ASPB Board Nominations are open

The Board of Directors of the ASPB has appointed Past President Andy Edeburn as Chair of the 2025 Nominating Committee. The positions of Board Secretary and three Directors are open for election [each are 2 year terms]. Nominations will close on or about Sept 1st.

The election will be held in October. Voting will be electronic and will occur over 30 days [specific dates will be announced]. Voting results will be announced at the Annual General Meeting on November 28, 2025, at Banff, AB.

If you have expressed interest in serving on the board, or if you intend to, now is the time! Please contact the ASPB office or the Executive Director, and submit your nomination form, which can be found on the ASPB website in your Member Downloads section under Volunteer Program, (Nomination Form 2025).

THE BIWEEKLY

JULY 1, 2025

Published by the Alberta Society of Professional Biologists

SEMINARS, WEBINARS & WORKSHOPS

JULY

Whitebark and Limber Pine Survey Methods,

Health and Restoration

This two-day course is in Manning Park, BC, July 10th & 11th (please register by July 1st).

• Day 1: Comprehensive field introduction to whitebark and limber pine ecosystems, threats, species identification, disease and pest assessment
• Day 2: Plus-tree selection, field data collection, recovery strategies, regulations, best practices and restoration approaches.

For more details please go HERE. 

Registration for professionals is $620 + GST ($550 + GST for Members).

Register Now

Wetlands in Alberta’s Peace Region:

On July 15 & 16, in Grimshaw, AB, Ducks Unlimited Canada and the Mighty Peace Watershed Alliance (MPWA) are teaming up to host this Wetlands in the Boreal Workshop Series, an exciting two-day workshop all about wetlands in the Peace Region! Registration for this free workshop can be found HERE. 

AUGUST

Wetlands in the Boreal Transition Zone

On August 12 and 13, in Lac La Biche, AB, Ducks Unlimited Canada and the Lakeland Industry and Community Association (LICA) are teaming up to host

Wetlands in the Boreal Transition Zone, an exciting two-day workshop all about wetlands in the Beaver River Watershed! Registration for this free workshop can be found HERE.

TRAINING PROVIDERS

NATURAL RESOURCES

TRAINING GROUP

 1. **Avian Nest Sweeps and Monitoring Methods** 

Gain practical knowledge on conducting compliant nest sweeps and monitoring activities. 

Dates: Online | July 3–4, 2025 

Registration: https://nrtraininggroup.com/events/avian-nest-sweeps-and-monitoring-methods-online-july-3rd-4th-2025/

2. **Electrofishing Certification — Prince George** 

Complete self-paced online training followed by a practical session in Prince George. 

Dates: Online (self-paced) and in-person | July 3, 2025 

Registration: https://nrtraininggroup.com/events/electrofishing-certification-online-self-paced-prince-george-july-3rd-2025/

3. **Electrofishing Certification — Kamloops** 

Self-paced online training with a practical component in Kamloops. 

Dates: Online (self-paced) and in-person | July 11, 2025 

Registration: https://nrtraininggroup.com/events/electrofishing-certification-online-self-paced-kamloops-july-11th-2025/

4. **Electrofishing Certification — Kamloops (Additional Session)** 

An additional session to accommodate demand. 

Dates: Online (self-paced) and in-person | July 12, 2025 

Registration: https://nrtraininggroup.com/events/electrofishing-certification-online-self-paced-kamloops-july-12th-2025-2/

5. **Electrofishing Certification — Cochrane** 

Self-paced online training with a practical session in Cochrane. 

Dates: Online (self-paced) and in-person | July 18, 2025 

Registration: https://nrtraininggroup.com/events/electrofishing-certification-online-self-paced-cochrane-july-18th-2025/

For the full calendar of upcoming courses, and course details, follow this link:

https://nrtraininggroup.com/schedule/

KEEPING TRACK

with

FIERA BIOLOGICAL CONSULTING

Track & Sign OnLine – Study Session, Aug. 26, 2025.

6pm MDT | 2-hours | Online via Zoom 

The study session will focus on impactful tracking tips aimed at improving performance at a future Track & Sign Certification, or give you a jump start at one of our other in-person tracking workshops.

Open to anyone interested — you do not have to be signed up for a Certification or in-person workshop to participate.

Learn more and register here 

Track & Sign Certification – Sep. 9 & 10, 2025, Hinton, Alberta

Hinton Area | September 9 & 10, 2025 | Ages 18+ | Register before September 1 | Limited Space

This 2-day field-based workshop in Alberta’s wildlife rich foothills offers the opportunity for participants to earn certifications in Track & Sign from Levels 1 to Professional (Level 4). This is an extremely challenging and engaging workshop designed to find the edges of your abilities and propel you past them. Participants must obtain at least 70% during the evaluation — 

All abilities welcome.

