The latest issue of The Canadian Field-Naturalist (CFN) will soon arrive in the physical mailboxes of those with subscriptions for the printed copy. The CFN is the official journal and publication of record for the Ottawa Field-Naturalists’ Club. The current issue is already posted online.

The 108 pages are full of exciting discoveries on Canada’s historical and current biodiversity ranging from birds to wolves to earthworms. These include manuscripts on fern fossils and wood tur

tle pre-fossils and a couple more on the use of aerial drones (the latest trend) documenting Polar Bear raids on nesting Common Eiders and Salmon Sharks scratching on anthropogenic debris in a proposed Marine Protected Area off the coast of Vancouver Island.

The Manning Fund continues to assist in offsetting publication costs for some manuscripts including the one on bears and eiders and promotes the “lead authorship by a woman undergraduate student in a STEM field, which is critical to fostering the inclusion of under-represented groups and addressing the ‘leaky-pipeline’ in ecology and evolution by encouraging authorship by early career researchers” (pers. comm. A. Barnas 1 November 2022).

The issue also includes a tribute to George Argus, a pioneering force in Canadian and North American botany. A First Nations co-author on the note about sharks provided the stunning cover drawing for CFN 136(3), visualizing one of the observations. The CFN cover and in-press note were included at the 5th International Marine Protected Areas Congress 3–9 February 2023, in Vancouver with part of the video accompanying the note playing continuously “all day everyday on every hallway screen in the building and in the pavilion” (pers. comm. C. Du Preez 8 February 2023).

Screenshot of video “Natural history footage of Salmon Shark (Lamna ditropis) scratching behaviour (Du Preez et al. 2023)”

This video and note, the Feature Article for 136(3), are freely available online as CFN continues “to promote the appreciation, preservation, and conservation of Canada’s natural heritage … and publish the results of research in all fields of natural history” (OFNC objectives).

If you are an OFNC member, you can access the entire current and past issues online by contacting Bill Halliday, CFN Journal Manager, to obtain instructions on how to create an account on the CFN website.

Enjoy!

Dwayne Lepitzki, Ph.D., Editor-in-Chief