Monthly Membership Program

Membership programs are open to the public, and all are welcome.
Social Hour at 6:30pm / Program at 7:00pm, on the 4th Tuesday of each month.
Whatcom Museum Old City Hall Rotunda Room
121 Prospect Street, Bellingham 98225

September 22, 2026

Sandpipers’ Last Supper:
Roberts Bank Terminal 2 at the Fraser River Delta
The End of the Road for Sandpipers?

Pat Baird, Researcher and Professor

Roberts Bank is the last major foraging area for dunlins and western sandpipers before the nonstop long-range flight to their breeding grounds in Alaska. Here they feed down the food web on diatoms, microphytoplankton suspended in biofilm on the mudflats.

Diatoms are one of the few life forms that can produce omega-3 fatty acids such as EPA, and recent research has found that this nutrient is necessary for reproduction and growth in all animals. It is also critical for sandpipers’ ability to make the 1800 km trip to Alaska.

It is no coincidence that shorebirds, Fraser River salmon, and orcas migrate past Roberts Bank at the same time every year, because this is when diatoms produce the greatest amount of EPA.

Pat Baird will begin the evening  discussing how this system works and why Roberts Bank is so important for shorebird migration, how it differs from other mudflats, and how construction of a container super terminal at Roberts Bank will have significant adverse and cumulative effects on western sandpipers, Fraser Chinook salmon, and Southern Resident killer whales.

The introduction will be followed by a short film by the award winning documentary filmmaker Isabelle Groc and a Q and A session.