On Friday afternoon, it was my great pleasure to give my first presentation to the WII group. Attending were about 20 people, including a few of the department heads and professors; all the rest were masters and Ph.D. students who are still at the Institute. May / June is normally holiday time and there are no classes running right now, so it was an honour to have so many people come.

To appeal to a more general audience, I began with my presentation about species at risk management in Canada, with special reference to policy process and some of the issues that have emerged in the past three years. Although this was a pared-down version of my presentation I give to the Indian Forestry Service – Mid-Career Training group, I put a new spin on things by adding information on some of the most recent articles in Nature Magazine about our Canadian government’s recent and drastic changes to science funding and environmental policy.

I think for many of the attendees, my comments about shrinking funding, censorship of federal scientists, and closing of scientific facilities hit very close to home. To the most senior biologists in the room, the headlines about the Canadian government’s “War on Science” was familiar – a sad state of affairs when you consider it.

They all saw the humour of my comment about Canada’s refusal to use the IUCN endangered species categories because they are too complex and our politicians aren’t that smart – they need three simple colour categories. I think my audience found some common ground with me there, too.

I look forward to my teaching lectures next week, followed by a trekking trip to Rajaji National Park and the Valley of Flowers.