Coming Up...  Casselholme at 7:00 pm

Speaker: Mr. Gord Miller, Environmental Commissioner of Ontario

Topic: The Biodiversity Crisis in Ontario
The Earth is experiencing a loss in biodiversity of a magnitude that paleontologists characterize as the Sixth Great Extinction. Ontario is not immune to this phenomenon. In this International Year of Biodiversity, it is appropriate to step back and look at the seriousness of the biodiversity crisis in Ontario and what government policy efforts are, and are not, being made to mitigate the losses.

Speaker: Mr. Dan Strickland, retired Chief Naturalist of Algonquin Provincial Park / Researcher of gray jays

Topic: What originally prevented and then permitted the great northern expansion of white tailed deer? 
The current belief is that white tailed deer expansion was a result of an increase in browse created by the expansion of agricultural settlement and industrial use of Ontario ’s forests. However, this orthodoxy does not stand up to a close look at the vegetation changes and deer population dynamics. Dan will explore a new way at understanding the changes in deer populations and how ecosystems unravel when predators are killed off.

Speaker: Mr. Celestine Marchand, Biologist, MNR North Bay District

Topic: Bats of Ontario. 
Cess will provide us with an overview of bat ecology and behaviour. He will explain the origin and concern of white nose syndrome that appears to be killing a number of our bat species. He will also let us know the results of recent research on wind farms and bat mortality.

Bio: Celestin Marchand is a graduate from the University of Northern British Columbia (B.Sc. - Wildlife Biology) and Sir Sandford Fleming College (Fish and Wildlife Technician and Technologist diploma programs) and has more than 10 years of work experience in natural resource management. He has worked with the U.S. Forest Service, the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, Parks Canada, an environmental consulting firm, Ontario Parks, and with North Bay District MNR as the Acting Species at Risk Biologist. He is currently an Acting Management Biologist with North Bay District MNR’s Planning and Information Team, focusing primarily on Renewable Energy. Celestin has first hand experience assisting on bat projects in the southwestern US, and has participated in MNR bat and wind power training sessions hosted by Dr. Brock Fenton’s lab at the University of Western Ontario .