Volunteer Spotlight: Jane Hansen
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- Created: Tuesday, 09 January 2018 15:09
This month the HAT office team would like to shine the volunteer spotlight on Jane Hansen for taking the time to share her expertise on GIS (Geographical Information Systems) with HAT. We affectionately nickname her GIS Jane for her exepctional skills. Thank you Jane for volunteering your time as a GIS action hero for local conservation, we are amazed by your kindness, helpfulness, and tenacity.
Paige Erickson-McGee, shares her gratitude for Jane, “Jane has been immensely helpful in the mapping department, making the impossible seem possible! She brings a lightness and sense of accomplishment to a daunting task. Her passion for mapping and problem solving is an inspiration! Thank you Jane for everything you do for HAT.”
Wendy Tyrrell, HAT's Habitat Management Coordinator adds, "Working with Jane allows me to envision the possibilities of merging on-the-ground restoration with future management planning. She is a blast to work with, always smiling and helpful and her enthusiasm is contagious!"
Land Acquisition Coordinator, Barb von Sacken includes, "Jane has with warmth, humour and her confidence boosting response of “That’s a good question” to all manner of queries helped to streamline how we organize our data for the covenants program. Our new data structure has tremendously helped in my day to day work. Thanks Jane!"
Executive Director, Jill Robinson shares her accolades and gratitude as well saying, "Jane has been an incredible addition to our HAT team, as a fun and friendly office presence, as well as her thoughtful and enthusiastic approach to problem solving! She thinks outside the box and her experience and knowledge has been a tremendous value to our various programs in data management and mapping. A huge thank you to Jane for her time, energy and resources."
Jane shares a little bit of her Habitat Acquisition Trust volunteering experience with you:
When Jane first got introduced to HAT she says, "I went to the HAT website and read about their conservation efforts: I was hooked! They do it all, they work to protect and restore natural areas and - maybe even more importantly - HAT engages the public in their work, who ultimately need to be included to help make conservation stick.
I continue to volunteer because what they do works and I am a believer in what HAT does."
Recalling her favourite experience volunteering with HAT Jane tells us that she and Executive Director, Jill had discussed using GIS analysis, HAT spatial data, and other land use layers to help identify potential conservation areas that would creat contiguous conservation zones. Recently Jane worked with Stewardship Coordinator, Paige Erickson-McGee to help do just that with planning HAT's Good Neighbours landowner stewardship program work in the East Sooke Wildwood Watershed this year.
Jane says, "HAT does so much more than just land conservation. They work to protect species at risk, and they are an active part of the community holding seminars to share information. They are kind and grateful for all the people that come out to help make their work, work."
If she could share something to others about being part of the HAT community Jane would want other to know: "Don't feel shy about coming into this office to check it out or offer lend a hand. When anyone walks through their door, the staff members are warm, kind and inviting. They make you feel a part of the cogs that make the wheel turn. You are important to the functionality of the system and they appreciate it. You will learn, you will laugh."
Thank you Jane for sharing your insights as well as volunteering to support local conservation with us at HAT, it's always a joy to work together.
OWL UPDATE: When February arrives, dozens of volunteers will drive to wooded areas in and around Victoria at dusk and stay out late, listening. They are part of a project launched in 2015 by the Habitat Acquisition Trust (HAT) to monitor numbers of the endangered coastal sub-species of 
This month the HAT Office team would like to shower our thanks on volunteer Anna Chhina for gifting her time for local conservation with us. Thank you Anna for being there, often behind the scenes, helping us make the on-the-ground action possible with your administrative excellence!
Of the 9 sites surveyed in both 2016 and 2017, 5 actually had their highest numbers of bats recorded compared to previous years, with 8 still higher in 2017 than their lowest year’s count number. Between 2016 and 2017, of all 9 sites 6 had an increased number of bats and 3 had a decreased number of bats counted. So it seems to be generally that the data is simply reflecting regular fluctuations and no clear trend is observable yet.
