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In this paper, we attempt to do a kind of theorizing that we think is compatible with new materialisms. To do this we explore the idea of what it might be to separate "ontos-" from "-logos," and give suggestions to readers for ways of experiencing this idea. We posit that it is not only possible to make diffractive "readings" and re-readings of texts, but also that experiences themselves can provide a diffractive context for "ontos." Thus, not only can different concepts held in the forefront of our minds allow us to encounter, interpret, and understand differently but so too can positioning and entangling ourselves differently. As such we will ask the reader to do things beyond simply reading the text as they engage this paper. We also tell stories, two from an Anishinaabe knowledge keeper of Chris's acquaintance, to provide another way for shifting conceptualizing towards a different ontological position compatible with an immanent materialist position. We explore the capacity of words to tell a story about experiences that are inherently non-verbal, in which human I-ness shares a being state with what are normally thought to be separable objects in the natural world. The paper concludes with a short discussion of pedagogy in light of this discussion/action.

The article discusses the animal welfare issues related to puppy mills in Canada. It states that it received a lot of attention from the public and slowed the importation into Canadian dogs from puppy mills in the U.S. It mentions that although it decreased the importation of dogs from the U.S., it resulted in an increase in the number of Canadian puppy mills and local bred dogs from new puppy mills.

This paper describes a unique collaborative action research project that brings together members of the [q virgule suscrite] [i-acute] [c-acute] [schwa][y-acute] (Katzie) First Nation, post-secondary and K-12 communities, as well as foresters and environmentalists, to restore creeks that have been compromised by land use impacts, forest removal, and global warming. Identifying creek restoration as a site for multi-system change and wholistic re/conciliation, we explored the following questions: How can we bring together members of our diverse communities to learn about the dire condition of our watershed and take action to help Salmon? How might this collaborative work strengthen community relationships? What contextual factors enable and impede the enactment of our vison? Through iterative cycles of action and reflection, intentional trial and error, conversational inquiry, and storytelling, we identified 'guideposts' that will inform our work moving forward. Our research has illuminated structural changes that could enhance environmental justice for Salmon, such as empowering the caretakers of creeks and rivers since time immemorial as sovereign leaders of restorative projects, affirming the rights of the Land and other sentient beings to receive care, developing leadership structures that serve to unite (rather than polarize) citizens in addressing environmental problems, and forming diverse relational webs that exceed partnerships. Action research, informed by Indigenous worldviews, can play a pivotal role in supporting communities in assuming relational responsibility in caring for the Land and one another. As Donna Haraway (2016) contends, it is time to 'make kin' outside of our genetic and ancestral ties to 'change the story'.

This study draws on Martha Nussbaum's (2000) account of the nature of human well-being in order to explore the role of animals in formal education settings. Nussbaum's capabilities approach identifies the ability "to have concern for and live with other animals, plants and the environment" (p. 80) as a necessary component for well-being. Yet, this condition of well-being remains largely unexplored in education despite research that suggests many potential social and health benefits of dog-human interaction. This paper describes the effects of a unique, Canadian school-based cooperative education program in which students work with animals for high school credit. The qualitative research design is based on interviews, students' own stories of the impact of animal interaction--particularly in light of other challenges they faced academically and socially. Research results, support other empirical accounts of positive effects of animals in education settings, and offer insight into the nature of human-animal interaction as a component of well-being within a vocationally-oriented program.

Considering (a) the many potential connections between hunting, culture, and environmental thought, (b) how much hunters have contributed to the conservation movement and to the protection of a viable land base, and (c) renewed interest in hunting as part of the wider movement toward eating local, non-industrialized food, we seek to bring hunting out of the margins and into a more visible role as a legitimate focus for environmental learning. To dig beneath the sometimes dismissive stereotypes that often marginalize hunters and hunting, and to explore hunting as a practice of ecological learning, we went straight to the source--we went hunting. Through narrative inquiry, this paper explores the ecological learning experienced in the context of a weeklong pronghorn antelope hunt in traditional Cheyenne and Arapahoe hunting territory in central Wyoming. By juxtaposing four voices, we recreate the hunting cycle and make meaning of our experience learning about ourselves, our environment, our food, and the more-than-human world.

This paper explores the pedagogical benefits of combining remote winter wilderness travel and homestead living with reading, writing, and listening to personal narratives from the expedition region. A co-taught interdisciplinary university course will be used as a case study to demonstrate the ways in which this approach aids in developing place-consciousness--an awareness of storied landscapes--as well as the skills and mentality required for directly living with the land. It is our hope that the interdisciplinary content and experiential pedagogy employed in this course will enable students to re-establish vital relationships with nature that have been lost in our increasingly urban and technologically dominated lives. We will also discuss the use of uncommon and potentially controversial practices in our program such as fishing and hunting for food, and observing the skinning of wolves, that we believe are important elements of becoming genuinely place-conscious in the region of the Canadian north we study and visit. Tensions between our stated philosophies and actual practices are also revealed and examined.

This paper describes the partial results of a research project which investigated conceptions of nature and the role of place in environmental education in children who attended Camp Arowhon. Through interviews and observations, utilizing a hybrid research drawing from phenomenography and ethnography, local common wild animals emerged as playing an important role in campers' embodied connection to place. Through structured "nature programs" and unstructured "free-play," campers discovered and increased their familiarity of common local animals. Using the deleuzeoguattarian concept of "becoming," these interactions are proposed to serve as a starting point through which a child can move on to engage with increasingly abstract aspects of the natural world. Implications for urban environmental education, where these children spend the majority of their year, are discussed. (Contains 3 tables and 7 notes.)

