Keynote speakers | My Site 5

Dr. Kathy Martin

Professor of Wildlife Ecology at University of British Columbia and Research Scientist (Emerita) with Environment and Climate Change Canada

Kathy examines vulnerabilities, resilience and persistence of birds living in extreme and challenging environments. She conducts research on the behaviour, demography and life history variation of arctic and alpine grouse across elevation gradients in northern and western Canada and the southern Rocky mountains. She has examined the population ecology and conservation status of grouse in relation to climate variation and protected areas in these increasingly unreliable habitats. Kathy has published over 250 scientific papers and book chapters on ecology, behaviour and conservation of birds, including a co-edited a book on the Ecology and Conservation of Mountain Birds (2023, Cambridge University Press).

Kathy has served as President of the American Ornithological Society and the Society of Canadian Ornithologists. She has received multiple awards for her research including the McTaggart-Cowan Lifetime Achievement Award for outstanding contributions to the understanding, conservation of wildlife in Canada (Wildlife Society 2016), the Godman Salvin Prize for Lifetime Contributions to Ornithology (British Ornithologists’ Union 2018) and The William Brewster Award for avian research in the Western Hemisphere (American Ornithological Society 2021).

Dr. Michael Schroeder

Research Scientist, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife

Michael A. Schroeder received his Bachelor of Science degree in Wildlife Ecology from Texas A&M University, his Master of Science degree in Wildlife Biology from the University of Alberta for research on spruce grouse, and his Doctor of Philosophy from Colorado State University for research on greater prairie-chickens. Mike is a Certified Wildlife Biologist who has pursued research and management of grouse since 1981.

He joined the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife in 1992 as a research scientist and has continued to focus most of his activities on the biology and management of grouse. His focal species include sharp-tailed grouse, greater sage-grouse, spruce grouse, and white-tailed ptarmigan. He has been an author on approximately 90 peer-reviewed publications with the vast majority on grouse. He is a recipient of the Robert L. Patterson Award for Sage and Columbian Sharp-tailed Grouse Research and Management, and the Hamerstrom Award for Contributions to Prairie Grouse Conservation.

About the talk:

Deliberate translocations have been used throughout the world to increase hunting opportunities and, more recently, to address conservation concerns. There is no group that illustrates this more than grouse in the northern hemisphere. Documented translocations in western North America include more than 9,000 greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus), almost 500 Gunnison sage-grouse (Centrocercus minimus), and more than 4,000 sharp-tailed grouse (Tympanuchus phasianellus). There are similar numbers for the other species of grouse. Although many grouse translocations were introductions into areas where the species was not originally found, the vast majority could be considered conservation translocations, designed to either reintroduce grouse to an area where they had been extirpated, or to augment declining and/or at-risk populations. A general goal of these conservation translocations is to stabilize and/or increase the distributions and populations of the target species. There is a long history of these translocations, stretching back about two centuries. The vast majority of translocations can be considered failures in that the original goal was not achieved. The reasons for these ‘failures’ include insufficient habitat quantity and quality, methodological problems, and/or genetic incompatibility. If we believe that translocations are an essential component of effective management in an increasingly altered landscape, examination of these patterns of failure and success may provide insight into a path forward.

Talk Title for IGS 2026: Grouse translocations: successes, failures, and lessons.

Dr. Erlend Birkeland Nilsen

Senior Research Scientist at Norwegian Institute for Nature Research / Professor Nord University

Erlend B. Nilsen is a professor in ecology at Nord university in central Norway. He has worked on broad set of applied and basic ecological research questions, under the umbrella of population ecology. He has particular interests in demography and life history evolution, population dynamics, harvest theory, and has worked extensively with citizen science projects. Much of the research focus on how environmental change and anthropogenic pressure affects wildlife population. For the last decade he has in particular focused on the ecology and management of willow ptarmigan, and has led several long-term and large scale research projects on the ecology of these iconic alpine birds.