Meet some of our Flora and Fauna Experts

Rebecca Dolson, Fish

Rebecca has always loved being in and around water; talking fish, studying fish, and preserving aquatic communities. Rebecca has a Masters degree from the University of Guelph, which focused on understanding the food web dynamics of lake trout in Algonquin park. She has studied sharks, sea turtles, freshwater turtles, mussels and freshwater fish within Canada and abroad. Rebecca currently works as Regional Aquatic Analysts for the provincial government.

Sheila Dumesh, Bees

Sheila Dumesh is a biology graduate student in Dr. Laurence Packer’s lab at York University. For her Master’s Thesis, she is currently working on a revision of the bee genus, Mexalictus, an extremely rare group of bees. Sheila’s project involves writing taxonomic descriptions of all species belonging to the genus and performing a phylogenetic analysis of the genus, solely based on morphology. She will also create a dichotomous key which will allow for species-level identifications of the genus Mexalictus.

Bev Edwards, Plants

Bev graduated from the University of Toronto with an Hon. B.Sc. degree in Biology and from Sir Sandford Fleming College as an Environmental Technician. With funding provided by Rouge Park for the last four years, Bev has assisted with surveys and manual removal of invasive plant species from rare plant habitats in Rouge Park. Bev has also conducted plant, bird, lichen, fish, benthic macroinvertebrate, odonate and frog surveys for Rouge Park, the Toronto & Region Conservation Authority, Citizen Scientists and other organizations as a volunteer. Last year, she surveyed streams across the GTA for crayfish and, for the last two years, participated in the Toronto Zoo's annual garlic mustard pull. Since 2002, Bev has drafted articles on various environmental topics, including invasive alien species, odour and manure management and waste diversion for the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario.

Natasha Gonsalves, Plants

Natasha graduated from Saint Mary's University with a B.Sc degree in Biology and from Sir Sandford Fleming College as Ecosystem Management Technician. Since then she has worked with the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA) as an Environmental Technician; collecting long-term monitoring data and carrying out field inventories of vegetation communities and flora species according to TRCA's protocols and the Ecological Land Classification System. As a crew leader for Citizen Scientists, Natasha has also conducted fish and benthic macroinvertebrate surveys.

Damian Khan, Benthic Invertebrates

Damian graduated with an Hon. B.Sc. in Biology from York University and has recently completed a post-graduate certificate in Environmental Management and Assessment at Niagara College. Since 2007, he has worked as an aquatic taxonomist, sorting and identifying benthic macroinvertebrates from freshwater and marine environments all over Canada, and participating in the biological monitoring of the Thames River watershed in London, Ontario. In 2009, Damian joined Citizen Scientists as a volunteer to assist in monitoring the Rouge River watershed.

David Lawrie, Fish

David is currently an Aquatic Analyst with the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA) and a member of the Provincial Redside Dace recovery team representing the TRCA. A graduate of Waterloo and York Universities, he has ten years experience in the environment field. During this time David has worked in many areas including natural channel re-construction, bio-engineering and restoration, terrestrial and aquatic field surveys, planning development and permit review, and ecological analysis for the development and implementation of resource planning documents including Fisheries and Watershed Management Plans. David is also a Rouge Valley Foundation board member and spearheaded his own non-profit group Citizen Scientists, a volunteer based, aquatic environmental monitoring and education group.

Jacqueline Miller, Bats and Mammals

Jacqui graduated from the University of Toronto with an MSc. in Anthropology. She is currently a PhD candidate in Zoology and has spent the last several years compiling data on vocal communication and its evolution in rodents.  Jacqui has over a decade of field and laboratory experience, published in several scientific journals, and presented internationally on topics ranging from the molecular systematics to vocal communication in singing mice. Jacqui’s research has taken her from Canada to the Southwestern USA, Mexico, and Central America. She has surveyed small mammals in a variety of habitats locally and abroad, from semi-desert environments to montane tropical cloud forest. Jacqui has a special interest in relationships between behavioural ecology and species diversity. She has been an instructor for several field courses in Latin America and supervised undergraduate research theses, imbuing her passion for biology to many university students. Jacqui is currently affiliated with the Department of Natural History at the Royal Ontario Museum, where she continues her research and participates in several taxonomy projects with ROM curatorial staff.

Paul Prior, Birds

Paul started birding in the UK in the early 1970s. He gave up a contract position studying the then endangered Red Kite population in mid-Wales to come to Canada to band migrant songbirds at Long Point Bird Observatory on Lake Erie in 1991. He stayed at Long Point as a warden for the next 7 years and then, having settled in Toronto, continued working on Endangered Species (Bald Eagle, Prothonotary Warbler and Loggerhead Shrike) contracts for Bird Studies Canada for several years before starting his current job as fauna-biologist with the TRCA. Paul’s current position requires maintenance of the fauna database for the region, a dataset based primarily on the annual field-inventories conducted on natural cover throughout the nine watersheds.

Sheryl Santos, Rouge Park

Sheryl has always loved being involved with environmental and community events since she was in grade school, whether it was a litter cleanup or a hike in the forest. She completed an honours degree at York University, specializing in Conservation Ecology. Her main area of interest was in ornithology and she completed research on Wood Thrush in Pennsylvania and Chickadees in Southern Ontario. Sheryl currently works as the Stewardhip Coordinator at Rouge Park which intermingles both her conservation background with her interest in event planning and working with volunteers. Sheryl works on a number of volunteer stewardship projects at Rouge Park such as bird counts, frog watches and invasive species removals as well as the natural heritage projects such as restoration monitoring and vegetation inventories.

Brenda Van Ryswyk, Vernal Pools

Growing up in rural Ontario south of Ottawa gave Brenda a great appreciation and love for nature and the outdoors. Having spent much of her time roaming around outside as a child not a whole lot has changed as she grew except the objects of her study continues to expand or shift. First introduced to the world of vernal pools through exploring the ones in her own back yard she quickly developed an appreciation for these life filled ephemeral pools. Currently residing near Hamilton, an area rich in natural diversity, she working in the field she loves as a Natural Heritage Ecologist for Conservation Halton doing plant and wildlife inventories, Ecological Land Classification and other monitoring work as well as mapping and documenting this information. A portion of her job is monitoring salamanders in the Conservation Halton watershed and she also inventories the local vernal pools. She spends much of her free time chasing or photographing insects and she occasionally leads others in counts or educational workshops in her area and encourages more people to get involved with the natural world and nature watching.

Rouge Valley Eco Exploration Photography Contest

sponsored by Henry’s

With your $10 donation to the Rouge Valley Conservation Centre you can enter your nature photo for a chance to WIN one of 3 prizes from Henry’s!

First Place: Nikon Action 8x40 EX waterproof binoculars

Second Place: Vanguard Tracker 3 Tripod

Third Place: $75.00 Henry’s School of Imaging Gift Card

Winners will be selected by June 18, 2011 and

contacted by a Henry’s representative.

ENTERTAINMENT:

Join us throughout the day for live performances by Social Potion (June 4 & 5) and Noella Choi (June 5).

FOOD:

Hamburgers and hot dogs will be available for purchase from 11:30 am - 2:00 pm or until supplies runout. Soft drinks, cookies, fruit and veggies will also be available for purchase while supplies last.