Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon, members of the committee.

Thank you very much for inviting us to this meeting. We were very pleased to accept.

My name is Patrick Nadeau. I am the president and chief executive officer of Birds Canada. With me today is Jody Allair, our director of citizen science and community engagement.

Birds Canada is a national not-for-profit organization. For more than 60 years, we have driven action to increase the understanding, appreciation and conservation of birds in Canada.

This morning, looking out the window, I saw a chickadee holding its own in our Ottawa winter climate. Many people in Canada did what I did, since, according to Statistics Canada, almost 10 million Canadians have at least one bird feeder at home.

Birds are dear to our hearts. For many of us, they offer a wonderful gateway to nature.

Unfortunately, it is alarming to learn that we have lost nearly three billion birds in North America since 1970, or almost one bird out of three. This decline shows the global effects of the converging climate and biodiversity crises. Our ability to determine the extent of these declines is largely due to the work done by the people we call citizen scientists.

Birds Canada manages 44 citizen or participatory science programs that involve over 74,000 volunteers, or the equivalent of almost 2,000 professionals working full-time. To our knowledge, this is one of the largest citizen scientist networks in the country.

With partners, Birds Canada collaboratively manages such programs as eBird, which had over 1.75 million checklists submitted in 2022 alone, or one of the longest-running citizen science programs in the world, the Christmas bird count, which engages tens of thousands of volunteers every year.

Citizen science is accessible to all, from neophytes to experts. Beginners can participate in Project FeederWatch and report the birds that they see in their backyards. At the cottage, perhaps, they can participate in the Canadian lakes loon survey, which tells us how our emblematic loons are faring across the country. More seasoned birders might participate in provincial breeding bird atlases. These are comprehensive bird surveys, kind of like the census we do for humans. By comparing the results of atlases conducted at 20-year intervals, we gain understanding of the changes affecting an entire region. Such an undertaking would be simply impossible without the contribution of citizen scientists.

Enthusiasm for citizen science is increasing. We know this, because we see it in our numbers, with record-high participation in our programs, growing steadily every year. Citizen scientists help deliver real scientific and conservation impacts. In 2021-22, data from Birds Canada programs were used for 533 peer-reviewed publications. Citizen science data also helped to identify Canada's key biodiversity areas, which were officially launched this past year, and to produce such crucial report cards as “The State of Canada's Birds”. The list goes on and on.

Citizen science does more than just generate data. Volunteering as citizen scientists strengthens our connections to nature. It gets us outside, with great benefits for physical and mental health. Perhaps most importantly, citizen science can be a gateway to greater engagement with the issues in our communities.

Many of the citizen science programs at Birds Canada have been supported by the Government of Canada. For this we are very grateful. Our programs directly contribute to federal objectives and mandates, such as conserving migratory birds. We have a strong track record of leveraging government investments, more than doubling these contributions through private gifts—including, in fact, many charitable donations from the citizen scientists themselves.

We hope that by now it's clear: We believe citizen science is essential, and we want to see it continue to flourish in this country.

With that, we'd like to leave you with three short recommendations aimed at the federal government.

Our first recommendation is to invest, of course, in citizen science programs, including their backbone infrastructure. By that we mean the tools needed for these programs to work effectively in that scale—for example, the modern technological and marketing tools needed to communicate with thousands of volunteers. Perhaps this is something NSERC could support as part of its mandate to promote science to Canadians.

Our second recommendation is to support more citizen science opportunities at federally managed sites—for example, Parks Canada's proposed network of new urban national parks. This would provide co-benefits for human health, and engage visitors in conservation action.

Our third recommendation is to continue support for citizen science programs focused specifically on birds. Birds are recognized as indicators of the state of our environment and are very cost-effective to monitor.

Remember those 10 million Canadians who have backyard bird feeders? To us, there is no doubt that among them we have the citizen scientists of tomorrow. We just have to show them the way.

Thank you so much.

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