Campus NewsCAMPUS NEWS

Studying the extinction crisis in Canada

 Despite its importance to our national identity, Canada's wildlife is disappearing fast. Some steps are being taken to protect wildlife, but too little is known about the causes of extinctions.

By assembling new satellite data, Jeremy Kerr has been able to identify the basic factors that determine where biodiversity is concentrated, why it is there, and why it is so often being lost. Kerr thinks a solution to ecological collapse in Canada might be the integration of agriculture with semi-natural lands.

Kerr is also working, in cooperation with the Canada Centre for Remote Sensing, to integrate the use of satellites into the traditional field of ecology.