Feeling Foxy with the Birds and the B’s 

The Santa Barbara Maritime Museum new exhibition The Swiftest Recovery: Island Fox Chronicles, features a photographic showcase by Chuck Graham (who also contributes to the MJ) that highlights one of the most remarkable conservation success stories in recent history – the tiny fox at Channel Islands National Park. This exhibition, which offers a glimpse into the resilience and beauty of the fox and the critical role they play in the island’s ecosystem, runs from May 22 to August 24. 

Details at www.sbmm.org

The extremely popular Butterflies Alive! summer exhibition opens Memorial Day Weekend at the Sprague Butterfly Pavilion at Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History for its annual visit May 24-September 1. Featuring a dazzling variety of more than two dozen tropical butterfly species from Costa Rica and elsewhere, this exhibit is an immersive experience where guests walk through the wire-mesh-enclosed garden as 1,000 live butterflies flutter freely around them – and sometimes alight on their clothing. Guests can also get a glimpse of butterflies at an earlier stage of life in the emergence chamber. 

SBMNH is also the site for “The Power of Birds,” an evening with Dr. Elizabeth Gray, the CEO of the National Audubon Society and the first woman since Audubon’s founding in 1905 to hold that role. A champion of science-based conservation and leader of Audubon’s initiative to alter the course of climate change and habitat loss while protecting birds, Gray will deliver an illustrated public lecture on May 28 in Fleischmann Auditorium. 

Visit www.sbnature.org