Marco Festa-Bianchet 🇨🇦
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marcofesta.bsky.social
Marco Festa-Bianchet 🇨🇦
@marcofesta.bsky.social

🇨🇦🇨🇦 Retired ecology prof in Sherbrooke, Canada. Evidence-based wildlife conservation, mountain ungulates, kangaroos, ice-free fishing. 🇨🇦🇨🇦 elbows up!

Environmental science 41%
Biology 27%

Damn, 2 days later and you could have claimed to have spotted the first robin of the year!

Not knowing much about insects, sighting a mantis is always a source of much excitement for me, even if on a somewhat unnatural habitat.
Les caribous de la Gaspésie toujours au seuil de la disparition: 14 bêtes en liberté. Le gouvernement Legault n'a pas mis en oeuvre le «projet pilote» promis pour leur protection et il a réduit une mesure importante en réponse aux demandes des chasseurs. www.ledevoir.com/actualites/e...
Les caribous de la Gaspésie toujours au seuil de la disparition
Le gouvernement a réduit cette année une mesure de protection afin de répondre aux « préoccupations » des chasseurs.
www.ledevoir.com

Methinks it's more of a people problem. Especially people who think contraception is part of the solution. www.bbc.com/news/article...
Why Britain has a deer problem
Deer numbers have rocketed over the last 40 years and particularly since the Covid-19 pandemic.
www.bbc.com

Fruit bats, Centennial Park Sydney. I think they are grey-headed flying foxes?

Shame
In what could plausibly represent a Christmas miracle* SFU Geography has two (2) new tenure track hires. One is urban/climate, which I will repost below. The other is a Landscape Ecologist. Please share ... #academicsky

*actually just the good decisions of our new Dean
www.sfu.ca/geography/ab...
Assistant Professor of Landscape Ecology
www.sfu.ca
The Carney Conservatives are the most anti-environment govt since ... the Harper Conservatives. And they'll soon cave on domestic plastics too. Why? Because #BigOil & Danielle Smith want it. The Carney govt is run for & by the #fossilfuel lobby. #PlasticBan
www.theglobeandmail.com/business/art...
Ottawa pushes toward scrapping ban on single-use plastic exports
Plastic product manufacturing sector generated $35-billion, supported roughly 85,000 jobs in 2023, feds say
www.theglobeandmail.com
Instead of spending big money to recruit a few dozen academics from outside of Canada, I wish the Liberals invested in the outstanding talent coming out of our PhD programs. Postdocs could be extended (#, duration) for large numbers for the same price. It is top-down, headline seeking politics.
Worrying about the copyright of published scientific figures we would like to use for teaching is so dissonant when you could legally use generative AI to produce ones that are based on stolen material.

Unbeknownst to most entomologists, some ants like to nest in Scrabble boxes. At least in Australia.

I often repost job opportunities, especially faculty jobs in Canada. You will not see here reposts of the 'new' jobs targeted at attracting foreigners, until Canada finances all Canada-based researchers adequately.
Même la crise des relations entre le Canada et les États-Unis est invoquée par le gouvernement Carney pour justifier la construction d’un nouveau pipeline, ce sont des intérêts américains qui profiteraient le plus du projet. www.ledevoir.com/politique/ca...
Vendu comme souverain, un pipeline canadien est célébré par Washington
Les investissements américains sont les bienvenus pour le pipeline devant nous «protéger» des États-Unis.
www.ledevoir.com
Far Side
2025 was a very memorable year of #wildlifephotography. I was fortunate to travel to #Tanzania #Florida #Yukon and thru Western #Canada. Enjoy a quick look at my Best of 2025.
An important question is, who is citing those papers?

Should it be considered misconduct to not even check whether what you are citing *exists*?
I’m sorry, but it is disgraceful to be an academic who uses this technology to conduct research. It should be prohibited in all of our scholarly institutions, including universities and journals.

AI slop meets poor 19th-century colonial taxonomy.
The gaur is not a bison and this is likely not a real bison.

Went here to watch this with Australian granddaughters
.. and not a word about scientists having been warning for years that this deadly parasite will be moved around by taxpayer-subsidized game farms. Do better, CBC
www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...
Parasitic brain worm deadly for moose, elk, caribou found in Alberta | CBC News
A parasitic brain worm fatal to moose, elk, and caribou has been confirmed in northern Alberta for the first time.
www.cbc.ca
🚨 Postdoctoral Opportunity for Female Scientists🚨

The University of Vienna is awarding at least 20 fully funded 4 year postdoctoral positions to outstanding female scientists

Interested? Get in touch via direct message
careers.univie.ac.at/en/postdoc/e...

#MicroSky 🧪

#PostDoc @univie.ac.at

Climate change leads mountain guides in the Alps to alter their choice and timing of high-altitude routes, reacting to increasing danger 🧪 gh.copernicus.org/articles/80/...
Mapping climate-change-related processes affecting most frequented routes by French mountain guides
Abstract. This paper examines the impact of climate change on alpinism in the western European Alps, focusing particularly on the routes most frequently used by French mountain guides. The aim is to i...
gh.copernicus.org
In which Springer-Nature offers me the opportunity to do a huge amount of work - and get nothing in return!
"Without NCAR’s infrastructure + supercomputing abilities, many small colleges & universities wouldn’t be able to do research with the latest models. NCAR research influences every piece of weather & climate prediction in the US: air quality, droughts, hurricanes + more." - @carlonimbus.bsky.social
NCAR is quite literally our global mothership.

Everyone who works in climate and weather has passed through its doors and benefited from its incredible resources.

Dismantling NCAR is like taking a sledgehammer to the keystone holding up our scientific understanding of the planet.

Unbelievable.
Trump moves to dismantle major US climate research center in Colorado
The Trump administration is breaking up the National Center for Atmospheric Research, taking aim at one of the world's leading climate research labs.
www.usatoday.com

The Xmas bilby.
I do not want your AI slop
I do not want it in my mop
I do not want it in my house
I do not want it in my mouse
I do not like brain-rotting AI spam
I do not want it, Sam Alt-man

The mice are obviously part of the conspiracy!
Je relais cette pétition, parce que faut vraiment en finir avec cette idée bidon de 3e lien qui sent plus la corruption qu’autre chose.

Aller en appel d’offre sans échéancier, sans budget, sans trace, c’est la voie ouverte pour une fuite d’argent public en masse.
Pétition : Demande visant à cesser les investissements de fonds publics pour le troisième lien entre Québec et Lévis - Assemblée nationale du Québec
CONSIDÉRANT QUE le gouvernement du Québec a accepté de débloquer 275 millions de dollars en 2025 pour le projet de troisième lien entre Québec et Lévis;
m.assnat.qc.ca

Amazing!
Hiding in plain sight - not seeing the forest for the trees! 🧪
www.bbc.com/news/article...
Stelvio national park: Thousands of dinosaur footprints found on Italian mountain
The footprints date back some 210 million years and show traces of toes and claws.
www.bbc.com