Learn more and register here

AAFMP

Association of Alberta Forest Management Professionals

Professional Development Events for Natural Resource Professionals

The Effectiveness of Public Participation

Through forest advisory committees

Lessons from Ontario - Webinar (free)

Date: September 16, 2025

Speakers: Lance Robinson and Jeff Robinson

Registrationlink: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/MTPA3HziSMi7SgokbeYEyg#/registration

ESTI

The Environmental Sciences Training Institute

Please contact efishing@esticanada.com with any questions or to book a custom delivery. Learn about our Efishing program here. 

View our in-person course calendar at

https://esticanada.com/shop/

Nest Sweep Protocol: Online – Self-Paced

Online Courses

SALMTEC

 COURSES AND TRAINING PROGRAMS

******

Registration Now Open for SALMTEC's ABWRET-A Blended Course (W25) Offering Online,

Registration Now Open for SALMTEC's Grassland Vegetation Inventory (GVI) Blended Course (W25) Offering Online,

Registration Now Open for SALMTEC's Catchment Delineation Seminar

SALMTEC also offers several self-paced courses:

Wetland Policy Basics 

Understanding ACIMS Tools 

Alberta Soil Information Viewer 

SALMTEC offers On-Demand seminars:

Land Use Assessment 

Technical Report Review 

Landscape Analysis 

Hydrology & Wetland Design

Wetland Delineation

VISIT THE SALMTEC CONNECTOR 

THE SALMTEC CONNECTOR is a compilation of applied science and land management event listings, across a variety of sectors and disciplines, published monthly.

You can find the SALMTEC CONNECTOR HERE.

OUR PEOPLE

AND A HALF-CENTURY

OF

EXCELLENCE

This year, we celebrate the ASPB's fiftieth anniversary, serving our profession together with all the people who live and work in Alberta. As our province has grown, so has membership in our society, which currently sits at over 3000 registered professionals.

Over the next six months, the ASPB staff and board have committed to talking about our ASPB people, celebrating their commitment and service to our society, the profession, and our province. We will endeavour to carry at least two or three short personal histories - and maybe even some photos - in each edition of THE BIWEEKLY, through December 2025. (They will be presented in no particular order!)

Al Sosiak, P. Biol.

Al Sosiak started with the ASPB in 1987, retired from Alberta Environment in 2010, and has since kept busy with consulting, travel, and various sports and hobbies.

For four years after retirement from government, Al was Editor of the peer-reviewed journal Lake and Reservoir Management and remains on their editorial board. He was also on the executive of the North American Lake Management Society for three years and served on the board of the Alberta Lake Management Society.

Al reminisces about his time with the ASPB: “I continue to support the ASPB because it provides a useful assurance of competence and ethics for those that employ professional biologists in this province and the continuing-competency program is especially important.

While my professional interests and activities have kept me more active with other professional societies in recent years, I remain a strong supporter of the ASPB. I value the professional biologist title, as well as access to the business insurance that is available to ASPB members.

Reg Arbuckle, P. Biol.



Reg Arbuckle received his BSc in Zoology from the University of Alberta in 1979. He has spent his entire career in the Peace River region and worked with the Government of Alberta and Ducks Unlimited Canada under the North American Waterfowl Management Plan.

Reg remembers his time as a student (attending the U of A) when he worked for two summers with the Canadian Wildlife Service assisting with banding young Whooping Cranes in Wood Buffalo National Park, at a time when there were but 6 or 7 young hatched in the entire wild population. He has banded ducks and coots on the Birch River Delta in Lake Claire, and remembers banding geese across southern Alberta and neck collaring Trumpeter swans in the Grande Prairie area as well as conducting bird surveys on tailings ponds in the Fort McMurray oil sands.

Reg also live trapped fisher and river otter in the House River area (for release in Kananaskis) and while with Alberta Fish and wildlife in Peace River he assisted with the release of Wood Bison near Hay Zama as well as conducting early fixed-wing radio telemetry of Caribou in the Dixonville and Slave Lake areas.

He continues to look back on his still-active career as a working biologist: “For the last 15 years I have worked with Alberta Parks and Public Lands as a Park Ecologist and helped secure and maintain native habitats, including grazing and forest management and helped manage invasive plants. I was also involved in prescribed burning in Peace River and helped create wildfire management plans in Hay Zama and Kakwa Wildllands. I was involved with trail assessment in Kakwa Wildland and worked on aeration monitoring at Moonshine and water monitoring on area lakes; throughout my career I have worked with many great Biologists and other government staff who have made an impact on wildlife and habitat.”

At the ASPB, we regularly receive notifications from Google Scholar and other sources which we select and share below in the BIWEEKLY. Here is the latest batch (the links are HOT):

Challenging Structural Barriers to Creating Ethical Space in Wildlife Research Ethics Policy

The Impact of Cattle Grazing on Shrub Biomass: A Review on Temperate Ecosystems

Energy & Environmental Sustainability

https://thetyee.ca/News/2025/06/27/Free-Speech and land acknowledgements in B.C.