Classroom pet programs have become extremely popular in urban North American early childhood classrooms. This article challenges anthropocentric child-pet pedagogies by proposing common world pedagogies of "staying with the trouble." Drawing from a common world multispecies ethnography in one early childhood centre, the authors engage with the specificities of educators' and children's everyday practices of caring for and detaching from an introduced species of Vietnamese walking stick insects. The paper argues that the child-pet-educator relations that emerged through these practices are a site at which to trace and disentangle commodified relations of enclosure and invasion in urban nature pedagogies within anthropogenically damaged places. We conclude by suggesting that classroom pet pedagogies need to enact a more-than-human relational ethics which subverts child development discourses and unsettles children and animals as innocent couplings.

This paper focuses on the implications of two emerging digital technologies on the act of field birding, and the implications of these objects for thinking about wild birds. While the adoption of new immaterial technologies promises to improve the ease with which birding is practiced, their use leads to new ethical considerations. Using the Internet to share bird sightings, for example, lowers the barrier of entry to access this information. Therefore, bird sightings proliferate, often with little thought to the consequences of birders visiting the reported birds' location. A digital image, captured by digital cameras, perhaps marks the greatest change. With the adoption of a digital camera the nature of identification is effectively changed: captured images remove birds from the field and their broader ecological context. Given that birding is proposed as a way for western culture to reconnect with the more-than-human world, these digital objects promise to redefine a relationship with birds and the larger natural world. (Contains 1 note.)

Although information has become increasingly prevalent in young people's lives, minimal research has addressed children's attitudes to the word itself. This paper scrutinizes questionnaire-based data to explore how 45 eight- to ten-year-old Canadians understood the term. "Information" was often considered to be material that met a need, covered particular territory or was associated with action by an individual. The youngsters identified many features they believed characteristic of "good information"; where these requirements were not met the material was frequently deemed "bad information". The research findings have implications for teachers and librarians, as well as for researchers investigating children's information needs. (Contains 3 tables.)

Purpose--Sociocultural learning theories, usually premised on participation in some community, explain workplace learning well up to a certain extent. The paper aims to extend beyond these and to account for learning in repetitive and mundane work environments from a dialectical perspective. Design/methodology/approach--Based on a longitudinal ethnographic study of one salmon hatchery in Canada and the fish culturists that work there, theory (dialectics) is blended with empirical fieldwork (interview data, participant observation data, field notes). Codes that emerged were classified into categories that formed the basis for the tentative hypotheses. Findings--Two assertions are proposed concerning learning from a dialectical perspective: the dialectic of doing (actions might seem repetitive but are in fact always different and productive in nature) and the dialectic of understanding and explaining (practical understanding develops dialectically with conceptual understanding when the latter is subjected to scrutiny). These can account for learning in places that at first sight are not conducive to change and transformation. Research limitations/implications--Using the proposed framework, researchers/management can no longer get at individual learning independent of collective learning, which simultaneously is the effect and cause of individual learning. That is, individual and collective are inseparable ontologically. Practical implications--The study suggests a need to rethink the nature and possibilities of learning in mundane work environments that are believed to be widespread. Originality/value--Approaches workplace learning from a dialectical, hermeneutical perspective that is not widely appreciated. Affirms the dignity of workers.

With the recent developments surrounding R v DLW and the legal interpretation of 'bestiality' before the Supreme Court of Canada, animal law organizations such as Animal Justice insist that Canadians must recognize their obligation to protect the most vulnerable beings in their care, and not subject them to abuse. We argue that there were many avenues of interpretation open to the Supreme Court in adjudicating and addressing the legal definition of bestiality. The majority of the Supreme Court ultimately adopted a conservative approach to statutory interpretation. A strict legal construction and focus on original intent of Parliament foreclosed development of the law towards legal recognition of animal sentience and the concomitant implications for animal rights in Canadian law. In this paper we consider various routes by which a more progressive interpretation of bestiality could have been constructed by the Supreme Court of Canada. When the Supreme Court of Canada concluded that bestiality could only be interpreted as a penetrative offence, it avoided the chance for incremental legal change that could have contributed to the ways Canadians, laypersons, and legal professionals recognized animal consciousness. Animal protection and legal animal welfare apparati in Canada still remain relatively adrift, and less developed than in countries like New Zealand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that interspecies justice is integral to rising decolonizing nationalist 'reconciliation' efforts in Canada and that such an interspecies perspective on reconciliation carries a significant promise for developing a new legal subjectivity for animals in settler colonial law to change the conditions of the lives of animals materially. I demonstrate that the personhood ascribed to animals in numerous Indigenous legal orders in Canada, as well as underlying non-anthropocentric worldviews where animals are not considered inferior to humans but are to be regarded as kin, should stimulate a new legal conversation in Canadian law about who/what animals are and the legal subjectivity and regard they merit among all those committed to reconciliation. Indigenous legal orders offer animal advocates a new and potentially transformative legal argument as to why the continued legal classification of animals as a property in Canadian law is exploitative and incompatible with a dominant legal order seeking to foster genuine reconciliation. Notwithstanding the residual anthropocentric elements of Indigenous worldviews promoting 'respectful' or 'reciprocal' relations with animals, and how such elements might be co-opted by settler society, this new reconciliation-originating animal-friendly argument has the potential, if adopted, to alter the material conditions of lives of many animals, most notably in intensive agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Arising out of fieldwork in the Canadian Rockies, this paper analyzes the role of bears in the conservation culture of Canadian national parks. Why is the presence of this large predator tolerated and even celebrated by some? And why do others fear and even despise this animal, whom they see as a danger and a menace, and resent its continued