We’re now 2/2 for presenters adding a healthy dose of humour into their presentations and frankly, as someone who’s butchered nearly every joke I’ve told, it has me a little nervous about the upcoming NRES 700 presentations. Putting the academic portion of the presentation aside for a moment, what I really admired about Roy Rea’s presentation was his ability to roll with the punches. He made a comment before starting about the use of the word “racism” in his title simply acknowledging that some folks found it offensive and said he would change it. He didn’t seem fazed or distressed in the slightest which I suppose may simply be a product of giving lots of presentations. Comedians deal with hecklers, presenters deal with stringent comments from disconcerted citizens, two slices of the same pie really. Even after his presentation he dealt with some rather odd questions (or incoherent ramblings at times) but he didn’t loose his cool, he respectfully acknowledged the speaker and tried to answer to the best of his abilities at times simply saying “I don’t know” which was refreshing in a way. And in Roy’s defense some of the questions people asked either had little to do with the science he had spent the last 40 minutes talking about or the speaker themselves clearly had little understanding of the science they spoke on. I’m looking at you “is it really that important to leave undesired trees behind after logging” guy as if the Chief Forester isn’t a high enough authority for that guy to trust. Anyway, I’m rambling.

As I’ve stated in my last post I’m fairly new to the Prince George area and so given the seemingly liberal use of moose warning signs along the highways I would have never guess their populations in the area have declined so significantly (70% decrease in population size over the last 15 years). Meanwhile Newfoundland is struggling to deal with an over abundance of moose as they’re oddly prone to hanging out on highways. It’s both sad and ironic that in a place where moose are considered native, their populations are declining while they’re flourishing in a place they were originally brought to for hunting. Maybe we can get Alberta to broker some sort of moose for oil deal with the byes out east. Many moons ago I used to tree plant up north and so his focus on forest retention (or ‘residuals’) when logging really connected with me. Obviously, he focused on how its relative to moose (being the flaming mooseologist he is) but leaving residuals behind after logging is important for so many more reasons I wish he had hammered home. They provide a pit stop for birds who introduce seedlings into the area through their poop (pardon my French), dead trees offer a home for smaller critters, and residuals provide shade ensuring the soil beneath can retain trace amounts of water and all of these things help the process of succession occur quicker. Residuals help a forest maintain its resiliency and recover quicker from devastating human intervention which is an obvious win-win as one would think that a province with a significantly sized lumber economy would value healthy forests.