President’s Message

Vice President’s Message
Heather Brenneman

As Vice President of the Saskatoon Nature Society, I am filling in for our President, David Forbes who, at this writing, has been travelling in Europe since late September. He asked me to prepare the message for this month’s newsletter.

What a gorgeous fall we have had!! As I write this in early October, we have just experienced two more days of hot, dry weather. The fall colours of the trees have been exceptionally lovely and lasting and the bird migration along the Central North American Flyway has been spectacular. Watching hundreds of Sandhill Cranes fly in from harvested fields to shelter for the night on the sandbars in the river off Chief Whitecap Park is always thrilling. This year, Whooping Cranes were sighted further north of here in record numbers: the largest one-day total of 196 amounts to over 35% of the entire population on the continent! Right here in Saskatchewan!

Let me tell you a little about myself and my participation on the SNS Board. I am a former clinical psychologist who retired in 2017 after practicing in Saskatoon for over thirty years. I have served on the boards of a variety of community organizations through the past 35 years. I became a member of SNS about 20 years ago and began by joining in birding field trips and attending monthly presentations. In 2021 I was elected to the board of directors. Since then, I have been active on three board committees.

As the Programme Coordinator for our general monthly meeting speaker series I enjoy researching and hosting presenters from the Saskatoon area and beyond. At present we continue to offer these presentations through meetings in person on the university campus while live-streaming them via the internet to viewers at home. David Forbes and Nancy Allan are fellow members of this committee.

Recently, I have also coordinated the Treaty Land Acknowledgment and Reconciliation Committee. Last year this committee crafted a statement of reconciliation with First Nations and Metis peoples. This land acknowledgement was adopted by the board in October, 2024 and is now used in opening our members’ monthly meetings. This committee, which currently includes new board members Nicole Paslowski and Nancy Lease, is now working to identify ways that we may engage together with First Nations and Metis peoples in our common goals of conservation and stewardship of the land, its birds, animals and plants.

Last year I was a member of the Nominations Committee which recruits new board members to replace those who are leaving the board, most often because they have reached the end of their maximum 5-year tenure. Although it is a bit early to make this pitch, I would like to encourage you to consider putting your name forward next March when board elections are held at our Annual General Meeting. Contrary to many people’s belief, you do not need to be a biologist or an expert birder or native plant lover to contribute to the board. You need only desire to contribute your time to this wonderful organization that has been successfully operating for over 60 years – because of its volunteers! We will have several vacancies that need to be filled come March.

I want to acknowledge the recent loss for nature lovers everywhere of Jane Goodall at the age of 91. Jane’s work with chimpanzees which began in 1960 not only taught us about their behaviour as wild animals but provided evidence that successfully challenged and changed how we in the western world have viewed our relationship to other living organisms since the time of Aristotle (over 2400 years ago!). She did more than any of her predecessors to convince us that humans are not the only sentient beings, able to use tools, to feel, to solve problems, to have meaningful social bonds, and to pass on knowledge across generations. You will be missed, Jane! (Listen to a rebroadcast of Rob MacDonald’s Quirks and Quarks interview of Jane Goodall from 2002 at https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/audio/9.6926723)

Finally, continuing on the topic of sentience I want to recommend a great read. The Light Eaters (2025) by Zoe Schlanger describes recent and somewhat controversial research on plants. Zoe is a former climate-change journalist with the Atlantic and other major U.S. news publications. Disillusioned with the slow progress towards addressing climate change, she went in search of a topic to revive her wonder about the natural world. The book is absolutely fascinating! Plants must adapt while rooted in a single place, where they have adapted ingenious methods of survival. Recently, scientists have learned about their ability to communicate, to recognize their kin, to store memories that inform their life cycle and even to trick animals into behaving to their benefit. One of the most intriguing examples is a mimic vine found in Chile. This vine changes appearance to closely resemble the plants that it is twining with, altering the size, shape, and colour of its leaves. The big questions are: how does the plant know what the other plant “looks like”, and what is the mechanism of the mimicry? A clue: the mechanism is not through a change in DNA! To find out how scientists think that the plant recognizes how the other plant looks and then changes its appearance, check out the book. It is well written, well researched and examines the topic with a lovely mixture of wonder and skepticism. You will never look at plants the same way again!