preservation? Bears may act as a token charismatic species in conservation mythology; they may be anthropomorphized into a cuddly roadside attraction evoking childhood nostalgia; or they may play the part of wrathful Nature guarding against human incursion into the wilderness. Tourists in Banff National Park take great pains to see bears, while local hikers and campers expend almost equal energy avoiding an ursine encounter. This paper explores what human reactions to bears reveal about social attitudes toward the natural world, particularly in areas like the Canadian Rockies where human and bear territory overlap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a sampling design for monitoring spatial and temporal changes in forest health in the Upper Elbow River Basin, in Alberta, Canada. The procedure involved a combination of cumulative effects assessment and remote sensing techniques for selecting sampling sites based on physical and anthropogenic features. Normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) was the indicator of forest health. Unique combinations of slope, aspect, soil moisture, NDVI, vegetation type, and the zone of influence of human activities were used to select pairs of sampling sites. Each pair consisted of a site within the zone of influence and one outside the zone. Spatial discrimination analysis was the method used for reclassification. The analysis suggested that 58 pairs would be appropriate for monitoring. NVDI was negatively correlated with dry soils and increased with the slope. To various extents, most of the species displayed NDVI values between 0.20 and 0.59. The density of linear disturbances (km/km2) was estimated and it showed that one of the three sub-catchments, the Bragg Creek, has levels of human disturbance above the value considered optimal for wildlife habitat suitability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Photography is an integral component in the observation of fauna in protected areas (Russell, 1995; Shackley, 1998). The importance of photography to wildlife tourism should come as no surprise since the relationship between photography and tourism has been well documented (Albers & James, 1988; Chalfen, 1979; Neumann, 1992). Behavioural observations and interviews conducted with polar bear viewers visiting the Churchill Wildlife Management Area near Churchill, Manitoba revealed motivations closely resembling what some authors have termed as ocular consumption (Lee, 2001; Ryan et al., 1999). This paper examines the relation between photography, the wildlife tourist gaze, and ocular consumption, and applies these concepts to one particular field setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a paucity of data on the reason for and the quantity of antimicrobials used in broiler chickens in Canada. To address this, the Canadian Integrated Program for Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance (CIPARS) implemented surveillance of antimicrobial use (AMU) and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in broiler chicken flocks in 2013. Shortly after this (2014), the poultry industry banned the preventive use of ceftiofur in broiler chickens. The objectives of this analysis were to describe antimicrobial use (AMU) in Canadian broiler chickens between 2013 and 2015 (n = 378 flocks), compare these results to other animal species in Canada, to highlight the utility of farm surveillance data to evaluate the impact of a policy change, and to explore how different antimicrobial use metrics might affect data interpretation and communication. The surveillance data indicated that the poultry industry policy resulted in lower antimicrobial use and resistance, and they successfully captured information on when, where, why, and how much antimicrobials were being used. The majority of antimicrobials were administered via the feed (95%). The relative frequency of antimicrobial classes used in broiler chickens differed from those used in swine or in food animal production in general. Coccidiostats were the most frequently used antimicrobial classes (53% of total kg). Excluding coccidiostats, the top three most frequently used antimicrobial classes were bacitracin (53% of flocks), virginiamycin (25%) and avilamycin (21%), mainly used for the prevention of necrotic enteritis. Depending on the AMU metric utilized, the relative rankings of the top antimicrobials changed; hence the choice of the AMU metric is an important consideration for any AMU reporting. When using milligrams/Population Correction Unit (mg/PCU) the top three antimicrobial classes used were bacitracins (76 mg/PCU), trimethoprim-sulfonamides (24 mg/PCU), and penicillins (15 mg/PCU), whereas when using a number of Defined Daily Doses in animals using Canadian standards /1,000 chicken-days at risk (nDDDvetCA/1,000 CD) the ranking was bacitracins (223 nDDDvetCA/1,000 CD), streptogramins (118 nDDDvetCA/1,000 CD), and trimethoprim-sulfonamides (87 nDDDvetCA/1,000 CD). The median animal treatment days in feed for one cycle (ATD/cycle) during the three-year study were 34 ATD/cycle; this was equal to the mean age of the flocks at pre-harvest sampling day (days at risk), indicating that the studied flocks except those that were raised without antibiotics and organic, were fed with medicated rations throughout the observation period. Overall, more than half (59%) of antimicrobials used in broiler chickens were in classes not used in human medicine, such as ionophores and chemical coccidiostats aimed to prevent coccidiosis. Compared to grower-finisher pigs and in production animal species (national sales data), the mg/PCU of antimicrobials used in broiler chickens was relatively lower. The findings of this paper highlighted the importance of farm-level AMU surveillance in measuring the impact of interventions to reduce antimicrobials in poultry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper analyzes the introduction and development of irrigation agriculture in the lower Bow River region, Alberta, Canada. Sponsored by the Canadian Pacific Railroad (CPR) and the Canadian federal government, irrigation promised to transform semi-arid prairie into a densely settled countryside. After 1900, a mixture of policies and practices pioneered elsewhere were deployed to create the largest irrigation project of its kind in North America. Settlers faced difficult economic conditions, however, and fell into conflict with the CPR. The system as a whole experienced a range of environmental changes as irrigation water altered the land and produced new conditions for flora and fauna. By 1930, the irrigation project experienced high levels of settler abandonment and deep fiscal problems. The circumstances of the Bow River case suggest the particular qualities of social and environmental changes initiated by irrigation agriculture in the Canadian prairies, but they also provide the basis to consider comparatively the processes and difficulties attending irrigation expansion in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century world. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Although measures of evenness of archaeological faunas are increasingly used in zooarchaeological analyses, the widely accepted hypothesis that increasing evenness should indicate increasing dietary breadth has not been tested. In this paper, I examine three factors that can contribute to changing evenness values—changing encounter rates with high-ranked prey types, changing diet breadth, and similarity between the return rates of the highest-ranked resources—and discuss ways of controlling the latter two factors. I then test the “evenness hypothesis” using ethnographic data collected by Smith [E.A. Smith, Evolutionary Ecology and the Analysis of Human Foraging Behavior: An Inuit Example from the East Coast of Hudson Bay, Ph.D. thesis, Cornell University, 1980, E.A. Smith, Inujjamiut Foraging Strategies: Evolutionary Ecology of an Arctic Hunting Economy, Aldine de Gruyter, Hawthorne, NY, 1991] in Inukjuak, northern Canada. Although the results support the evenness hypothesis, they also show that the nature of archaeological data may make evenness measures difficult to use accurately. Evenness can be used to understand changing prehistoric encounter rates with prey, but many conditions must be met for it to do so. