May 10-12, Creston

Explore the wonderful bird biodiversity of the Creston Valley. Besides guided birding tours and family friendly kayaking on the Kootenay River, events include night outings, art workshops and visits to local food producers. Keynote speaker Dr. David Bird will present on "Watching Birds Naked", a humourous but educational slide show on the sensory ecology of birds. Remove those beautiful coats of feathers and you'll discover that birds have some of the most incredible physical and physiological adaptations to keep them in tune with their environment and with each other. As an Emeritus Professor of Wildlife Biology of McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Dr. Bird has published close to 200 peer-reviewed scientific papers and supervised 50 graduate students on a wide range of wildlife themes, most recently the application of UAVs (drones) to wildlife research and conservation. Online registration and in-person registration at the College of the Rockies opens first week of April 2019.

Click here for event details and online registration.

Regulated waterways provide important services such as flood regulation, power generation with low greenhouse gas emissions, and energy storage. Nevertheless, the damming and regulation of rivers incurs ecological costs via the operation of reservoirs and alteration of downstream flows, combined with the often permanent loss of valley bottom habitat. Regulation affects both upstream (reservoir) and downstream environments, and does so at a range of scales. An increase in smaller hydro-electric (i.e. run-of-river) projects has led to a spike in research around their unique impacts, and many of these projects are concluding their 5-10 year monitoring programs. Several multi-year studies on large reservoir systems (e.g., Arrow Lakes and Kinbasket) in the Columbia River basin are also now nearing completion and these results may play a role in determining future operational scenarios under the Columbia River Treaty. Despite their large footprints, considerable ecological function remains in these regulated systems. The wealth of research that continues to emerge increases our understanding of ecosystem processes within regulated rivers with the potential to mitigate footprint and operational impacts to plants, fish, and wildlife.  This 2019 conference, which is a follow-up to the 2015 "Regulated Rivers: Environment, Ecology and Management" conference held in Castlegar, will provide a platform for the dissemination of findings to peers, First Nations, stakeholders, students, and community members from studies that are nearing completion or have been completed since 2015.

The KCP Fall Gathering & AGM serves as one of the primary vehicles to connect and re-connect KCP partners from across the region, complete with a guest speakers series, field tour, catered meals and more at no cost to attendees.