American Dippers

Wednesday, 15 November 2023

Presenter: John Elliott

American Dipper

Dr. John Elliott is a research scientist with Environment and Climate Change Canada at the Pacific Wildlife Research Centre, Delta, B.C. As an adjunct professor at both the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University, he does much of his research with graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, including the work on dippers. He has studied the exposure and effects of a wide range of environmental toxicants on bird and other wildlife populations. His work is widely published in the scientific literature, and he has edited two books on the effects of contaminants on wildlife. His research has been used extensively in many risk assessment and regulatory decisions on pesticides and industrial chemicals. He enjoys the outdoors, especially with his kids and grandkids, walking and hiking with the family dogs, and biking in summer, skiing and hockey in winter and casual birding year-round.

His presentation will cover dipper biology, early studies in the Chilliwack watershed, and some later work including run-of-the-river hydro and coal mining.