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The global offtake of wild animals is valued at US$400 billion annually and supports the livelihoods of 15% of the global population. Wetlands are amongst the most important ecosystems globally, but offtake may represent a substantial pressure. This study assessed the availability of information and evaluated the offtake of wild animals from wetlands by focussing on fish and waterbirds. A literature search identified 2726 studies on wetland offtake. Scoping of these resulted in 82 studies that contained quantitative information on fish or waterbird offtake. Fishing offtake statistics for inland waters are collated nationally by some governments, but other sources of information are few. Reporting of fish offtake for species or across scales was constrained by insufficient detail, even in relatively well-documented countries such as Bangladesh. Although government hunting statistics from Europe and North America were available, there was little waterbird data from less economically developed countries. The case of Canada indicated that the species richness and composition of waterbirds taken varied between indigenous subsistence and recreational hunting communities. Hidden (unquantified) offtake, of both fish and waterbirds, hinders obtaining precise data for offtake, which may threaten the conservation of species and the sustainability of wetland ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A Delphi exercise involving 17 senior national parks' biologists in the United States of America and Canada examined how evolving concepts of wildlife health resonated with Parks' needs. Participants examined wildlife health as a multi-factorial cumulative effect that provides capacity to cope with a changing world. They agreed that this concept of health was consistent with Parks' goals and provided insight on various aspects of wildlife health in national parks. Social and environmental determinants of health were perceived to be greater threats to wildlife health than etiological hazards such as pathogens, the more typical focus of wildlife health efforts. While social and anthropogenic factors are primary drivers of these threats, participants did not explicitly rank social variables as the more important drivers of wildlife health nor did the majority view health as a social construct. The results clearly show support for moving toward a contemporary approach of wildlife health management, as opposed to disease management, and for the need of collective, team-based approaches to protecting the suite of determinants of health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores some rare sides of twin research. The focus of this article is the sad plight of the Dionne quintuplets, born in Canada in 1934. However, several other studies belong in this category, such as Dr Josef Mengele's horrifying twin research conducted at the Auschwitz concentration camp, Dr John Money's misguided attempt to turn an accidentally castrated male twin into a female, Russian scientists' cruel medical study of conjoined female twins and Dr Peter Neubauer's secret project that tracked the development of separated twins. Reviews of current twin research span twins' representation of self-image, twins with Kleine-Levin Syndrome, heteropaternal twinning in lemurs and factors affecting risk of dental caries. Media coverage includes a pair of high-society models, a book about the 'Winkelevii' twins, Super Bowl twin teammates, a family with three sets of fraternal twins, a twin sister surrogate and a near presidential twin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The number of rabid terrestrial animals in Ontario has decreased markedly since the 1970s and 1980s. However, the number of recommended rabies postexposure prophylaxis (RPEP) courses has not decreased proportionally. The decision to recommend RPEP for terrestrial animal exposures should be based on a risk assessment that considers the prevalence of rabies in these animals within a jurisdiction, among other factors.Objective: To explore trends in RPEP recommendations for exposures to terrestrial animals in Ontario in relation to the recency of terrestrial animal rabies cases by public health unit (PHU) jurisdiction.Methods: RPEP recommendation data for the 36 Ontario PHUs were obtained from the Ontario integrated Public Health Information System and animal rabies data by PHU were obtained from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry. We calculated the annual RPEP recommendation rates for terrestrial animals by PHU for 2014 to 2016, and plotted the 2016 rates in relation to the year of the most recently identified rabid terrestrial animal in the PHU.Results: Between 2014 and 2016, the annual RPEP recommendation rates for terrestrial animal exposures by PHU ranged from 3.0 to 35.2 per 100,000 persons, with a median of 11.9 RPEP recommendations per 100,000 persons. In 2016, ten PHUs had not identified a rabid terrestrial animal in their jurisdiction for more than15 years. Five of these PHUs had RPEP recommendation rates above the provincial median.Conclusion: Along with other factors, consideration of the occurrence of rabies in terrestrial animals in a jurisdiction can assist in the risk assessment of dogs, cats or ferrets that are not available for subsequent observation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While there is no denying that oil sands development in the Athabasca Oil Sands Region (AOSR) has large impacts upon the habitat it disturbs, developers are legally required to return this land to “an equivalent land capability.” While still early in the process of reclamation, land undergoing reclamation offers an opportunity to study factors influencing reclamation success, as well as how reclaimed ecosystems function. As such, an Early Successional Wildlife Dynamics (ESWD) program was created to study how wildlife return to and use reclaimed upland boreal habitat in the AOSR. Wildlife data comprising 182 taxa of mammals, birds, and amphibians, collected between 2011 and 2017 and from five oil sands leases, were compared from multiple habitat types (burned [BRN], cleared [CLR], compensation lakes [COMP], logged [LOG], mature forest [MF], and reclaimed sites [REC]). Overall, similarity of wildlife communities in REC and MF plots varied greatly, even at 33 years since reclamation (31–62% with an average of 52%). However, an average community similarity of 52% so early in the successional process suggests that current reclamation efforts are progressing towards increased similarity compared to mature forest plots. Conversely, our data suggest that REC plots are recovering differently than plots impacted by natural (BRN) or other anthropogenic disturbances (LOG), which is likely due to differences associated with soil reconstruction and development on reclaimed plots. Regardless of the developmental trajectory of reclaimed habitats, progression towards increased wildlife community similarity at REC and MF plots is apparent in our data. While there is no expectation that reclaimed upland habitats will resemble or function identically to