Program topics and presenters have been announced for this year’s Perspectives Winter Speaker Series, offered on the second Tuesday of each month through April.
“We invite our neighbors and visitors to see Olympic National Park through new perspectives,” Olympic National Park Deputy Superintendent Lee Taylor said.
“Art, science and technology provide new windows on the park and are all featured in this year’s series.”
Talks take place at 7 p.m. at the Olympic National Park Visitor Center at 3002 Mount Angeles Road, Port Angeles; all are free of charge.
The series is sponsored by Olympic National Park and the Friends of Olympic National Park.
The series began Dec. 13 with ecologist Catherine Copass’ presentation on “Inevitable and Constant: Monitoring Landscape Change on the Olympic Peninsula.”
Remaining series events include:
Jan. 10 — “Snowpack across the Olympics” by Ryan Currier, University of Washington Ph.D. student.
Measuring snow in the remote Olympic Wilderness presents challenges. Researchers are testing different technologies to measure snowpack across the landscape and to provide better information to all the downstream water users.
Feb. 14 — “The Elwha Undammed: What’s a River For?” by Jeff Gersh, filmmaker at Narrative Labs
The park premieres a movie on the Elwha River Restoration story — the largest dam removal in U.S. history. The movie chronicles the voices of the many partners that contributed to this historic restoration project and is a saga of competing ideas about the purpose and meaning of a river.
March 14 — “Fire in the Olympics” by Todd Rankin, Interagency Fire Management Officer at Olympic National Park
Fire in Olympic National Park has been making headlines recently, from fires in the rain forest to unusually early and active fire seasons.
Learn about the history of fire on the Olympic landscape, its ecological benefits and the park service’s options for managing fire.
April 11 — “Mountain Goats in Olympic National Park” by ONP biologist Patti Happe, Ph.D.
Happe presents information on the current trends and distribution of mountain goats on the Olympic Peninsula, and provides an update on mountain goat management planning.
