Fred Cooke Collection

Permanent URI for this collection

https://hdl.handle.net/10315/10048

The Fred Cooke Collection (Prof. Fred Cooke in Churchill, Manitoba, Canada, August 2011, above)

Research at La Pérouse Bay began in 1968, when Fred Cooke, a young professor in the Biology Department at Queens University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada, began looking at the genetics of the two colour phases of lesser snow geese in a small colony, east of Churchill, Manitoba on Hudson Bay.

The Fred Cooke Collection contains a wide selection of the publications and images from the twenty-five year period (from 1968 to 1992) in which Fred led the snow goose project at La Pérouse Bay.

During this time, Fred invited and hosted many, many students, colleagues and friends with a specific and general interest in biology and nature conservation at Camp Finney.

This included Robert (Bob) L. Jefferies who first came to LPB in 1978. Bob Jefferies’ subsequent research at La Pérouse Bay and Churchill environs spanned the period 1978 to 2009, when his untimely death occurred, and is presented in another Yorkspace Collection (the Robert Lenthall Jefferies Collection).

The Fred Cooke Collection came into being at the time of the Memorial Conference held in 2011 in Churchill to celebrate the life and research of Bob. This marked the occasion of the opening of the new Churchill Northern Studies Centre (CNSC) building. Fred was the first scientific director of the centre (appointed in 1977).

Fred, who returned to Churchill for this event, for the first time since 1992, with his wife, Sylvia, was the Keynote speaker at the conference. He has kept in touch with many of the people whom he brought to LPB and undertook in the year following the opening of the new CNSC building and the conference, to write The History of the La Pérouse Bay Project. Fred has gathered many photos and memories from this community of researchers, journalists, artists and science writers, and they have been deposited in this digital archive.

In 1992, Fred was appointed to the Canadian Wildlife Service Chair in Wildlife Ecology at Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. Fred held this Chair until his retirement in 2001. Research from this later period of Fred’s career is also represented in this Digital Collection.

Browse

Browsing Fred Cooke Collection by Author "Bradley, Russell W."

Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Breeding ecology of radio-marked Marbled Murrelets, Brachyramphus marmoratus, in Desolation Sound, British Columbia
    (Ottawa : National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 2002) Bradley, Russell W.
    Understanding the population biology of a species requires thorough study of its breeding behaviour and success. The Marbled Murrelet is a small alcid seabird which cryptically nests at inland sites in old-growth trees. Concern for murrelet populations, primarily from breeding habitat loss, has led to listing of the species as threatened or endangered over most of its range. However, because of its elusive breeding, reproductive ecology of Marbled Murrelets is still poorly understood. I investigated the breeding ecology of radio marked Marbled Murrelets in Desolation Sound, British Columbia. Movement patterns of radioed birds showed that breeding state and success can be accurately inferred with radio telemetry. Male breeding birds visited their nests, and likely provisioned young, more than females during chick rearing. The male bias was primarily due to a reduction in female visitation during late chick rearing. These findings offer a behavioral explanation for the annual male bias of birds flying inland during the chick rearing period at Theodosia Inlet in Desolation Sound from 1994-1999. Early breeding birds commuted further from foraging areas to nests, and nested at sites of steeper slopes than later breeding birds. Earlier breeding birds were more successful, while higher nest site elevation, steeper nest site slope, and longer commuting distance were all associated with greater success. Data from radio marked birds showed no evidence to suggest that nesting near forest edges, particularly natural edges, reduces reproductive success in Marbled Murrelets. Advantages of steeper nest site slopes and close proximity to edges, like nest site access, may outweigh the potential costs of nest predation in our study location, which is free of human habitation in murrelet breeding areas.

All items in the YorkSpace institutional repository are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved except where explicitly noted.