naturally occurring boreal forest, the degree of similarity observed in our study suggests that comparable ecological functionality is possible, increasing the probability that oil sands operators will be able to fulfill their regulatory requirements and duty to reclaim regarding wildlife and wildlife habitat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The abundance of ungulate populations may fluctuate in response to several limiting factors, including climate, diseases, and predation. In the northern Richardson Mountains, Canada, Dall sheep (Ovis dalli dalli) have undergone a major decline in the past decades and predation by grizzly bears (Ursus arctos) and wolves (Canis lupus) was suspected as a leading cause. To better understand the relationship between these three species located in this rugged and remote ecosystem, we relied on a combination of indirect methods. We investigated the apparent role of predation on the Dall sheep population using spatial ecology and stable isotopes. We examined seasonal variation in predation risk, focusing on how it may affect Dall sheep habitat use and sexual segregation, and we evaluated the proportion of Dall sheep in the diet of both predators using stable isotopes. The movements of the three species were monitored by satellite telemetry. Dall sheep habitat use patterns were analyzed using topographical features, greenness index, land cover, and apparent predation risk. The diets of grizzly bears and wolves were examined using a Bayesian mixing model for carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes. We found that Dall sheep habitat use varied seasonally, with different patterns for ewes and rams. Exposure to grizzly bear risk was higher for rams during summer, while ewes were further exposed to wolf apparent predation risk during winter. The importance of safe habitats for ewes was reflected in space use patterns. Stable isotopes analyses suggested that the diet of grizzly bears was largely from animal sources, with mountain mammals comprising about one quarter. Wolves mostly fed on both aquatic browsers and mountain mammals. Diet variation between individual predators suggested that some individuals specialized on mountain mammals, likely including Dall sheep. We conclude that grizzly bear and wolf apparent predation risk are important in driving Dall sheep habitat use and play a role in sexual segregation. Overall, this study presents an innovative combination of indirect methods that could be applied elsewhere to better understand predator-prey dynamics in remote ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A recent study demonstrated that semipalmated sandpiper (Calidris pusilla) wing lengths have shortened from the 1980s to the present-day. We examined alternative and untested hypotheses for this change at an important stopover site, James Bay, Ontario, Canada. We evaluated morphometric patterns in wing length and bill length by age and sex, when possible, and assessed if wing shape has also changed during this time-period. We investigated patterns of morphological change in two additional Calidridine sandpipers, white-rumped sandpipers (Calidris fuscicollis) and least sandpipers (Calidris minutilla), to determine if shorter wing lengths are a widespread pattern in small sandpipers. We also examined allometric changes in wing and bill lengths to clarify if wing length declines were consistent with historical scaling relationships and indicative of a change in body size instead of only wing length change. We found that including sex and wing shape in analyses revealed important patterns in morphometric change for semipalmated sandpipers. Wing lengths declined for both sexes, but the magnitude of decline was smaller and not significant for males. Additionally, semipalmated sandpiper wings have become more convex, a shape that increases maneuverability in flight. Wing lengths, but not bill lengths, declined for most species and age classes, a pattern that was inconsistent with historical allometric scaling relationships. For juvenile semipalmated sandpipers, however, both bill and wing lengths declined according to historical scaling relationships, which could be a consequence of nutritional stress during development or a shift in the proportion of birds from smaller-sized, western breeding populations. Except for juvenile semipalmated sandpipers, we did not find evidence for an increase in the proportion of birds from different breeding populations at the stopover site. Given the wide, hemispheric distribution of these sandpipers throughout their annual cycles, our results, paired with those from a previous study, provide evidence for wide-spread reduction in wing lengths of Calidridine sandpipers since the 1980s. The shorter wing lengths and more convex wing shapes found in this study support the hypothesis that selection has favored more maneuverable wing morphology in small sandpipers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tree cavities provide a critical resource for cavity-nesting animals, and high quality cavities can be difficult for animals to acquire in habitats where competition is high. We investigated the breeding performance of Lewis's Woodpeckers in three habitat types in British Columbia, Canada in 2013 and 2014. We also assessed whether the number of nest competitors and cavity availability influenced the habitat specific breeding performance of this threatened cavity nesting species. We found that daily nest survival rate was lower in burned habitat (0.15 ± 0.08 (0.05–0.37)) than in live pine (0.72 ± 0.10 (0.51–0.87)) or cottonwood (0.69 ± 0.09 (0.51–0.83)) habitats. However, hatching success (the proportion of eggs that hatch) was lower in live pine habitat (0.59 ± 0.09 95% CI) than burned (0.77 ± 0.19 95% CI) or cottonwood (0.80 ± 0.07 95% CI) habitat, and the fledging success of successful nests in live pine and burned habitat (1.86 ± 0.31 and 1.88 ± 0.59 95% CI, respectively) was slightly lower than in cottonwood habitat (2.61 ± 0.45 95% CI). Consequently, Lewis's Woodpeckers in cottonwood habitat produced more fledglings per nesting attempt (2.05 ± 0.49 95% CI) than in live pine (1.53 ± 0.35 95% CI) or burned (0.79 ± 0.49 95% CI) habitat. Habitats differed in the number of nesting competitors and the number of suitable cavities surrounding active Lewis's Woodpecker nests. Our results showed that cavity density best explained breeding performance differences although the mechanisms remain unclear. There was no evidence that the number of heterospecific nest competitors, including the invasive European Starling (Sturnus vulgaris), explained or influenced Lewis's Woodpecker breeding performance. Cavity density influenced the productivity of successful nests but did not explain habitat differences in hatching success or daily nest survival. Further work is required to understand the mechanistic basis for the habitat specific breeding performance of Lewis's Woodpeckers. Habitat differences in breeding performance in British Columbia are not consistent with those in other regions, highlighting the importance of regionally-specific demographic data for managing species at risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currently, a total of 267 stonefly species are known for Canada. The biodiversity hotspot of Canadian stoneflies is British Columbia with at least 138 species, nearly 52% of all species known from Canada. Four families, the Perlodidae, Capniidae, Chloroperlidae, and Nemouridae, contain nearly 75% of all species known to occur in Canada. The family with the fewest species represented in Canada is the Peltoperlidae. The stonefly fauna of Canada consists of two major faunal assemblages, west and east. The western clade consists of