Spotlight on Ecoscience 2011
As part of BRI’s ongoing mission to inform the public about its wildlife research, we present an annual Spotlight on Ecoscience event. Topics are timely and relevant to our community here in Maine, and in the broader scope of our planet. Our third annual Spotlight event coincided with the launch of our new Wildlife Science and Wind Energy Initiative.
Visiting European scientists, Dr. Tony Fox (above) and Dr. Rowena Langston, shared insights gained from more than 20 years experience with marine wind power development.
BRI’s executive director, Dr. David Evers (at podium above), moderated a lively, well-informed Q&A session following the presentations. Dr. Tony Fox and Dr. Rowena Langston (below) answered audience questions about the mechanics of monitoring wildlife at offshore wind farms, as well as about the conservation implications of wildlife effects from wind facilities.
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Video Highlights of the 2011 Presentation
Special Feature: BRI’s science journalist interns, “There’s a very active debate in Maine about wind power right now. It’s a really good time to be highlighting the issues that people are most concerned about—there is much misinformation about the effects to birds and bats from the wind turbines. It’s really important to inject solid science into the discussion and relate what we know, what we suspect but don’t know yet, and what we still need to figure out.” More than 300 people filled the University of Southern Maine’s Hannaford Hall for BRI’s annual Spotlight on Ecoscience; nearly 30 more viewed the live webinar. Audience members included scientists who work in wind-related fields, conservation professionals, local policy makers, college students, and an interested public. The broad mix of attendees underscores the important role science plays in environmental policy decisions. Thank You to Our Sponsors
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Featured Speaker: Dr. Tony Fox
Dr. Fox, who holds a doctorate in ornithology, is a research professor in the Department of Biosciences at Aarhus University in Denmark. He has been involved with offshore wind farm developments and their effects on birds since 1999; he was an integral part of the team that carried out the pre- and post-construction assessments of impacts on birds at the first ever offshore wind farms at Horns Rev and Nysted in Denmark. Since then, he has been actively involved in similar studies throughout Europe, helping to develop the application of aerial survey, radar, infra-red videometry, telemetry, and analytical techniques.
Dr. Fox cannot remember a time when he was not interested in birds. His research life started when he was waist deep in peat studying water relations in a Welsh raised bog. After two ornithological expeditions to west Greenland and two years working for the Nature Conservancy Council in the Scottish Highlands, he moved to the (then) Wildfowl Trust at Slimbridge to concentrate on waterbird research, a field in which he has happily worked in ever since. He moved from the United Kingdom to work for the National Environmental Research Institute of the Ministry of the Environment in Denmark in 1993, where he was appointed research professor in 2003.
In 2007, Professor Fox was awarded the prestigious Luc Hoffmann Medal for excellence in wetland research for his contributions to the study of waterfowl ecology and physiology.
Tony Fox’s research has focused on waterfowl population and habitat ecology, but he retains wider interests in ornithology, dragonfly ecology and peatland systems. He is particularly interested in arctic goose biology, population dynamics, foraging ecology, and plant/-waterfowl interactions. His research has taken him around the world including Denmark, Norway, Svalbard, Russia, Turkey, arctic Canada, the United States, Greenland, Iceland, Ireland, and the United Kingdom.Dr. Fox has published nearly 170 international scientific papers, as well as numerous reports, book contributions, and popular scientific articles.
For more information about Dr. Fox’s work, visit: http://pure.au.dk/portal/en/persons/anthony-david-fox%28deb15e30-223d-4759-b62b-1df46dcf0d62%29.html
Featured Speaker: Dr. Rowena Langston
Dr. Langston is currently a principal conservation scientist with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) in the United Kingdom. She has worked in the field of conservation science for more than 20 years. A member of COWRIE (Collaborative Offshore Wind Research into the Environment), an organization established to prioritize, commission, and fund environmental research on offshore wind energy and to provide guidance to the industry, Langston now contributes to the SOSS (Strategic Ornithology Support Services) program, which aims to build on and update the work of COWRIE, specifically for ornithology issues relating to offshore wind energy development.
Dr. Langston earned her doctorate from the University of Durham; her doctoral research focused on shorebird ecology. Prior to working for the RSPB, Dr. Langston was a research biologist with the British Trust for Ornithology. Currently, her work combines research, supervision of environmental research projects, and provision of scientific advice to conservation and policy colleagues within the RSPB, BirdLife partners, and other organizations, including statutory, non-statutory and industry, within the U.K. and internationally (notably within Europe, South Africa, and Japan).
She was a member of the Collaborative Offshore Wind Research Into the Environment (COWRIE) environmental working group, from its inception until the program’s closure in 2010. COWRIE was established to prioritize, commission, and fund environmental research into offshore wind energy and to provide guidance to the industry to facilitate an environmental impact assessment (EIA). Dr. Langston now contributes to the Strategic Ornithology Support Services (SOSS) program, which aims to build on and update the work of COWRIE, specifically for ornithology issues relating to offshore wind energy development.
She has co-organized scientific programs and presented papers to a variety of conferences, most recently the international Conference on Wind Energy and Wildlife Impacts (CWW2011 - cww2011.nina.no) held in Trondheim, Norway in May 2011. She is also the co-author of several review papers and reports, the most notably relevant to BRI’s workshop can be found at: http://www.rspb.org.uk/Images/langston_2010_tcm9-203501.pdf.
For more information about the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds visit: www.rspb.org.uk.
Wildlife Science and Marine Wind Energy Initiative
The goal of this Initiative is to inform decision makers and the public about areas of scientific consensus regarding the effects of marine wind power development on wildlife.
Wildlife Science and Marine Wind Energy Workshop
In a two-day closed session, November 8th and 9th, BRI will bring together active researchers in the field of wildlife and wind energy development to identify areas of scientific consensus on this issue and to provide applied recommendations.
Eagle Sponsors | ||
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Horizon Foundation |
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Loon Sponsors | ||||
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Gull Sponsors | ||
 WOW Fund |
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 Gulf of Maine Program Migratory Bird Office |
Songbird Sponsors | ||||
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 Bay Agency |
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Smith and Associates | ||
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In-Kind Sponsors | ||||
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Host Committee | ||
| Tom Franklin | Robert Gips | Jean Gulliver |
| Leslie Harroun | Chris Maher | Annette Naegel |
| Rachel Pohl | Neil Rolde | Douglas Smith |
| Thomas Urquhart | Casco Bay Estuary Partnership | Guarnaccia Ecological Services |