
Meeting starts at 7:00 PM at Princeton Museum
Australia has some of the most diverse and unusual wildlife on earth. This presentation will introduce you to Laughing Kookaburras, Emus, parrots, fairy wrens plus other unusual creatures such as platypus and echidna. Gary Davidson has made several trips to Australia, and cumulatively, has spent over four years there. Deserts, beaches, and rainforest dominate the landscape and we will visit them all during this one-hour presentation.
Gary Davidson is an environmentalist specializing in birds. He is past president of the BC Field Ornithologists, a director of Biodiversity Centre for Wildlife Studies and the author or co-author of 20 publications. He has also guided bird tours in Texas, Arizona, BC, and Australia. Gary lives in Nakusp where he is currently under contract to monitor waterfowl use of ponds created at Burton at the north end of Upper Arrow Lake as part of BC Hydro’s wetland restoration work. His teacher exchanges in Queensland and Tasmania gave him the opportunity to explore local bird life in that part of the world.
Presentation: Gardening with Native Plants with Eva Durance
March 12th, 2024
Meeting starts at 7:00 PM at Princeton Museum
Eva’s talk will focus on how to combine native and ornamental plants in your garden and the wealth of choices available of plants that will thrive with a (mostly) low-water regime. A PowerPoint presentation will show examples of such combinations in actual gardens. Her book Cultivating the Wild: gardening with native plants of BC’s Southern Interior and Eastern Washington will be available for $20 a copy.
Eva has gardened her whole life, in Ontario where she grew up and in the South Okanagan for the past 33 years. A naturalist at heart, she learned about the value of including native plants in her garden here and had a small native-plant nursery for about 10 years. She designed xeriscape landscapes for over 15 years, and continues to promote this type of garden and the use of native plants for our area.
Presentation: Invasive Species with Lisa Scott
April 9th, 2024
Meeting starts at 7:00 PM at Princeton Museum
Lisa Scott is the executive director of the Okanagan and Similkameen Invasive Species Society (OASISS) is a non-profit organization dedicated to the prevention, detection, and management of invasive species in the Okanagan-Similkameen. Established in 1996, this group was formally referred to as the South Okanagan-Similkameen Invasive Plant Society. In 2012, Society members opted to change the constitution to encompass invasive species, and subsequently changed the name of the Society. In this session she will familiarize us with local invasive species and also describe the work of OASISS.
Presentation: Restoring Salmon Habitat in the Okanagan Valley with Natasha Lukey
May 14th, 2024
Meeting starts at 7:00 PM at Princeton Museum
The Okanagan Nation Alliance in collaboration with many project partners have been successfully restoring spawning and rearing habitat for salmon in the Okanagan Basin for over 15 years. The Okanagan Nation Alliance is a First Nations Tribal Council spanning the Nicola, Okanagan and Similkameen Districts and also the Colville Indian Reservation in Washington State. In this presentation Natasha Lukey, a biologist with the Okanagan Nation Alliance, will be sharing the process and results of this work.
Presentation: Travels in Britain with Mary Masiel & John Henry
June 11th, 2024
Meeting starts at 7:00 PM at Princeton Museum
John & Mary will be sharing their adventurous tour of Southern England and some parts of southern Wales. See and learn about some of the archaeological sites that date back as far as 3,000 BC, late Neolithic, and, of course Roman ruins. Also you will enjoy some wonderful scenes of the British coast line & countryside. As well, they will give some advice on how to travel in the new England.
Mary and John are passionate outdoorspeople whose interest in their natural surroundings has inspired many people.