those species inhabiting Manitoba, all provinces to the west, and the three territories. The eastern clade consists of species from Ontario eastward. The two clades share only 29 species (10.9% of the Canadian total), suggesting a separate origin for each clade. The available taxonomic literature for the stoneflies of Canada is reviewed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emerald Basin on the Scotian Shelf off Nova Scotia, Canada, is home to a globally unique aggregation of the glass sponge Vazella pourtalesi, first documented in the region in 1889. In 2009, Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) implemented two Sponge Conservation Areas to protect these sponge grounds from bottom fishing activities. Together, the two conservation areas encompass 259 km2. In order to ascertain the degree to which the sponge grounds remain unprotected, we modelled the presence probability and predicted range distribution of V. pourtalesi on the Scotian Shelf using random forest modelling on presence-absence records. With a high degree of accuracy the random forest model predicted the highest probability of occurrence of V. pourtalesi in the inner basins on the central Scotian Shelf, with lower probabilities at the shelf break and in the Fundian and Northeast Channels. Bottom temperature was the most important determinant of its distribution in the model. Although the two DFO Sponge Conservation Areas protect some of the more significant concentrations of V. pourtalesi, much of its predicted distribution remains unprotected (over 99%). Examination of the hydrographic conditions in Emerald Basin revealed that the V. pourtalesi sponge grounds are associated with a warmer and more saline water mass compared to the surrounding shelf. Reconstruction of historical bottom temperature and salinity in Emerald Basin revealed strong multi-decadal variability, with average bottom temperatures varying by 8°C. We show that this species has persisted in the face of this climatic variability, possibly indicating how it will respond to future climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Zoology is the property of Canadian Science Publishing and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article focuses on the mercury exposure management in northern Canadian communities. Topics mentioned include the physiological effects of mercury exposure, the importance of public health management, and the effects of food insecurity and nutritional concerns on the efforts to reduce mercury exposure. Also mentioned was the survey on the blood mercury concentrations to selected women and children.

Preventing the introduction and establishment of forest invasive alien species (FIAS) such as the Asian gypsy moth (AGM) is a high-priority goal for countries with extensive forest resources such as Canada. The name AGM designates a group of closely related Lymantria species (Lepidoptera: Erebidae: Lymantriinae) comprising two L. dispar subspecies (L. dispar asiatica, L. dispar japonica) and three closely related Lymantria species (L. umbrosa, L. albescens, L. postalba), all considered potential FIAS in North America. Ships entering Canadian ports are inspected for the presence of suspicious gypsy moth eggs, but those of AGM are impossible to distinguish from eggs of innocuous Lymantria species. To assist regulatory agencies in their identification of these insects, we designed a suite of TaqMan® assays that provide significant improvements over existing molecular assays targeting AGM. The assays presented here can identify all three L. dispar subspecies (including the European gypsy moth, L. dispar dispar), the three other Lymantria species comprising the AGM complex, plus five additional Lymantria species that pose a threat to forests in North America. The suite of assays is built as a “molecular key” (analogous to a taxonomic key) and involves several parallel singleplex and multiplex qPCR reactions. Each reaction uses a combination of primers and probes designed to separate taxa through discriminatory annealing. The success of these assays is based on the presence of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the 5’ region of mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase I (COI) or in its longer, 3’ region, as well as on the presence of an indel in the “FS1” nuclear marker, generating North American and Asian alleles, used here to assess Asian introgression into L. dispar dispar. These assays have the advantage of providing rapid and accurate identification of ten Lymantria species and subspecies considered potential FIAS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the United States and Canada, the most recent documented cases of rabies have been attributed to bat rabies viruses (RABV). We undertook this systematic review in an effort to summarize and enhance understanding of the risk of infection for individuals who have been potentially exposed to a suspect or confirmed rabid bat. United States rabies surveillance summaries documented a total of 41 human bat-rabies virus variant verified non-transplant cases between 1990 and 2015. All cases were fatal. Seven (17.1%) of 41 cases reported a bite from a bat. Ten (24.3%) cases had unprotected physical contact (UPC); these included seven cases that had a bat land or crawl on them (contact with claws) and one case that touched a bat’s teeth. Seven (17.1%) cases had probable UPC. Insectivorous bat teeth are extremely sharp and highly efficient for predation upon arthropod prey. Bats also have sharp claws on the end of their thumbs and feet. One of the most common bat RABV variants has an ability to replicate in non-neural cells. Questioning individuals about unprotected contact with bat teeth and claws (including a bat landing or crawling on a person) may help identify additional exposures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The North American Beaver (Castor canadensis) is the second largest living rodent and an iconic symbol of Canada. The beaver is a semi-aquatic browser whose diet consists of lignocellulose from a variety of plants. The beaver is a hindgut fermenter and has an enlarged ceacum that houses a complex microbiome. There have been few studies examining the microbial diversity in gastrointestinal tract of hindgut fermenting herbivores. To examine the bacterial and archaeal communities inhabiting the gastrointestinal tract of the beaver, the microbiome of the ceacum and feaces was examined using culture-independent methods. DNA from the microbial community of the ceacum and feaces of 4 adult beavers was extracted, and the16S rRNA gene was sequenced using either bacterial or archaeal specific primers. A total of 1447 and 1435 unique bacterial OTUs were sequenced from the ceacum and feaces, respectively. On average, the majority of OTUs within the ceacum were classified as Bacteroidetes (49.2%) and Firmicutes (47.6%). The feaces was also dominated by OTUs from Bacteroidetes (36.8%) and Firmicutes (58.9%). The composition of bacterial community was not significantly different among animals. The composition of the ceacal and feacal microbiome differed, but this difference is due to changes in the abundance of closely related OTUs, not because of major differences in the taxonomic composition of the communities. Within these communities, known degraders of lignocellulose were identified. In contrast, to the bacterial microbiome, the archaeal community was dominated by a single species of methanogen, Methanosphaera stadtmanae. The data presented here provide the first insight into the microbial community within the hindgut of the beaver. