Latest News
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Edmonton Wildlife Festival
This year the ACTWS, represented by our Student Director, Nikki Paskar, participated in the Edmonton Wildlife Festival. The event was fantastic and wildly exceeded all of our expectations.
Nikki connected with a ton of folks, including curious wildlife professionals, new Canadians and students wanting to learn more about wildlife in Alberta and our organization. What was clear was that everyone wanted us to hold more workshops and volunteer events that highlight wildlife management in Alberta. We’re listening!
photos: Nikki Paskar
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Meet a Wildlifer
Our May edition of the Alberta Wildlifer included an interview of Dr. Peter Neuhaus, by feature editor Erika Almási-Klausz. Dr. Neuhaus is an adjunct professor in the Biogeoscience Institute at the University of Calgary and an ecologist extraordinaire.
If you haven’t seen it yet, you should really take a few moments to read about Peter’s career, his thoughts on research and ethics. He has broad interests, studying social and population biology, behavioural and evolutionary ecology. Today his focal species is the Columbian ground squirrel. But he has studied many more species around the world in many different ecosystems. Erika’s interview is a peek into a fascinating life.
We invite you to read the interview in full in our new newsletter format hosted by Adobe Spark. In it, Peter describes his research and expresses a vulnerability that we often feel, but rarely expose. Its a great read. And, if you don’t want to wait months to see what the ACTWS is up to, join us.
photo courtesy of the University of Calgary
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Where Are They Now?
The William Wishart scholarship is awarded to promising graduate students. Grad school can be a slog, so the ACTWS is keen to encourage and empower graduate students in any way we can. The Wishart is one way we do that.
Jacqui Frair was our 2005 Wishart recipient for her exceptional work on habitat selection. In her words, the award was a boon to her early academic career. Having recently been promoted to full professor, has done the most with that scholarship.
Since completing her graduate studies at U Alberta, Jacqui has moved on to the State University of New York where she has recently been appointed the director of the Roosevelt Wildlife Station. The first woman to hold that post! Jacqui is giving back. She has mentored 24 grad students, most of them female, and she is the President Elect of the Northeast US Chapter of TWS. Bill Wishart would be proud.
photo: Jacqueline Frair
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Where Are They Now?
Nadine Raynolds has been at the forefront of wildlife conservation and education for her entire adult life. The recipient of the Ian Ross Memorial scholarship in 2000, Nadine completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Calgary to earn an MSc in Environmental Education and Communication from Royal Roads University,
But Nadine is most proud of her achievement of founding and leading the Redfish School of Change on the west coast. She says that earning the Ian Ross scholarship made her feel appreciated early in her career, inspiring her to work to create change. Nadine continues to do with the Yellowstone to Yukon Initiative, based in the Kootenay region of B.C.
photo courtesy Nadine Raynolds
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Where Are They Now?
In 1995, the first recipient of the ACTWS Undergraduate Award, now known as the Ian Ross Memorial Scholarship, was a bright, young undergrad named Philip McLoughlin from the University of Alberta.
Young Phil is now Dr. Philip McLoughlin, (pictured here with his lab), a professor in the Biology Department at the University of Saskatchewan. His studies in Population Ecology have helped understand caribou, moose and wolf population dynamics in Saskatchewan and wild horse populations on Sable Island, Nova Scotia.
We at the ACTWS like to think that our recognition of Phil’s talent early in his education and the scholarship that accompanied this acknowledgement, contributed to his career and years of outstanding research.
Over the next few months we will be following-up on past ACTWS award winners in a series of “Where are they now?” posts. It’s an impressive list.
photo from http://mcloughlinlab.ca/lab/