2002 O.F.A.H. Research Grant recipients

The effect of climate change on animals, plants and their ecosystems is receiving a great amount of attention in the scientific community these days.

In Ontario, lake trout are a very important species to anglers wherever they occur.

Our Fisheries Research Grant winner for this year has travelled halfway around the world from her homeland of Japan to choose Canada, and specifically, Ontario’s University of Guelph, to conduct her PhD research.

Ms. Momoko Kawai will be examining the impacts and consequences of climate change on the biology, distribution, and production of lake trout in Ontario.

Please join us in congratulating the winner of the O.F.A.H. Fisheries Research Grant, Momoko Kawai.

Of course, conservation includes wise use of resources, and of course, the importance of roads to access fishing opportunities is obvious. However, what is not at all obvious is what role the importance of roads to anglers serves when M.N.R. resource managers make tradeoffs involving road access planning in forest management and protected areas planning.

It has become essential that resource management agencies, such as the M.N.R., use the best available decision-support tools when making decisions about public Crown lands.

This year’s O.F.A.H. Conservation Research Grant award winner is a PhD candidate at Wilfred Laurier University in Kitchener/Waterloo. His research proposal is titled “Modeling Angling Behavior and Road Access Relationships: A Study of Two Resident Northern Ontario Angling Populations.”

This research has the potential to provide new and practical tools and knowledge for organizations like ours, and resource managers, in general.

Please join us in congratulating the recipient of this year’s O.F.A.H. Conservation Research Grant, Len Hunt.

There have been many unfortunate consequences of the banning of the spring bear hunt. These can be placed in a number of categories including personal, social, economic, and biological.

In 1999, when the hunt was cancelled, the O.F.A.H. predicted specific negative consequences, including thousands more bears in the summer population, and thousands more cannibalistic boar bears in the population. We also predicted that there would be increases in the number of dead cubs and increases in orphaning of cubs.

Since the cancellation of the spring bear hunt, rehabilitation centers have reported receiving unprecedented numbers of orphaned bear cubs.

This year’s O.F.A.H. Wildlife Research Grant winner from Laurentian University in Sudbury will attempt to determine the survival, mortality, and occurrence of nuisance behavior of orphaned yearling bears released from three central Ontario rehabilitation shelters.

Please join us in congratulating the winner of the O.F.A.H. Wildlife Research Grant, Mathew Binks.