The Ecology Book

181

Observations of birds made and

recorded by “citizen scientists” in parks

and gardens can provide ecologists

with vital data on many species, such

as the European Goldfinch.

See also: A system for identifying all nature’s organisms 86–87

■ Big ecology 153 ■ The distribution of species over space and time 162–163

ORGANISMS IN A CHANGING ENVIRONMENT

Fred and

Norah Urquhart

Born in 1911, Fred Urquhart

grew up near a railroad line on

the edge of Toronto, Canada,

and became intrigued by the

monarch butterflies that laid

their eggs close to the track.

After graduating in 1937 from

the University of Toronto with

bachelor’s and master’s

degrees in biology, Urquhart

began to research the

butterfly. Having taught

meteorology to pilots during

World War II, he returned to

the university to lecture

zoology and married Norah

Roden Patterson, another

Toronto graduate, who joined

his quest to find the monarch’s

winter home. Fred Urquhart

also worked as Curator of

Insects and Director of

Zoology and Paleontology at

the Royal Ontario Museum.

In 1998, Fred and Norah

Urquhart were awarded their

nation’s highest civilian

award, the Order of Canada.

Key works

1960 The Monarch Butterfly

1987 The Monarch Butterfly:

International Traveler

regardless of whether the birds

were suitable for eating. In 1900,

Frank Chapman, an officer of the

Audubon Society—named after

American ornithologist and painter

John James Audubon—proposed

counting birds, rather than

shooting them. He encouraged 27

birdwatchers to participate in the

first event, and the counts then

grew every year. In 2016–17, 73,153

observers submitted counts from

2,536 different locations in North

and Latin America, the Pacific, and

the Caribbean. The data on the

distribution and number of birds

has provided a huge data set for

ecologists, allowing comparison

over time and between habitats.

In search of the monarch

Perhaps the most celebrated act of

citizen science was one that set out

to solve the mystery of where the

migrating monarch butterfly went

in winter. In 1952, a Canadian

couple, zoologists Fred and Norah

Urquhart, who had long been

fascinated by the butterfly, set up

a tagging scheme in an attempt

to find where the insect ended its

journey after setting out from

southern Canada and the northern

states of the US in fall. They

enlisted the help of a small group

of “citizen scientists” to help tag

the wings of the butterflies and

report sightings. From a dozen or

so helpers, their Insect Migration

Association, as it became known,

grew to hundreds of volunteers

who persisted for years, tagging

hundreds of thousands of monarchs

with the message “Send to Zoology,

University of Toronto.”

Despite the Urquharts’ best

efforts, the trail went cold in Texas.

Finally, on January 2, 1975, two

amateur naturalists, Ken Brugger

and Catalina Aguado, discovered

the butterflies’ wintering site in

montane forest north of Mexico ❯❯

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