Marco Festa-Bianchet 🇨🇦
@marcofesta
🇨🇦🇨🇦 Emeritus ecology prof in Sherbrooke, Canada. Evidence-based wildlife conservation, mountain ungulates, kangaroos, ice-free fishing. 🇨🇦 elbows up!
2/2 ... in a conference proceedings. When flaws are corrected, paper predicts the empirical results from Ram Mountain www.nwsgc.net/proceedings/...
As Kardos et al. pointed out, JWM paper confused linkage and pleiotropy, did not realize that individuals have one father and discounted that genetic analyses account for multiple environmental effects. Ended with choice comments on JWM editors 🧪 wildlife.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
Next attack: a model claimed changes we measured were demographic, not genetic www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... the T-hunting crowd loved it, but multiple responses showed that the model was mathematically unable to detect evolution www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
Liber Ero postdoc deadline Nov 1. Exceptional opportunity for research in conservation in Canada - highly competitive, best to have gov't and Indigenous partners liberero.ca
Got unscathed past a posse of cobra chickens on my ride today.
The last part of our letter to Canadian gov't. The 'Discussion paper' proposes to eliminate the 'Jeopardy test' of the Species at Risk Act- that will legalize actions known to imperil endangered species. The Cons will enthusiastically apply it when back in power www.sfu.ca/~amooers/sci...
Paper and media exposure led to much consternation among trophy hunters and some biologists. First, a series of criticisms and personal attacks in the proceedings of a conference, published without our knowledge www.nwsgc.net/proceedings/... (go to P 193). Our rebuttal www.nwsgc.net/proceedings/...
Coltman www.nature.com/articles/nat... just passed 1000 cites GoogleScholar. Brought to the fore that selective hunting can lead to evolutionary change, leading to much debate, gnashing of teeth. Pigeon et al's update answered stats objections, is better paper onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
2018 JWildlManage commissioned a model to question that prolonged, intense selective hunting leads to evolutionary shrinkage of mountain sheep horns. Then stonewalled rebuttal, despite positive referee comments, 6-mo COPE probation for unethical behavior. Rebuttal: 🧪 www.nwsgc.net/proceedings/...
Just biked to the US border. This side of Canusa Street is in Vermont.
Black swallowtail? Found on fennel today, my backyard in Sherbrooke.
Ghost pipes, a parasitic flowering plant without chlorophyll. My backyard.
Just found this dead cuckoo behind the house, I am afraid it must have hit a window 😰
Lots more birds in suburban Montréal than rural Sherbrooke in summer.
Very interesting, important and disappointing. Too bad they used the nazi site. Same message seen as more trustworthy if source is male and white. 🧪 conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
1989: I started the Caw Ridge mountain goat study, now run by Steeve Côté and Sandra Hamel. One objective was to study an animal that can twin, after many yrs of working with bighorn sheep that always have 1 lamb. We just had the 4th set of twins in 38 yrs - you can't always get what you want.
Immensely grateful to #NSERC for 36 yrs of research support via Discovery Grants. I owe nearly my entire scientific career to their strategy to fund long-term programs, not short-term projects. Just signed off on a 0$ balance on my last DG. I dare to think it was a worthwhile long-term investment.
Bighorn ewe U15 (black peace) is 11. This year she lost her lamb at birth, has weaned 4 lambs. W7 (white Z) is 9, she has a son, lamb FF1. She has weaned 5 lambs. #LongTerm
An armful of accelerometer collars with GPS ready to be fitted to bighorn ewes.
Snow at Ram Mountain is 'normal' until about mid-June, but we have had snow in all months of the year.
Bighorn sheep crave salt in spring, but I don't know why some also seem to like ash from our campfire.
What to do on a snowy day on Ram Mountain but make pancakes and program accellerometers? Sheep will not come to the trap and visibility is near zero.
I was wondering why I didn't hear rain on the roof given the forecast...😱
For over 50 yrs we had a neighbor at the Ram fire lookout, 3 km from the sheep trap. Shelter from storms, social calls, communication. Not staffed for 4 yrs because budget cuts. No idea how the wind almost flipped the helicopter landing pad.
More disappointed bighorn sheep. The trap is closed as the intrepid crew went to town and I'm now too old to do this by myself
Lots of red squirrels this year near the Ram Mountain camp. Possibly because it's a mast year for spruce.