Cowichan Estuary Nature Centre Society

We operate a visitor centre that in 2022 welcomed over 1000 people plus an uncounted number of visitors who enjoy our interpretive trail and wildlife viewing platform. Our centre hours are crewed by a dedicated team of volunteers who donate 200-500 hours per year plus an additional crew of school and special events volunteers. We deliver education programs. Last year 426 individuals in public private and home schools preschool and day cares received our programming plus our restoration education and internship programs were delivered to 393 students and interns. We operate our heron cam which is sued by biologists government agencies students and other members of the public and we operate science and nature camps for 8 weeks over the summer. We also offer community programming to the public for events such as earth day and low tides day. We participate in events in the community like quw'utsun' sta'lo' (cowichan river day celebration). In 2022 we hosted a station on our site for river day which welcomed 250 visitors who participated in beach explorations and self-guided learning activities and enjoyed indigenous artists dancers and a drummer in addition to other musical presentations and kiosks from other community environmental nonprofits. We also participated in the dfo's program 'salmon in the classroom ' partnered with cowichan valley naturalist in bird counts identification and monitoring of invasive crab species and assisted seachange marine co. In year 2023 we hired an education coordinator who is creating additional programming. One of which will introduce in-classroom learning by way of trunks that will go to schools for teacher led classes and the other will see our last year we hired an education coordinator who is creating additional programming. One of which will introduce in-classroom learning by way of trunks that will go to schools for teacher led classes and the other will see our facilitators going into the classroom bringing natur