Science and Research Committee on Feb. 9th, 2023

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Corey Tochor]

Answer within 10 seconds, please.

[Dr. John Reynolds]

In the last few years, about 10% or 15% of our status reports use iNaturalist data. It's the first place people often go when they're trying to decide whether it's worth paying attention to a potentially threatened species.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Corey Tochor]

Thank you so much.

We'll move now to the five-minute round, beginning with member of Parliament Ben Lobb.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Thanks very much.

To both organizations, when you do a publication or produce a report, how do you decide what you're going to include in that report? Is it a board that decides? Is it staff who decide? Is it the funding agency that decides what you're actually going to put together in a report or what have you?

[Dr. John Reynolds]

Go ahead, Jody.

[Jody Allair]

It's great to see iNaturalist featured here. We're all addicted.

To interpret your question about reporting, we report on all our birds on a very regular basis through program reports. All our data also gets contributed to “The State of Canada's Birds”, a report that comes out every few years. It's sort of the health card of our bird populations. I highly recommend reading a copy of that report, because it is a real wake-up call as to how in trouble Canada's birds are.

We also do a lot of reporting through published academic papers. Just to give you an example, from 2021-22 Birds Canada's data information has been used for 533 peer-reviewed publications. The bulk of that is citizen science data that's being used. As well, 121 were particularly pertinent to understanding climate change impacts on biodiversity.

So we do report regularly. It's very important for getting awareness out on the issues, but it also underpins one of our core values, and that is open data. We help collect and we help create programs where volunteers can collect rigorous data. Then we do our best to make sure that data is out there and open and accessible so that everyone can use it to make conservation decisions, whether you're publishing a paper or making a change in policy.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

John, is it about the same for you folks as well?

[Dr. John Reynolds]

It's a little bit different. For COSEWIC, speaking on behalf of COSEWIC, there the.... I guess in some ways it is similar in that the scientists on the committee will decide what are the best data that we need in order to understand what the status of the species is. Those data are very often, as we've heard, citizen science data. In the case of birds, there's citizen science data in just about every single status report we ever do on birds. Much of it is of the kind that you've already heard about.

As a research scientist, there I have.... Well, it's a similar sort of decision. It's something that I and my co-authors would do. We'd say, “Are these the right data to answer our question?” Then we'd just make that decision on our own.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

The other thing is that “The State of Canada's Birds” was published in 2019, I think. I can't remember if it was John's organization or yours that did that report. When you look at a report like that, there are a lot of comments in there about agriculture and pesticides and things like that. That's fair enough, but I think there wasn't a whole lot of information on the true impact of urban sprawl.

There's another thing that I'm curious about. When you're looking at these things...and maybe this is beyond the scope of what you folks are focused on. In the area that I represent, there's got to be about 300 or 400 wind turbines that weren't there 20 years ago. Of course, my area is right along the Great Lakes. There's agriculture, there are woodlots, and there's really no mention in that report.... That's fair enough; maybe it's beyond the scope.

With things like urban sprawl and areas where there are lots of wind turbines that do impact bird populations and migratory flow, is there any thought given to including that in another report or to stating the impact of that? I'd be curious to know what either one of you thinks about that.

[Jody Allair]

I can go first.

There are a variety of impacts that affect birds.

There was a publication in Avian Conservation and Ecology, which is the journal that we co-publish here in Canada, looking at human-caused mortality factors of birds. It did document all the biggest mortality factors facing our birds, from a human perspective.

Transmission-line collisions and wind turbines were certainly on there. The most significant, though, are free-roaming cats—outdoor cats kill about 100 million birds per year in Canada—and window collisions. On average, window collisions kill 25 million birds per year in Canada, whether that's through lights being left on when they shouldn't be or bad building code designs that aren't in place for proper window fittings.

The big challenges those reports deal with are climate change and habitat loss, which are another level of threat facing a lot of these birds. The “State of Canada's Birds” report is a distillation of the numbers. It identifies the groups of birds that are most affected. It is then our job to follow up to find the correlating factors for those declines.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Corey Tochor]

Thank you kindly.

We'll now move on to the last member of Parliament for—

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

I think Mr. Nadeau may have a written submission to that answer too.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Corey Tochor]

Mr. Nadeau, if you have a desire to submit a written response, you can as well.

We go to the last member to question in this round, MP Sousa.

[Charles Sousa, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Thank you.

I appreciate all of your being here and making your presentations.

Mr. Reynolds, when you reference this international engagement, with all of these hits happening on the website, you are talking about the e-platform for iNaturalist. Is that what you're talking about? Is that where all that incoming data is coming from?

[Dr. John Reynolds]

The example of incoming data I gave you was from eBird, which is the standard global platform for submitting checklists of birds.

I told you that 16,000 checklists had been submitted today, but that's out of date. It's now 18,400, so 2,000 more have been submitted in the time we've been speaking.

[Charles Sousa, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Who actually funds it? Who manages that? Who pays for it?

[Dr. John Reynolds]

It's run out of Cornell University, and they fundraise for that.

[Charles Sousa, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

I see that iNaturalist is by California and National Geographic. I believe I just saw that on the website. There's a lot of international engagement.

Before, you were asking us to support Canadian-made and these presumably have some intellectual property, some value.

