Randy Corcoran has been a Property Guardian since the beginning of the program. “I’m not one of the originals, I am the original guy,” he says. He has been monitoring the Nature Trust’s very first property, The Brothers, since 1995, and thirty years later he’s still on the roster as its Property Guardian, along with nearby Partridge Island.

Randy lives nearby, in the Parrsboro area, and holds a wealth of knowledge about the region’s fossils, crystals, birds, fish, nature, wildlife – as he says, “anything that’s moving or not moving” in the area. For forty-three years he has put this knowledge to good use as a tour guide on shore and by boat, as well as being a teacher and an artist.

Randy had been leading guided tours near The Brothers since 1983. He was especially interested in the vast numbers of bird nests. He noted “blue herons, eiders and seagulls and every bird you can imagine, you know, on every shelf and every ledge and every little cove where the tide couldn’t wash them out. It was fabulous. It was like a little Galapagos.”

In the mid-90s, he started to hear about potential interests in buying the islands. He had long noticed the development trends increasing in the area, and he wanted the islands to be preserved. “I’m a big protector of the environment up and down the coast here. They can get tired of me, but I don’t care.”

Randy sat down and wrote a letter to Jack Herbin and let him know about his work as a local guide, sharing his knowledge of the bird populations and ecology. He never received a reply, but a year later he first heard about the Nova Scotia Nature Trust. It had just been established that year and had accepted Jack Herbin’s donation of the two islands. The Brothers became the Nature Trust’s first protected conservation land.

Not long after, Randy began writing to Acadia University about protecting the nearby Partridge Island.

“I wrote to them when I saw they had, at that point, seventy-five percent [of the island]. “I’ve been complaining and bugging people to protect those islands, among other properties.”

Partridge Island was formally protected in 2016. After so many years, Randy was relieved to know an agreement had been reached between all partners and the island would be protected forever. “They were all working behind the scenes, I didn’t know about it at all. It’s all preserved and protected now, and you know, it’s good, it’s good.”

Randy loves the thought that everyone will get to enjoy the beautiful area that he has long called home. “They don’t have those worries that I had in the beginning, [they won’t] have to do all that advocating and all that other stuff. But you know, it’s important. And I really appreciate the work the Nature Trust does, and how it has grown so far from The Brothers.”

As the decades have passed, Randy has seen first-hand the changes in the landscape where he grew up and worked. Each year he sees fewer and fewer sea-birds on the coast; he hasn’t seen birds like Blue Herons or Eiders in recent years, both once reliable species to observe. “I do feel proud to be a Property Guardian. I feel like I’m doing at least some small part to protect all these things that I’ve enjoyed and made my living from. I made a lot of my living from the ocean, you know, and then from the land here. And I feel like I’m paying that back just a little bit.”

These days, Randy is mentoring a neighbour to take over as his replacement. Though Randy himself was an advocate for the property long before he got the official title of Property Guardian, the task of protecting and monitoring the islands must be passed down.

He reminds us that we need fighters, and for people to keep protecting places – especially when it’s not easy. It will take time, effort, and many people’s interest and voices. But as Randy’s story shows us, change takes time and people who are willing to stay in it for the long haul.

Thank you Randy for his long decades of volunteer service, and for sharing this story! Learn more about our Property Guardians program.