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this study was to develop a novel methodology that enables pig diets to be formulated explicitly for environmental impact objectives using a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach. To achieve this, the following methodological issues had to be addressed: (1) account for environmental impacts caused by both ingredient choice and nutrient excretion, (2) formulate diets for multiple environmental impact objectives and (3) allow flexibility to identify the optimal nutritional composition for each environmental impact objective. An LCA model based on Canadian pig farms was integrated into a diet formulation tool to compare the use of different ingredients in Eastern and Western Canada. By allowing the feed energy content to vary, it was possible to identify the optimum energy density for different environmental impact objectives, while accounting for the expected effect of energy density on feed intake. A least-cost diet was compared with diets formulated to minimise the following objectives: non-renewable resource use, acidification potential, eutrophication potential, global warming potential and a combined environmental impact score (using these four categories). The resulting environmental impacts were compared using parallel Monte Carlo simulations to account for shared uncertainty. When optimising diets to minimise a single environmental impact category, reductions in the said category were observed in all cases. However, this was at the expense of increasing the impact in other categories and higher dietary costs. The methodology can identify nutritional strategies to minimise environmental impacts, such as increasing the nutritional density of the diets, compared with the least-cost formulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Powassan virus (POWV) is a tick-borne flavivirus that can result in a severe neuroinvasive disease with 50% of survivors displaying long-term neurological sequelae. Human POWV cases have been documented in Canada, the United States, and Russia. Although the number of reported POWV human cases has increased in the past fifteen years, POWV remains one of the less studied human pathogenic flaviviruses. Ixodes ticks are the vectors for POWV, and the virus is transmitted to a host’s skin very early during the tick feeding process. Central to the successful transmission of a tick-borne pathogen are complex interactions between the host immune response and early tick-mediated immunomodulation, all of which initially occur at the skin interface. In our prior work, we examined the cutaneous immune gene expression during the early stages of POWV-infected Ixodes scapularis feeding. The present study serves to further investigate the skin interface by identifying early cell targets of infection at the POWV-infected tick feeding site. An in vivo infection model consisting of POWV-infected ticks feeding on mice for short durations was used in this study. Skin biopsies from the tick feeding sites were harvested at various early time points, enabling us to examine the skin histopathology and detect POWV viral antigen in immune cells present at the tick feeding site. The histopathology from the present study demonstrates that neutrophil and mononuclear cell infiltrates are recruited earlier to the feeding site of a POWV-infected tick versus an uninfected tick. This is the first report demonstrating that macrophages and fibroblasts contain POWV antigens, which suggests that they are early cellular targets of infection at the tick feeding site. These data provide key insights towards defining the complex interactions between the host immune response and early tick-mediated immunomodulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seasonal distribution of adult Atlantic sturgeon was examined using pop-up satellite archival tags (PSATs) and ultrasonic transmitters deployed in the Saint John River, New Brunswick, Canada. Seven MK10 PSATs programmed for release in June 2012 and seven MiniPAT PSATs programmed for release in February and April 2013 were deployed in August 2011 and 2012, respectively. Eleven of 14 PSATs surfaced and transmitted depth and temperature data archived for the duration of their deployment (121–302 days). Among these eleven PSATs, five were recovered and 15-sec archival data was downloaded. Following exit from the Saint John River in the fall, tagged fish occupied a mean monthly depth of 76.3–81.6 m at temperatures as low as 4.9˚C throughout the winter before returning to shallower areas in the spring. The majority of ultrasonic detections occurred in the Bay of Fundy, but fish were detected as far as Riviere Saint-Jean, Quebec, approximately 1500 km from the Bay of Fundy (representing long-distance migratory rates of up to 44 km/day). All PSATs were first detected in the Bay of Fundy. Tags that released in February and April were found 5–21 km offshore of the Saint John Harbour, while tags that released in June were first detected in near shore areas throughout the Bay of Fundy. The substrate at winter tag release locations (estimated from backward numerical particle-tracking experiments) consisted primarily of moraines and postglacial mud substrate with low backscatter strength, indicative of soft or smooth seabed. Based on the proximity of winter tag release locations, the consistent depths observed between fish, and previous research, it is suspected that a winter aggregation exists in the Bay of Fundy. This study expands the understanding of the marine distribution and range of Atlantic sturgeon on the east coast of Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Printed educational materials (PEMs) are a frequently used tool to disseminate clinical information and attempt to change behavior within primary care. However, their effect on clinician behavior is limited. In this study, we explored how PEMs can be redesigned to better meet the needs of primary care physicians (PCPs) and whether usability and selection can be increased when design principles and user preferences are used.Methods: We redesigned a publicly available PEM using physician preferences, design principles, and graphic designer support. We invited PCPs to select their preferred document between the redesigned and original versions in a discrete choice experiment, followed by an assessment of usability with the System Usability Scale and a think aloud process. We conducted this study in both a controlled and opportunistic setting to determine whether usability testing results vary by study location. Think aloud data was thematically analyzed, and results were interpreted using the Technology Acceptance Model.Results: One hundred and eighty four PCPs participated in the discrete choice experiment at the 2014 Family Medicine Forum, a large Canadian conference for family physicians. Of these, 87.7 % preferred the redesigned version. Follow-up interviews were held with a randomly selected group of seven participants. We repeated this in a controlled setting in Toronto, Canada, with a set of 14 participants. Using the System Usability Scale, we found that usability scores were significantly increased with the redesign (p < 0.001). We also found that when PCPs were given the choice between the two versions, they selected the redesigned version as their preferred PEM more often than the original (p < 0.001). Results did not appear to differ between the opportunistic and controlled setting. We used the results of the think aloud process to add to a list of end user preferences developed in a previous study.Conclusions: We found that redesigning a PEM with user preferences and design principles can improve its usability and result in the PEM being selected more often than the original. We feel this finding supports the involvement of the user, application of design principles, and the