Getting to know Marty Leonard

 

Dr. Marty Leonard and her students study endangered birds of Atlantic Canada, including roseate terns, Ipswich sparrows and piping plovers. As a professor of biology and the Dean of the Faculty of Graduate Studies at Dalhousie University in Halifax, she’s equally respected for her research and for her support of graduate students. The American Ornithological Society recently awarded Dr. Leonard the prestigious William Brewster Memorial Award, given annually to an author
of a significant body of work on birds of the Western Hemisphere. Saltscapes spoke with Dr. Leonard about chicken farms, housecats and the scientist’s inner child.

 

What is your first memory?

It was a bird. I was at my grandfather’s house. I have a memory from about three years old of this gigantic owl flying over my head.   

 

What’s the source of your love for wildlife?

I grew up in an era when we used to hop on our bikes and be gone all day. A kid on a bike could get to a place that, in a child’s mind, was pretty wild. We were always catching frogs and things to look at. I’m drawn to biology because I was interested in animals and the outdoors.

 

What was your first job?

I went to work for Agriculture Canada focusing on chicken research, but always felt a nagging loss of the outdoors. My world became inside chicken farms and not out in the woods and fields where I like to be. 

 

How did you end up in Halifax?

A job came up at Dalhousie. They were trying to attract more women into the sciences. I had never been to Halifax. It was May, a four-day stretch of gorgeous weather. I thought it was amazing, this beautiful city on the ocean. People kept saying, it’s not always like this.

 

Have your two daughters benefitted from growing up here?

It’s a great place to raise children. They were three and five when we came here. There was this moment for my oldest when camping in Keji, a shift from seeing it as a place to play to something more. She was sitting on this rock, looking out over the water at the view like adults will look at a sunset. It gives us something that you develop as you grow up. I think that was her first moment of it.

 

What are the rewards and costs of working with endangered species?

Every now and then I despair and think, oh my goodness, what are we doing to these species and what will be their fate? I’m an optimistic person. The more we learn about these species, the better able we are to manage declining populations. I worked on the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada. You could clearly see the value of good scientific data.

 

What can the average person do to help birds?

One of the most direct causes of bird declines are our little kitty cats wandering neighbourhoods killing local bird species. Cats are something people can control. But a lot of citizen science gets done these days. There’s the ebird app—people learn their birds and record where they see them. There’s the Christmas bird count and a breeding bird survey in the springtime. That information collected by citizens is used to make decisions.

 

Do you still get outside like you did as a child?

You bet. Not much has changed. I’m outside as much as I can be. It’s always been a really happy place for me. We hike a lot. As we’re walking, we’re looking at birds or trees covered in lichens. For me, science is driven by curiosity. It’s more sophisticated than when I was a kid, but discovery and curiosity have persisted.