Tahoe Institute For Natural Science

RRESEARCH:TINS continued with our usual suite of Citizen Science coordination, including the Lake Tahoe Mid-winter Bald Eagle Survey, South Lake Tahoe Christmas Bird Count, Mid-winter Raptor Surveys in both Sierra and Carson valleys, North American Butterfly Association Butterfly Counts, and the annual Odonates Mini-blitz. We had 228 volunteers participate in these Citizen Science programs. We continued to participate in joint monitoring efforts of Peregrine Falcon nesting sites around the Tahoe/Truckee region. We continued snowshoe hare monitoring in California State Parks around the Lake Tahoe region, assisted NDOT with surveys for Federally Endangered Carson Wandering Skipper (Pseudocopaeodes eunus obscurus), and collaborated with USFS Region 5 scientists on the Tahoe Environmental Observation Network (TEON) project.

OUTREACH:In 2024, we engaged in a diversity of Outreach events and festivals, with much of our Outreach programming centered around our 4th triennial Tahoe Big Year birding event. We hosted 56 outings with 968 participants, and hosted 20 talks, with at least 745 participants. We took a more active role in promoting and coordinating the Sagehen Bio-blitz with 6 guides and 26 participants. We also attended several Earth Day festivals, the Mono Basin Bird Chautaqua, and the Truckee River Day festival, as well as hosting our own Lake Tahoe Bird Festival and Native Species Day, resulting in solid education engagement with approximately 1440 people.