Biology PhD Student awarded the Nature NL Wild Things Scholarship for 2019
Nature NL is pleased to announce that Travis R. Heckford (St. John’s, NL) has been awarded the 2019 Wild Things Scholarship. Travis’ application stood out among his peers this year for his volunteer efforts on behalf of the biological communities of NL, and for his enthusiastic support for sharing his knowledge with the broader public and, especially, the young people of this province.
Over the past few years, Travis has volunteered his time with Nature NL’s Nature Nook program at The Rooms, and has designed and run several all-volunteer citizen science projects, including a a mobile phone app to record Canada lynx sightings across NL in support of future studies of lynx ecology and population dynamics. Most recently, Travis partnered with Bird Studies Canada’s Nocturnal Owl Survey (NOS) as their NL contact, for which he designs the survey routes and coordinates the volunteer surveys. In addition to these activities and his full university research load, Travis also serves the local environmental and wildlife community through board positions with the NL chapter of The Wildlife Society (NLTWS, for which he is also a founding member), and the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, NL chapter (CPAWS-NL). Recently, you may have seen Travis’ raising his voice on behalf of local ecological issues such as the conservation of federally-listed boreal felt lichen in areas slated for development, for which he has co-authored letters to Ministers, and published his recommendations in the Telegram.
His advisor, Biology Professor Yolanda Wiersma, writes, “Travis has a clear commitment to conservation science and is passionate about [actively] engaging the public. His contributions to multiple citizen science initiatives in this province will create valuable data for researchers and conservation managers, while also engaging the public in conservation issues in meaningful ways. Initiating a citizen science project and curating various website is not a trivial task and the contributions from these volunteer efforts that Travis has made over the past three years will be felt for many years to come.”