ENGAGE WITH US

Volunteering with Point Blue at the Novato Baylands is a fantastic way to get involved in wetland restoration along the shore of San Pablo Bay, through field work and our native plant nursery, while meeting new people who share a passion for this important work. You can get up close and personal with some of the special plants and animals that call the Novato Baylands home! Specific opportunities include installing/transplanting native plants, seed processing and propagating plants in the nursery, and removing invasive plants – among other activities.

Learn more about this part of our work in this blog post.

Since the Farallon Patrol was established by Charlie Merrill in 1972, these dedicated volunteers have made hundreds of resupply runs and been instrumental in keeping our field station on the Farallon Islands National Wildlife Refuge operating 365 days a year. We are always looking for more skippers to add help support our operations and transport people and gear to Southeast Farallon Island.

As a thank you for the volunteer service provided by the Farallon Patrol skippers, we host an annual dinner get together to learn about the Farallones, share stories, and gift a celebratory flag.

If you are interested in joining, you can review our general rules and protocols of the Farallon Patrol here and our application to join here. If you choose to sign up, your application will be reviewed by the Patrol Commodore, an expert sailor who has been making trips to the island for the last 20 years or so and knows all that is required to be part of the Patrol.

Thanks for your interest in the Farallon Patrol. Please reach out if you have any questions!

Make Shorebirds Count! Volunteer as a shorebird counter between November 15th and December 15th every year in several locations.

Pacific Flyway Shorebird Survey

Be part of Connecting Communities Across the Americas and team up with us and the PFSS (above) or one of our international conservation partners to count shorebirds or help with outreach.

Migratory Shorebird Project

There are several ways that you can contribute to the vast data sets scientists need to address big issues like climate change. Add your observations of the natural world to help conserve our ecosystems:

eBird
A real-time, online checklist program, eBird has revolutionized the way that the birding community reports and accesses information about birds. Launched in 2002 by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and National Audubon Society, eBird provides rich data sources for basic information on bird abundance and distribution at a variety of spatial and temporal scales.
eBird.org

iNaturalist
From hikers to hunters, birders to beachcombers, the world is filled with naturalists, and many of us record what we find. What if all those observations could be shared online? You might discover someone who finds beautiful wildflowers at your favorite birding spot, or learn about the birds you see on the way to work. If enough people recorded their observations, it would be like a living record of life on Earth that scientists and land managers could use to monitor changes in biodiversity, and that
anyone could use to learn more about nature. That’s the vision behind iNaturalist.org. So if you like recording your findings from the outdoors, or if you just like learning about life, join iNaturalist!
iNaturalist.org

Report a Bird Band
Visit USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center Bird Banding Lab web page to report a bird with a federal band or color marker. This helps us track movement and survival of bird populations, learn about the health of the environment, and give recommendations for conservation management.
Report a Bird Band

Join other nature lovers, fishers, and mariners to help reduce ship strikes to whales using your smartphone! Download the app on the Whale Alert- West Coast webpage. (photo: Sophie Webb)

Whale Alert-West Coast

Among the many threats faced by whales today are ship strikes, which occur more and more in busy shipping lanes. A collaboration of government agencies, academic institutions, non-profit conservation groups and private sector companies have developed Whale Alert, an app that helps reduce the chance of fatal ship strikes by large vessels.

The app can be used by anyone out on the water to report presence of cetaceans. It displays active whale management areas, required reporting areas, recommended routes, areas to be avoided and near real-time warnings in shipping lanes along the east and west coasts of the United States and Canada. This information allows vessel operators to avoid collision with whales by slowing down and heightening their visual awareness.

This volunteer opportunity is paused for the time being.

At our headquarters in Petaluma, California, we have an amazing wet lab stocked with microscopes, beakers, Petri dishes, and even a ventilation hood. We don’t usually wear lab coats though… sorry to shatter the stereotype. If you like treasure hunts and tiny details, you might want to consider volunteering in our lab. We do really cool things like dissecting seabird pellets (which consist of regurgitated indigestible material), in search of magical fish ear bones called otoliths. Well, they are not actually magical, but they tell us a lot of information about what seabirds are eating and what is going on in the marine food web!