assistance of a graphic designer in the development of PEMs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Native Studies is the property of Brandon University, CJNS, Faculty of Arts and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The Canadian Subarctic is undergoing climatic and environmental changes which are leading to wide-ranging implications for wildlife, ecosystems and aboriginal communities. Through their long-term experience and observations, Cree hunters of the Eastern James Bay are aware of the local manifestations of changes to animal ecology. This article presents and analyses Cree observations of the effects of altering climatic and environmental conditions on animals and their habitat. Cree Trappers Association (CTA) members are witnessing the appearance of pioneer species, changes in animal population trends, migration patterns and distribution, animal behavior, health and habitat which in turn has impacted Cree traditional subsistence activities. Their observations have the potential to fill gaps in wildlife research for subarctic Canada and could serve to influence culturally appropriate environmental change adaptation strategies. The climate change application in the GeoPortal of Eeyou Istchee – a community-based geospatial information tool developed by the CTA to record climate observations and changes in ecosystem is presented in this article denoting the engagement of the Cree in subarctic research. This article contrasts Cree hunters' observation with scientific knowledge and identifies challenges and areas of convergence between scientific and indigenous expertise for investigating animal ecology under a changing climate in the Subarctic. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Background: An intense, 30-year, ongoing biodiversity inventory of Lepidoptera, together with their food plants and parasitoids, is centered on the rearing of wild-caught caterpillars in the 120,000 terrestrial hectares of dry, rain, and cloud forest of Area de Conservacion Guanacaste (ACG) in northwestern Costa Rica. Since 2003, DNA barcoding of all species has aided their identification and discovery. We summarize the process and results for a large set of the species of two speciose subfamilies of ACG skipper butterflies (Hesperiidae) and emphasize the effectiveness of barcoding these species (which are often difficult and time-consuming to identify Methodology/Principal Findings: Adults are DNA barcoded by the Biodiversity Institute of Ontario, Guelph, Canada; and they are identified by correlating the resulting COI barcode information with more traditional information such as food plant, facies, genitalia, microlocation within ACG, caterpillar traits, etc. This process has found about 303 morphologically defined species of eudamine and pyrgine Hesperiidae breeding in ACG (about 25% of the ACG butterfly fauna) and another 44 units indicated by distinct barcodes (n = 9,094), which may be additional species and therefore may represent as much as a 13% increase. All but the members of one complex can be identified by their DNA barcodes Conclusions/Significance: Addition of DNA barcoding to the methodology greatly improved the inventory, both through faster (hence cheaper) accurate identification of the species that are distinguishable without barcoding, as well as those that require it, and through the revelation of species ''hidden'' within what have long been viewed as single species. Barcoding increased the recognition of species-level specialization. It would be no more appropriate to ignore barcode data in a species inventory than it would be to ignore adult genitalia variation or caterpillar ecology [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim Comparisons of the biotas in the Palaearctic and Nearctic have focused on limited portions of the two regions. The purpose of this study was to assess the geographic pattern in the abundance, species richness, and importance of different migration patterns of the boreal forest avifauna of Eurasia from Europe to East Asia as well as their relationship to climate and forest productivity. We further examine data from two widely separated sites in the New World to see how these conform to the patterns found in the Eurasian system. Location Boreal forest sites in Russia and Canada. Methods Point counts were conducted in two to four boreal forest habitats at each of 14 sites in the Russian boreal forest from near to the Finnish border to the Far East, as well as at two sites in boreal Canada. We examined the abundance and species richness of all birds, and specific migratory classes, against four gradients (climate, primary productivity, latitude, and longitude). We tested for spatial autocorrelation in both dependent and independent variables using Moran’s I to develop spatial correlograms. For each migratory class we used maximum likelihood to fit models, first assuming uncorrelated residuals and then assuming spatially autocorrelated residuals. For models assuming unstructured residuals we again generated correlograms on model residuals to determine whether model fitting removed spatial autocorrelation. Models were compared using Akaike’s information criterion, adjusted for small sample size. Results Overall abundance was highest at the eastern and western extremes of the survey region and lowest at the continent centre, whereas the abundance of tropical and short-distance migrants displayed an east–west gradient, with tropical migrants increasing in abundance in the east (and south), and short-distance migrants in the west. Although overall species richness showed no geographic pattern, richness within migratory classes showed patterns weaker than, but similar to, their abundance patterns described above. Overall abundance was correlated with climate variables that relate to continentality. The abundances of birds within different migration strategies were correlated with a second climatic gradient – increasing precipitation from west to east. Models using descriptors of location generally had greater explanatory value for the abundance and species-richness response variables than did those based on climate data and the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI). Main conclusions The distribution patterns for migrant types were related to both climatic and locational variables, and thus the patterns could be explained by either climatic regime or the accessibility of winter habitats, both historically and currently. Non-boreal wintering habitat is more accessible from both the western and eastern ends than from the centre of the boreal forest belt, but the tropics are most accessible from the eastern end of the Palaearctic boreal zone, in terms of distance and the absence of geographical barriers. Based on comparisons with Canadian sites, we recommend that future comparative studies between Palaearctic and Nearctic faunas be focused more on Siberia and the Russian Far East, as well as on central and western Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences is the property of Canadian Science Publishing and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences is the property of Canadian Science Publishing and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Deals with a study which documented the development of comparable shallow-marine facies in the terminal Arenig of Avalon from eastern Newfoundland to southern New England. Limestone lithology; Faunas; Discussion; Systematic paleontology; Discussion.

Investigates the nature of millipede fauna in central Canada. Number of identified indigenous fauna; Identification of the species with Palearctic introductions; Recognition of Uroblaniulus idahoanus as the representative of tribe Uroblaniulini.