Where the wild things are

The Northern Map turtles that live in Lake Opinicon in southeastern Ontario have grown up with a 50-year-old research station perched on the lake's shores.

Grégory Bulté, who studied the long-living turtles for his doctoral work, is among the researchers from seven universities in the U.S. and Canada who rely on the Queen's University Biological Station for access to wildlife as well as a place to eat, sleep and do laundry.

But the field station lost 30 per cent of its budget this year when a federal agency altered its funding focus — a shift that has forced similar research stations across the country to scramble for new sources of support.

Undergraduates at the Queen's University Biological Station identifying and measuring fish as part of an applied wildlife ecology course.

The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council announced earlier this year it would only fund field stations that support research that is national or international in scope.

To survive the funding cut, the Queen's University research station and others have to find a way to generate revenue.

Research station administrators also have to find ways to prove to other potential sponsors that, while their facilities may not demonstrate cutting-edge technology, they are still necessary to help build up Canada's knowledge base.

The importance of being earners

Albrecht Schulte-Hostedde, director of the Wildlife Research Station in Algonquin Park and an ecology professor at Laurentian University, says this change in funding is the wake-up call they needed.

"Our station was run in a way that was status quo for a very long time," says Schulte-Hostedde.  As a result of NSERC's decision, he says, "Users were stimulated to rethink what the field station was about." His station is now working with the Friends of Algonquin Park, a non-profit organization that introduces visitors to the natural history of the provincial park.

Together, the staff at the research station and the Friends of Algonquin Park organized a "Meet the Researchers" day for park visitors.

"Six hundred [people] came last year," says Schulte-Hostedde. "And that was with relatively little advertising."

Last month, 50 researchers from across the country, including 10 field station directors, met for a workshop on sharing best practices, networking and finding common ways to support their respective work.

They founded the Canadian Field Research Net, a platform for research stations across the country to collaborate as they wean themselves off NSERC funding.

Lessons learned

Field stations are not only looking for creative ways to interest the public in what they do, they also need to convince potential sponsors that the services they provide teachers, students and researchers are valuable.

A recent report by the Council of Canadian Academies, a non-profit organization in Ottawa that monitors progress in scientific research, shows the country is lagging behind in identifying and classifying its biodiversity.

Field stations contribute to that kind of research by giving naturalists access to natural environments to do those studies.

"Users were stimulated to rethink what the field station was about."                                           – Albrecht Schulte-Hostedde

One way to encourage students to consider a career in the natural sciences is to offer field courses.

Bulté has taught and assisted undergraduate students in two courses over the past five years.

"When we start out, most students can't tell the difference between trout and bass," says Bulté, who guides groups in a course on applied wildlife ecology for two weeks every summer.

The students have to record their data and observations. They spend at least 12 hours a day with their instructors, sometimes extending their research discussions over dinner.

They also get a sense of how conservation works. Students learn what it takes to identify critical habitats — the kinds of habitats that are vital to endangered species.

By the end of the two weeks, says Bulté, "students taking the course say it's the best they've ever taken."

Adam Brown of the University of Ottawa teaching insect- sampling techniques to undergraduates in the field.

For the research station, the positive feedback is encouraging, because field courses haul in money.

Heroes in a half shell

For his doctoral thesis, Bulté studied how invasive species, powerboats and contaminants affect Lake Opinicon's Northern Map turtles.

To follow them and find out where they swim, breed, feed and grow, Bulté would capture some turtles, take them to the lab and surgically implant a radiotransmitter into each one.

Because the lab was near the lake, the turtles spent very little time away from their habitat. That meant Bulté could monitor them with little damage to their health.

"It would be difficult to do that in a protected area," says Bulté, referring to wildlife reserves where researchers need to cross lots of red tape to do their fieldwork.

When we start out, most students can't tell the difference between trout and bass.              – Grégory Bulté

"It would be logistically challenging, but also stressful to the animals," he says.

For Bulté, now a postdoctoral fellow at Carleton University, bursts of funding are not a viable way to conduct long-term research. His work helps inform conservation groups and park managers who want to protect the species.

To really understand an animal's niche in its environment, he says, you have to study it for a long time, and sustained funding is the way to do it.

Wet, wild and woolly

What is the link between field stations and museums? Many researchers who track or observe wildlife in their natural habitat collect samples for further study. Sometimes they send the samples to museums for their collections.

Capital News tracks down specimens that made it to the Canadian Museum of Nature's research and collections facility. But why do we need all this stuff?