PAT FARGEY - Species at Risk Specialist, Grasslands National Park of Canada, Val Marie, Saskatchewan
Pat grew up literally in Small Town, Alberta, and following his dad's career progression in the RCMP. An early interest in wildlife lead to a B.Sc. in Zoology and an M.Sc. studying elk foraging behavior. He married Karin in 1988 and immediately left for Ghana, West Africa where he taught at a university natural resource management program for 3 years. Research activities included studying the unusual relationship between 2 villages and local populations of mona and black and white colobus monkeys. During his time in Africa he became interested in protected area management and the budding discipline of conservation biology. On returning to Canada he was lucky to get a job with Parks Canada and has had the opportunity to work on projects like the Prince Albert Model Forest (Prince Albert NP) and the Peace Athabasca Delta Technical Studies (Wood Buffalo NP). In 1994 he got his dream job as Biologist at Grasslands National Park and currently lives in Val Marie with Karin and his 2 sons Ben and Ian. He has had the privilege of working on the first Grasslands National Park management plan, initiating the native revegetation program, and participating in the grazing restoration program that has culminated in the reintroduction of bison to the park and the use domestic livestock to achieve grazing management goals.
He has recently taken on the job of being the Species-at-Risk specialist for the park and is heavily involved with recovery planning for swift foxes, sage grouse, black-footed ferrets/black-tailed prairie dogs, and Mormon metalmark butterflies.
He has long had an interest in finding ways to develop collaborative environments where stakeholders and agencies work together to effectively balance wildlife conservation with the needs of human communities. To this end he is a founding member of the Saskatchewan Prairie Conservation Action Plan and has participated on the steering committee and lead the writing of the biodiversity chapter in the current action plan. Given Grasslands National Park’s position on the US-Montana border, he has championed transboundary conservation initiatives ranging from international swift fox censuses, working with NGOs and agencies on northern mixed grass conservation planning, or cooperation with the North American Commission on Environmental Cooperation’s Conservation Action Plan for black-tailed prairie dogs and North American Grasslands Priority Conservation Areas.