Our 2012 Theme Speaker

Speaker

Christopher Swarth is a wetland ecologist and ornithologist. Since 1989, he has been the Director of the Jug Bay Wetlands Sanctuary in Lothian, Maryland. At the Sanctuary, he oversees a corps of about 350 research and education volunteers, and is mentor to two to three university research interns every summer.

He has been a research ecologist and biology instructor since 1979. His research interests are water bird distribution and population abundance on estuaries; patterns of songbird reproduction on Maryland’s Coastal Plain; turtle population structure, home range, diet and habitat use and nutrient dynamics in freshwater tidal wetlands. His graduate thesis focused on the diet and foraging ecology of Snowy Plovers (Caradriidae; Charadrius alexandrinus nivosus) at Mono Lake in eastern California.

His research experience includes positions as Staff Biologist - U.S. Fish &Wildlife Service (San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge); Staff Biologist - Pt. Reyes Bird Observatory (Farallon Islands National Wildlife Refuge; Bolinas Lagoon); Field Biologist - UC Berkeley's Museum of Vertebrate Zoology (Pt. Barrow, Alaska & Cameroon, West Africa). He is a member of the San Diego Natural History Museum’s centennial re-survey field team for the 1908 San Jacinto Mountain Expedition (field work in 2008; 2009). He is on the field team for the Carnegie Institution of Washington’s biological/geological research in the Australian Outback (1994; 1997; 2007; 2010). In July 2011 he was on a research team for a two-week exploration of the Belcher Islands in Hudson Bay. He’s taught at Diablo Valley College (Calif.) and at Anne Arundel Community College, and was a biology instructor at the Lawrence Hall of Science, University of California, Berkeley.

B.S. in zoology from Humboldt State University (California) in 1978;

M.S. in biology in 1983 from California State University, Hayward;

President, Atlantic Estuarine Research Society (2003* 2005);

Board member, Estuarine Research Federation (2003-2005).

Served on Maryland’s Sea Grant Research Advisory Committee

Site manager for the Chesapeake Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve.

Former vice-president of the Golden Gate Audubon Society (San Francisco);

Former Education Chair of the Audubon Naturalist Society (Washington, DC);

Life member of the American Ornithologist’s Union;

Research Associate with Hudsonia (NY) and with the San Diego Natural History Museum.

Recent publications include a chapter on animal ecology in the book, Freshwater Tidal Wetlands (2009; Backhuys Press, Leiden); co-authoring a paper on the thermal environment of overwintering box turtles (2010; Canadian Journal of Zoology); and a paper on home range and habitat use by eastern mud turtles (2011; Chelonian Conservation and Biology).

Co-editing (with AatBarendregt, Ultrect University) a Special Publication on fresh water tidal wetlands for the Coastal and Estuarine Research Federation.

Currently serves on the Patuxent River Commission, Maryland’s Department of Natural Resources Wildlife Diversity Advisory Committee, and is on the Maryland Amphibian and Reptile Atlas coordinating committee.

Currently a part-time faculty member in the Johns Hopkins University, Kreiger School of Advanced Academic Programs.