INVERMERE, B.C. – Spectacular scenery, abundant nature and a warm, human spirit of getting together for a worthy cause.
Those are but a few things people can expect at Wings Over the Rockies, the region’s biggest springtime birding and nature festival.
Running May 6-12, the Invermere, B.C.-based event features nature walks, paddling adventures on the Columbia River, film showings and presentations by bird, mammal, water and outdoor adventure experts, including two exceptionally knowledgeable Bow Valley residents.
Presenting on the evening of Wednesday, May 8, longtime Canmorite and internationally recognized authority on water and related climate change issues, Bob Sandford will share his talk titled Learning From the Burning.
He’ll describe how the 2018 summer marked a point where the northern hemisphere crossed an invisible threshold into a new and more turbulent climate regime as the intense wildfires in British Columbia mirrored extreme weather events, including flooding, drought and wildfires that happened across Europe and Asia.
His presentation will outline lessons learned from last summer’s extreme weather events, and how focusing on working together to understand, protect, restore and rehabilitate natural system function, as is being carried out through various projects in the Columbia Valley on the Rockies’ west flank, can have the most power to effect change.
“As this presentation I will reveal, there is some good news here,” Sandford said. “New research findings suggest that extraordinary efforts to restore natural system function may be our own practical and affordable way forward in the future.”
Also speaking will be Harvie Heights wildlife scientist Tony Clevenger, who has spent more than 20 years researching in the Canadian Rockies will share a lunchtime presentation on Thursday, May 9.
Since 2010, Clevenger has been surveying wolverine populations using non-invasive techniques including DNA testing of hair samples. Naturally occurring in low numbers and needing vast interconnected blocks of wilderness to survive, elusive wolverines are considered bellwethers of ecosystem health and biodiversity.
Clevenger will share details of a six-year project that used DNA and camera-based techniques to gather information on the remarkable species.
With more than 100 events taking place over the course of the festival and running for 23 years, Wings Over the Rockies is more than a festival though. Profits are reinvested to support conservation and education projects within the Columbia Valley region, where wetlands are considered among one of the planet’s living natural treasures. The largest of its kind in British Columbia, and one of 37 in Canada recognized as a RAMSAR wetland site of international importance, the Columbia Wetlands are a hotspot of biodiversity, and home to more than 260 species of birds as well as numerous fish, reptiles, amphibians, mammal species and countless invertebrates.
Visit www.wingsovertherockies.org to learn more or purchase tickets.