I'm interested in the Canadian content and continuing to promote a number of areas.

When I lived in Toronto, we used to have these hawks—yellow tailed or red tailed—perch themselves on our window sills and they'd bring their kill. I can't recall which is which. It was amazing to watch. There was a family of them right at Queen's Park, nestled in there.

There are the peregrine falcons that some of the cement plants down in Mississauga are trying to protect. There are even Zenaida birds—those doves that show up in certain parts. They're beautiful and they nestle together.

To your point, I do appreciate the work you're doing and appreciate then seeing some of this wildlife in our backyards and our community. In the Rattray Marsh Conservation Area, where I live, there are bird watchers everywhere. It's a big deal.

Patrick, you were mentioning breeding. Ben Lobb was talking about the urban situation and the stresses that's bringing upon us, eating away at some of this area for breeding capacity. What are we doing then? How is it that we're promoting education or enablement for some of these birds to thrive?

[Patrick Nadeau]

It's a good question.

It connects back to Mr. Lobb's question about what drives our decisions about what we're going to do with all of this citizen science data, I think, at the end of the day, our organization exists to conserve birds and to recover these birds that are part of this biodiversity collapse.

We started today by telling you that we've lost three billion birds in North America since 1970. Those birds that you're describing, that you're seeing in Toronto, in Mississauga, we want you to be able to continue to see into the future, but the trends aren't looking good.

All of our citizen science programming is set up in such a way that the outcomes can influence conservation.

Just to give you one example, just recently, with the help of the federal government, we launched Canada's network of key biodiversity areas. These are basically like the crown jewels for biodiversity in Canada. These are the most important hot spots for biodiversity in Canada. We and our partners are able to map out where those places are directly because of citizen science.

Thanks to citizen science, we've now mapped out these key biodiversity areas, and those areas are now directly informing, for example, Canada's 30 by 30 target, which the world just agreed to at COP15. These are direct conservation impacts—real-world conservation impacts—that the citizen science data is having.

[Charles Sousa, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

I mean, I look at urban sprawl. Certainly in southern Ontario with the stresses that it's bringing upon us with the Greenbelt now and the engagement, there are a lot of conservation discussions; a lot of people seem to be aware of it. How are we able to prescribe controls to support it? I mean, there's been a constant battle going on for centuries, obviously, and to your point since the 1970s, we have a massive reductions in birds and a huge increase in urbanization.

[Jody Allair]

Yes. Certainly, I can't really get into the specifics of how the sprawl's going to have particular impacts. Obviously, it's going to have very negative impacts. I think under the theme of citizen science, one of the solutions and one of the things we try to promote is engaging more people directly.

This is the beauty of citizen science: It helps us collect vast amounts of data of a really high quality to conserve birds, but it also gives people a glimpse of the scientific process and makes it accessible. However, the big one for me—and I think it touches on your question—is that it builds connections to the subject matter. It helps bridge that disconnect from the natural world, which is a big problem in our society. It creates a community of engaged volunteers.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Corey Tochor]

I'm sorry. We're out of time on this one, but you're more than welcome to write a fuller answer after the committee.

Now, moving on to the final round of two and a half minutes, we have MP Blanchette-Joncas.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I am going to direct my questions to Mr. Nadeau again.

In your presentation, you referred twice to a figure that we can't allow to go unnoticed and that no one can can help being affected by: in North America, since 1970, we have lost one bird out of four: three billion individual birds. That is huge.

That demonstrates the need to protect biodiversity and our ecosystems. One way of doing that is through science and citizen science, which we are discussing today. I commend your organization's efforts. I have looked at your various reports, and we can see that there has been extraordinary mobilization.

My question is very broad: what can we do, when it comes to public policy, to give you more help and to promote citizen science? How can we mobilize volunteers?

[Patrick Nadeau]

Thank you very much.

I can't talk about the loss of these three billion birds without getting shivers. We aren't talking about Jacques Cartier's day; we are talking about 1970. Some of us were here then. In not such a very long time, we have lost nearly a third of our birds. So we have to act. We know that human beings have contributed a lot to this decline, but we are also the ones with potential solutions.

Behind that downward trend, there are examples that give us hope. For example, in the case of the raptors, we have succeeded in reversing the trend. They are now in a better situation than in those years, because we have understood that certain pesticides we were using, in particular, were hurting them.

That proves that humans are capable of changing things, and that is directly connected with citizen science. We won't change the situation without involving the public. It takes people who have an interest in these issues and who understand them better because of their own participation.

Participatory science is science, of course, but it is also a matter of collective awareness.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Nadeau.

You are quite dynamic when you talk about public awareness and education.

I note that the podcast The Warblers is in English only. I am going to challenge you to produce one in French. We have 300 million French speakers on earth, so so I imagine you could certainly find ears that would listen attentively to what you are saying. The podcast, which I do promote, has risen in popularity worldwide and is ranked among the 100 best podcasts. That is pretty unbelievable, so I congratulate you.

I also note the extraordinary mobilization and participation rate in your organization. You talked about an eight-year-old boy who had participated in the big count. There has been a 25 per cent increase worldwide.

Can you tell us your tips and success stories? What do you do to encourage people to participate in citizen science?