Students, community zoom-in on animals, watershed at River Festival

By Matthew Nash • October 2, 2024 1:30 am

With a theme to “connect people with their watershed,” the annual Dungeness River Festival hosted hundreds of students, families and community members at Railroad Bridge Park on Sept. 27.

More than 20 agencies and community groups provided basic information about identifying noxious weeds, how trails and waterways are maintained, the life cycle of salmon, and much more inside and outside the Dungeness River Nature Center.

This was the second year for the festival, after a hiatus due to construction and Covid-19.

For more information about the Dungeness River Nature Center and its ongoing events, visit dungenessrivercenter.org.

Sequim Gazette photos by Matthew Nash Fourth-graders Leilanie Arellano Gallengos, Amber Steele, and Dulce Villegas use a microscope inside the Dungeness River Nature Center’s ecosystem exhibit to get closer looks at wings and talons during the Dungeness River Festival.

Students walk to the water below the Dungeness Railroad Bridge during the festival to look for local organisms.

Cailene Gunn, an earth scientist for Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, speaks with students at the Dungeness River Festival about how researchers look to use waves in the ocean to generate energy through buoys.

Sequim Gazette photo by Matthew Nash/ Chris Rumple, a mechanical engineer, and Cailene Gunn, an earth scientist for Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, speak with students at the Dungeness River Festival about how researchers look to use waves in the ocean to generate energy through buoys.

Sequim Gazette photo by Matthew Nash/ More than 20 local and state agencies attended the Dungeness River Festival providing educational information about how locals can help the river and environment, such as ways to conserve water, and what can and cannot be flushed.

Sequim Gazette photo by Matthew Nash/ Murphy the donkey and Harley the miniature horse stand together to greet visitors of the Dungeness River Festival on Sept. 27 for the Back Country Horsemen.

Sequim Gazette photo by Matthew Nash/ Rylee Robinson, a Helen Haller Elementary third grader, pets Lester the mule during the Dungeness River Festival. Robinson and other Sequim students and community members learned about how to act when they see a horse on a trail, and about the efforts of the Back Country Horsemen to help local trails.

Sequim Gazette photo by Matthew Nash/ Park Ranger Hazel Galloway, a science communications specialist in the Olympic National Forest, shows students how she uses an antennae to track bats, including one toy bat she hid nearby.

Sequim Gazette photo by Matthew Nash/ Jim Hollatz with the Back Country Horsemen talks to children at the Dungeness River Festival about the tools their volunteers use to clear trails at all angles.