By Catherine Jardine
Sometimes the secretive birds, the ones that are hard to see, tucked away in dense habitats, are the most amazing and inspiring. For me that is Denis. You may not have heard the name Denis Lepage before, but if you are interested in birds or conservation, I can all but guarantee that you have used something that Denis has built over the past 25 years.
Denis is a mild-mannered, hilarious, and brilliant force of nature.
He is at the helm of the Data Science and Technology team at Birds Canada, and over the course of his 25-year tenure, Denis has quietly built the infrastructure and tools that our staff, partners and volunteers use.
Denis makes Birds Canada’s most technical projects possible.
Have you participated in a Breeding Bird Atlas? Denis built your data entry and website tools.
Maybe you’ve read about the amazing migratory behaviours uncovered via the Motus Wildlife Tracking Network. Well, Denis manages the Motus server and database, making those insights possible.
Perhaps you submitted or explored data on NatureCounts, or read The State of Canada’s Birds report. You guessed it, Denis founded and built NatureCounts and is the lead on the project.
Or maybe you’ve visited Avibase, one of the world’s most popular ornithology websites. A massive undertaking that Denis somehow manages to maintain single-handedly; in his spare time.
Widely recognized internally as one of the long-term leaders and strategic thinkers within the Birds Canada team, Denis combines a keen scientific mind with superb technical acumen. It is not an exaggeration to say that Birds Canada would not be the organization it is today without Denis’ influence.
I have had the pleasure of working with Denis over the past 13 years, and I could not begin to estimate how much I have learned from him, as a mentor, colleague and friend. His achievements are too extensive to list, but his philosophy and his work can be summarized fairly simply. Denis’ goal has always been to use his skill set to enable and streamline the work of everyone else.
Denis started working with Citizen Science bird surveys at just 15 when he participated in the first Quebec Breeding Bird Atlas. After completing his PhD on Snow Geese in the Canadian Arctic and a postdoctoral fellowship in South Africa, Denis returned to the world of Citizen Science, joining Birds Canada to build an online data interface for the second Ontario Breeding Bird Atlas. What started as one man and his computer, has since grown, under Denis’ leadership and vision, into the thriving team behind Birds Canada’s two flagship conservation technology projects; NatureCounts founded in 2008 and Motus founded in 2014. Both of these massive international initiatives share Denis’ core vision, working to streamline conservation and remove barriers for tens of thousands of users.
The data shows the results of his efforts:
- 8 Provincial Breeding Bird Atlases completed
- 47 Scientific papers published
- 1 Million Avibase users/year
- 250 Million records in NatureCounts
- 5.2 Billion records downloaded from NatureCounts
- 7 Billion Motus detection records
In honour of Denis’ 25th anniversary with Birds Canada, and on behalf of the tens of thousands of members of the conservation community he has helped, please join me in celebrating Denis’ amazing contributions to Canadian ornithology.
We’re grateful for all you’ve done and all you still do! Cheers to “D-Boss”!
