Long Point Waterfowl Celebrates 25 Years
Youth participating in Long Point Waterfowl’s Youth Conservation Course.
Long Point Waterfowl was established in 1989, and has been dedicated to research, education and conservation throughout the Great Lakes ever since. LPW researchers and staff conduct applied and relevant research that contributes directly to the management and conservation of waterfowl and wetlands.
Ted Barney with a longtailed Duck.
LPW has been associated with Western University since its establishment, at first by recruiting Dr. Dave Ankney, a well-known waterfowl ecologist from the former Zoology Department, to serve as a scientific advisor. That connection expanded over the years, and after Dr. Scott Petrie joined Long Point Waterfowl as Executive Director in 1997, he became an adjunct professor and began supervising graduate and undergraduate honours student projects. To date, hundreds of undergraduate students have had their first field experience in association with LPW and 18 Honours students have conducted research projects with LPW staff.
Graduate students holding a Mallard with a backpack transmitter.
In addition, 11 MSc and 2 PhD students have completed their degrees based on research done at LPW; and all of them are now making substantial contributions to research, conservation and education throughout North America. That’s an impressive record! Several current Biology faculty, including Drs. Henry, Millar, Guglielmo, MacDougal-Shackelton, Creed and Zanette work closely with LPW researchers. Indeed, the strong association between LPW and the Department of Biology at Western has resulted in over 50 collaborative papers in research journals.
Western Ontario undergraduate students in the field.
The association between the Department of Biology and Long Point Waterfowl has been a mutually beneficial arrangement. The Department has been able to continue to offer Wildlife Ecology and Management to undergraduate students (taught by Dr. Petrie since 2002, replacing Dave Ankney before he retired in 2004), while LPW gains exposure to a large pool of summer assistants, honours students, and graduate students, from which to recruit. The experience and perspective of graduate students working with LPW add another dimension to our graduate programs.
For more information about Long Point Waterfowl, check out
www.longpointwaterfowl.org, or e-mail spetrie@longpointwaterfowl.org
