The talk will introduce Nature Vancouver members to the natural history of Vancouver’s own Ian McTaggart Cowan – the father of Canadian ecology. We’ll delve into his field notes and photographs of wildlife of Vancouver starting in 1923 as a boy scout on the north shore – now in a digital collection at Uvic with transcribed notes. His first publication was the wildlife of the UBC campus as an undergrad, when raccoons were rare and Streators Weasel and Puget Sound Spotted Skunk were common. While Cowan was leading the Vancouver naturalists 80 years ago, he was also starting Canada’s first natural history television program The Web of Life that was to become Nature of Things warning of climate change, cumulative impacts and loss of biodiversity half a century before anyone else. There will be digital clips from these old shows.

Cowan was a poplar and enthusiastic advocate for learning about the natural world and supported citizen science all his life. He was the lead advisor and writer for the Birds of BC, Mammals of BC and even wrote the first draft of Amphibians of BC, the latter during his time as curator of the old provincial museum. He was also an expert in chitons and a superb botanist. One of his many legacies is the Cowan Collection in the Beaty Biodiversity Museum where his dream was to showcase the diversity of mammals from the pygmy shrew to the blue whale – both species found in BC and the offshore waters. His students were in the hundreds and his influence continues to this day in scholarships, endowments and publications. The talk will provide his tips on how to learn more about the birds, mammals and sea life of Vancouver; what we have lost and still have; and the legacy of the secret society of naturalists to which he belonged with scientists like Aldo Leopold, that first drew attention to their importance.

Dr. Briony Penn is an author, artist, naturalist and educator. Her book The Real Thing (2016) is an authorized biography of Ian McTaggart-Cowan, commissioned by his family. It traces his life through a century of changes.

80 years ago, from 1941-43, Ian McTaggart- Cowan was the President of Nature Vancouver, then called the Vancouver Natural History Society.

This presentation will be a Hybrid of In Person and Zoom video conferencing. Please join us after 7 pm to enjoy some social time. To register for In Person please email caroline@naturevancouver.ca. On the Monday preceding the event, Nature Vancouver members will receive the Zoom link in the weekly e-News. This talk will begin at 7:30pm. Non-members are welcome and should Email denis@NatureVancouver.ca well in advance to register for the link.

The Real Thing: by Briony Penn

Winner of the 2023 North American Wildlife Society Award, 2016 Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize and the inaugural Mack Laing Literary Prize. Shortlisted for the 2016 Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prizes.