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Matthew Fuirst, PH.D.

Manager of Observatory Operations and Postdoctoral Researcher

I've been drawn to wildlife biology since I was a kid spending hours investigating insects along streams and reading about birds and mammals. It was not until my undergraduate career (with the help of a close friend) that I became hooked on birding and field ornithology. I have broad interests in understanding the demography and movement ecology of wild animals, with particular research strengths in spatial modeling, avian monitoring and conservation, behavioural ecology, and molecular analyses. I received my MSc from Stony Brook University (in New York) where I studied the foraging and microbial ecology of Herring Gulls. I was awarded a Ph.D. from the University of Guelph where my studies examined the role of dispersal in population dynamics of adult and juvenile Canada Jays in Algonquin Park. Currently, I am responsible for Long Point and Thunder Cape bird observatories, and aspects of the Canadian Migration Monitoring Network, and I am using data from the Canadian Lakes Loon Survey to understand survivorship and contaminants of Common Loons.
Email: mfuirst @ birdscanada.org

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