Folks on San Juan organized a rally and beach clean-up for the Puget Sound Orca Recovery Day. Backbone supported with organizing a human orca mural at the event.

Puget Sound Orca Recovery Day that had events happening all around the region. The event on San Juan included a beach clean-up to remove micro-plastics and polystyrene from the shoreline.

The featured speakers were...

• Dr. Deborah Giles, an orca researcher
• Sam Barr, Samish Nation member and Coastal Salish Canoer
• Stephanie Solien, a co-shair of the Orca Task Force

There were not enough people to fill the orca mural with people but everyone was determined to make it work! People got really excited to fill up the orca with giant seaweed, driftwood, jackets and even emptied their cars of chairs, blankets, and anything they could find.

The event was organized by San Juan Islands Conservation District. See their event page here. Or the Backbone event page on Facebook.

Photo credit to Ryan Palmateer.