Between peering into binoculars and keeping meticulous checklists, for some outside the activity, bird watching may seem perplexing. Why do people enjoy it, and what does the practice reveal about human-animal relationships? Or, consider aquariums, with their carefully choreographed performances and animal-touching activities. What ideas about animals and conservation are encouraged through such institutions, and what insights might be drawn from academic critique?

Join us as we explore these, and other questions, with Traci Warkentin and Gavan Watson, doctoral students in the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University. Including themes of ethics, representation, and phenomenology, Warkentin and Watson’s respective research is both challenging and engaged. Watson, a naturalist, works at the intersection of animal studies, environmental education and natural history, while Warkentin’s scholarship draws together environmental ethics, education, and animal geographies from a feminist and interdisciplinary approach.

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