Rooted in Wonder 25 years. Still wild.
"The science they did was real. And the way they came back changed was irreversible."
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HERE CAN GO AN EXCERPT OF THE LETTER
Scott Pankratz and Julie Osborn
EPI's Founders
Twelve years ago, two middle schoolers from Missoula, Montana boarded a plane to La Paz, México together. Their first EPI course. They swam through jellyfish. Sea lion pups brushed up against them in the water. They did field research alongside Mexican students their own age, and came home different.
They couldn't have known, then, that they would both end up back at EPI. This time, not as students. As staff.
That is what 25 years looks like.
🌿 972 ocean entries into the Sea of Cortez in 2025. Each one somebody's first.
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ROOTED IN PLACE
Twenty-five years of EPI are inseparable from the places where the work happens. Real, fragile places where a group of students showing up, curious, nervous, a little overwhelmed, actually makes a difference.
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Pacuare Reserve, Costa Rica
Before there was a reserve, there was a beach where 99% of sea turtle nests were taken by humans every season. That number is now close to zero.
It took 35 years.
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1,000,000+
Sea turtle hatchlings released at Pacuare Reserve since 1989
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316 leatherback nests monitored
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6 jaguars on camera traps
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4,821 hatchlings released this season
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1,800 miles walked to monitor sea turtles
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450 miles walked to monitor forest wildlife
🌿 7,671.5 hours of night patrol on Pacuare beach in 2025. That's 319 nights of walking in the dark to make sure the turtles make it.
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216 Agami heron nests monitored
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1,312 hours of camera trap footage reviewed
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Visiting students contributed:
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84 nests monitored
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93 turtles documented
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"I learned about nature, conservation, biodiversity, how to ask and answer good questions, and how to overcome struggles." — EPI student, Costa Rica, 2025
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Yellowstone, United States
In Yellowstone, the science is about time. Wolf populations, ungulate dynamics, amphibian communities, long arcs that only mean something because someone keeps showing up to collect the data. EPI students are part of that continuity.
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708
Total wolf observation hours in 2025.
Average per course: 5 wolves spotted.
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43 wolves observed (winter visiting)
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40 wolves observed (winter local)
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133 ungulate research hours
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212.8 amphibian research hours
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23 fecal samples collected
"It's really become apparent to me how negatively wolves have been portrayed in our society. I want to change that." — EPI student, Yellowstone, 2025
🌿 3,339 sandwiches made for Yellowstone students in 2025. That's a lot of cold mornings before a wolf observation.
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Baja California Sur, México
The Sea of Cortez has been called the world's aquarium. Anyone who has jumped into it understands why.
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25
Whale shark encounters in 2025.
The largest fish on the planet.
Up close.
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3 blue whale sightings
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9 humpback whale sightings
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39 fish species identified per course (avg.)
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207 fish species identified across the season
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76,000 grams of trash collected
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🌿 22 pounds of animal waste collected by Yellowstone students as part of ungulate research. Science is glamorous.
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Belize
Belize is where the details get strange and wonderful. About 20% of the white-lipped mud turtles EPI students try to study are so deep in their burrows that researchers can only record their location, not physical measurements. That data alone is valuable. Science includes learning the limits of what you can know, and showing up anyway.
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26 lionfish dissected
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53 bats studied
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71.9 kg of trash collected
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4,482 nurdles collected from shorelines
🌿 4,482 nurdles, plastic pellets shed from industrial shipping, collected from Belize shorelines. Invisible to most eyes. Not to ours.
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Galápagos, Ecuador
The Galápagos is where evolution became visible, and one of the most ecologically fragile places on earth. EPI students here don't visit. They work.
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1,901 microplastic pieces collected
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41 tortoises monitored
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61 invasive snails removed
"The biodiversity here is astonishing. I learned to care more about the environment and helped me realize that all the small actions I take, even if they are far away, they will affect the Galápagos."
— Anonymous student, Phillips Academy Andover, June 2025
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🌿 369 domino games estimated during Costa Rica course nights. Based on 123 course nights, and the certainty that where there are EPI instructors and free time, there are dominoes.
🌿 Some of EPI's staff didn't just find their way to this work. Katherine Martínez, Karol Camacho, Ana Beatriz Hernández, all EPI alumni. These are not coincidences. They're the compound interest of 25 years.
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ROOTED FOR THE FUTURE
The reach, 2025
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7,078
Total people reached by EPI in 2025.
2,276
in core field programs
4802
through alumni and community outreach
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HERE GOES THE TABLE
Nearly half of all participants were local, students from the communities where EPI works most deeply, learning to protect the ecosystems they grew up next to.
🌿 20,963 sea turtle hatchlings released at Pacuare Reserve in 2025. Each one the result of a monitored nest, a protected beach, a night patrol.
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The Alumni Effect, México
In México, EPI's alumni aren't waiting to be called.
They're actively building something better.
103 community events in 2025
1,661 alumni participants
1,974 community members reached
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The students who went through EPI's programs are now the ones bringing others in.
That is not a side effect, that is the design.
What the field actually changes
In México, EPI's alumni aren't waiting to be called. They're building.
+25% Knowledge of Environmental Action Strategies
+19% Ability to design methodology and collect data
+12% Overall core scientific competencies
+9% Overall social-emotional skills
Pre- and post-course assessments across all programs, FY2025.
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The people who make it possible
None of this happens without the people who believe in it before they can see the results.
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EPI Leadership Circle
Our deepest appreciation goes to the members of EPI's Leadership Circle, who have designated EPI as a beneficiary in their estate plans. Theirs is the longest kind of investment: a belief that the work will still matter in a future they may not see.
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Partners
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Same partners as in the 2025 catalog
Board of Directors
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EPI Staff:
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Financials, FY2025
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People don't protect what they understand, but they do protect what they love.
Mariko and Gabri were thirteen when they first felt it, standing in the Sea of Cortez, doing science that actually mattered, Liam Andrews is going to be a biologist, April Wang fell in love with a country, and Shelbi St. Goddard is building a future where her community's knowledge of the land is part of the science.
None of them came back the same. Twenty-five years in, the field still works. And it will keep working, as long as the people who believe in it keep showing up.
Conservation for the next generation