Our Ecological Encounters series is returning with a great line up of speakers for 2010. This is your chance to learn more about Yukon wildlife, ecology and our changing environment from the people who study these issues in depth.
Ecological Encounters may be a combination of a formal presentation and outdoor observations at the preserve. Dress appropriately for the weather. Talks are free for members and $15 for non-members. Please pre-register by contacting us.
Sunday February 28, 2010
The Wildlife of Yukon’s Arctic Tundra: Patterns and Trends in a Warming World
Dr. Don Reid, Wildlife Conservation Society Canada, Whitehorse
3:30 – 5 pm
Don Reid is a wildlife biologist based in Whitehorse, Yukon. During International Polar Year (2007-2009) numerous biologists, including many from Yukon, collaborated on studies of tundra wildlife at Herschel Island and Komakuk Beach, northern Yukon, as part of a cross-Canada arctic research project. Don Reid coordinated and helped design this arctic tundra field work, called Arctic WOLVES (Wildlife Observatories Linking Vulnerable EcoSystems). Dr. Reid will illustrate patterns and trends from Arctic WOLVES observations and discuss what they might mean for the future of wildlife on Yukon’s arctic fringe.
Sunday March 21, 2010
Muskoxen on Yukon’s North Slope
Ian McDonald, Parks Canada, Whitehorse
3:30 – 5 pm
Ian McDonald has worked for Parks Canada as a monitoring ecologist for the past 12 years. He has spent much of that time in Ivvavik and Vuntut National Parks in the northern Yukon and counting muskoxen on the Yukon North Slope. He will share his stories of monitoring muskoxen and the wild story of how muskoxen returned to northern Yukon. We will follow the journey of the muskoxen as they crossed wide oceans and continents, were stranded on an island in the frozen Arctic Ocean and bravely exploring new lands. As Ian suggests, it doesn’t look like the future will be any less dull for the muskoxen.
Sunday April 18, 2010
Lynx Ecology in the Yukon
Dr. Mark O’Donoghue, Northern Tutchone Regional Wildlife Biologist
Yukon Government Fish & Wildlife Branch, Mayo, Yukon
3:30 – 5 pm
Mark O’Donoghue has worked as a biologist in Maine, Burkina Faso in West Africa, Newfoundland, and the Yukon Territory. His eight year study of lynx at Kluane Lake as part of a bigger boreal forest ecosystem study has revealed many interesting aspects of lynx ecology. Mark will enlighten us with information on lynx numbers, reproduction, survival, and movements change with the snowshoe hare cycle, what they eat and their hunting tactics, their social behaviour, their body shape and adaptations to the north and conservation issues.