Discovery Speaker Series: The Sacred Sea with Ellie Kinley
Tune into the Estuarium’s Facebook Live on January 6th at 6:30 PM for a discussion with Lummi tribal member Tah-Mahs (Ellie Kinley) about the importance of conserving the Salish Sea. Ellie Kinley is a Lummi tribal fisher and the president of the land conservation non-profit Sacred Sea. Their mission is to promote ancestral knowledge and practices for the protection and revitalization of the waters, culture, life, and sacred sites of the Salish Sea.
Ellie Kinley works to protect the salmon at the same time she harvests them, serving on the Lummi Fish Commission and on a number of non-profit boards dedicated to fishing and fish. Like Sk’aliCh’elh (the Southern Resident Orcas), Ellie’s family has always relied on the abundance of the Salish Sea, and in particular, on salmon. This talk is an excellent addition to our recent talk with biologist Tom Quinn about salmon habitat and behaviors. Through Ellie Kinlet, we will lean more about what is being done now to protect and preserve salmon populations.
Ellie Kinley has also worked at the Lummi Nation’s Sovereignty and Treaty Protection Office, where she was first active in the fight to protect Treaty rights at Xwe’chi’eXen, and then in the launch of the Salish Sea Campaign that Sacred Sea now carries.
This Discovery Speaker Series event is a great companion talk to our ongoing traveling Orca Exhibit, at the Estuarium facility in downtown Olympia. The exhibit is titled “Orca: Shared Waters, Shared Home”, and explores the lives of the Southern Resident orcas that live in the Puget Sound. These orcas share this water with us, are affected by human actions on land and in the water, and rely on salmon populations in the area to survive. The Orca Exhibit is on display now and will be up until mid-January. Come visit the Estuarium on the weekends to learn more about the orcas!
Young ones are invited to join in the virtual talk by following along with coloring pages related to the Discovery Speaker Series topics that will be available for download prior to the event. Coloring pages can also be picked up at the Estuarium during our weekend open hours. Tune in to our Facebook live every 1st Thursday of the month for new talks with artists, educators, scientists and Earth advocates October through March.
You can learn more about Sacred Sea and what they do at their website. https://sacredsea.org/ or their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/OurSacredSea/
