Conferences are a great way to network, share research, and learn from others. Last month I was fortunate to have the opportunity to travel to Vancouver, British Columbia, for the Canadian Society for Ecology and Evolution (CSEE) annual meeting. I was at the University of British Columbia for my whole stay, a beautiful campus that felt like its own city. It was nice to see old friends, make new friends and connections, and also see some folks in person who I’ve only met online! Schedules were packed with great presentation sessions and social events, leading to a very busy but exciting week.

I presented a talk on a project I’ve been working on in the Garroway Lab at University of Manitoba about the genetic impacts of commercial whaling on whale populations. Even though commercial whaling has ceased, there is a genetic legacy that could last for millennia for populations that were heavily targeted. For example, bowhead whales in the Arctic were very popular targets in the commercial whaling era, and even though their population size has started to recover after protections came in place, the genetic population has steeply declined and is substantially lower than it was before. Since genetic variation is important for a population’s health and adaptive potential, losing genetic diversity can make a population vulnerable to other threats, especially climate change. The preprint looking at narwhals and bowhead whales is available here: https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.01.04.574243.

Although the topics I’m examining are not happy stories, I’m looking forward to continue studying whales through their genomics, and I hope to answer more questions in my work that will ultimately help wildlife conservation.

I would be remiss to not mention the wildlife I saw at Vancouver! On a couple mornings walking on the beach, I saw some harbor seals peeking out of the waves. I had an extra morning to spare on my last day before heading to the airport, so I took a 3 hour walk around the beaches, campus, and the Pacific Spirit regional park. It was very nostalgic to hear western birds like the Pacific-slope flycatcher, spotted towhee, western tanager, and Pacific wren (a couple fledglings too!). I also didn’t realize how much I missed seeing Anna’s hummingbirds and bushtits.

-Evelien