Evolutionary Significance of Antlers

Pronounced Genetic Structure Associated with Differences in a Reproductive Trait and Climatic Barriers in Canadian Populations of Western Toads (Anaxyrus boreas)

Evaluating the accuracy of wolverine identification from photographs of snow tracks by expert observers in North America

Strengthening Sustainable Tourism's Role in Biodiversity Conservation and Community Resilience

Eavesdropping on the barks of prairie dogs (Cynomys ludovicianus) for intel on the approach of predators

2025 Environmental Analysis Review Form Outdoor Recreation Grant Programs

Whooping Crane nesting behaviour, parental care and ecology at Wood Buffalo National Park

Plasticity in bog plant nitrogen concentration is related to recent weather conditions

Linking black spruce xylem anatomy to local hydroclimate in two boreal fens

The Honeymoon Phase: breeding duck habitat selection and its associated effects on nest survival in the prairie pothole region

The future Prairie Pothole Region: scenarios of change

A scoping review on the impact of rotational grazing in beef cattle systems on greenhouse gas emissions, soil health, plant diversity, and plant productivity parameters

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jun/19/raccoons-german-city-kassel-wild-population-europe-aoe

Game Meat Motivation Among Hunters in Alberta

Applications of environmental DNA and environmental RNA for the biomonitoring of two freshwater salmonids in Alberta, Arctic grayling (Thymallus arcticus) …

Winter Effects on White-tailed Deer in Alberta

Effects of introduced cicer milkvetch on plant growth, carbon and nitrogen cycling, and soil microbial communities and activities on the Canadian dry mixedgrass …

Private Landowners, Hunting Access and CWD Management in Alberta

Bull Trout (Salvelinus confluentus) population structure across Alberta's Eastern Slopes

Grazing Practices in Beef Cow-Calf Operations that Promote Sustainability: Impacts on Ecosystem Services and Quantification of Externalities

Wildlife underpass use with gaps in exclusion fences along a 4‐lane highway 15 years post‐construction

Chromophoric dissolved organic matter in the Athabasca Oil Sands Region, Canada, and its association to lake acid sensitivity

Integrated framework for assessment and spatial prediction of humus layer properties of forest soils

Bears in North America: Habitats, hunting, and politics

Our Future Is on Thin Ice

Government of Alberta announcement - CDR Centre

Keys to the Calicioid Lichens & Fungi of Alberta v. June 2025

Buying nature to save it? From neoliberal failure to markets-at-hand

Climate buffering effects of western Canadian boreal lakes: the effect of lake size and depth on shoreline and nearshore forests

Centring Water in Impact Assessment: Reconsidering Environmental and Cultural Flows in Development Decision-Making in Canada

“STEM loves the myth of meritocracy — but the truth? It's built on unpaid labor, generational wealth, and financial sacrifice.”

Parasite populations of river otter and mink in Western Canada and first report of the zoonotic trematode Alaria mustelae in river otter in

Protected area targets: Spatially evaluating progress and prioritizing areas to reach 30× 30 in Canada

Development of biogeochemical processes on a residual in-situ oil well pad undergoing restoration to a boreal peatland

Artificial light alters spatial and temporal habitat use by a crepuscular aerial insectivore

Wildlife culling as a biophobic response to zoonotic disease

Mortality of fledged whooping cranes in the Aransas-Wood Buffalo population

Deadwood Supports Carnivores in Leaf Litter Communities in a Bark Beetle-Attacked Deadwood Simulation Experiment

Controlling pesticides is a global challenge

This week’s banner photo:

White-Faced Ibis in Alberta's foothills

Photo by Katerina Schiller-Deorksen , using a Canon DSLR



PROFESSIONAL BIOLOGISTS PROTECT THE PUBLIC INTEREST

In Alberta, Professional Biologists are registrants of the Alberta Society of Professional Biologists (ASPB), and are subject to a code of ethics, continuing competency requirements, and a disciplinary process. The ASPB is a self-regulated organization under legislation in the Province of Alberta, meaning its purpose is to protect the public of Alberta by ensuring biologists are qualified to practice biology in accordance with that legislation. The society is governed by a Board of Directors elected by its registrants.

You are probably receiving this newsletter because you are an ASPB Registrant. This newsletter provides relevant information and professional development opportunities for our members, as well as essential member-related society business; if you are registered with the Alberta Society of Professional Biologists, please DO NOT unsubscribe.

For more information about the Society or to contact the administration, please visit the website: https://www.aspb.ab.ca

Opinions and general news published in this e-newsletter

do not necessarily reflect the opinions or policies of the Society or its Board of Directors.

2025