We’re excited to announce the winner of this year’s Alan Duncan Bird Conservation Award, Adam Dhalla!
The award is given annually to honour contributions to local bird conservation through the arts and sciences, celebrating individuals, groups or organizations that are leading the way in bird conservation within our region.
Inspired by an irruption of Snowy Owls at Boundary Bay when he was 5, the now 17-year-old has an impressive list of accomplishments from inspiring fellow young birders, to developing his own bird-themed mobile game. In 2018, he was the youngest-ever speaker at the International Ornithological Congress (IOC), where he presented about the benefits to birds of a shade-grown coffee plantation he visited. He was invited back to this year’s Congress in South Africa to speak on his latest project, Find the Birds.
Find the Birds is a free, educational, mobile game about bird conservation designed to inspire children to learn more about birding. Adam shaped the game concept and created the art style for the app that has now been downloaded 10,000 times in 47 different countries.
Building on this, Adam surveyed game players to assess the impact the game has had finding that 98% of players reported an increase in appreciation of birds and 46% of respondents said they volunteered for a conservation project after playing the game. These results will be the topic of his presentation at the IOC in August.
Adam is also a wildlife photographer with multiple published photos, speaker at events for local community and international audiences, and an advocate to preserve Coquitlam greenspace at 3038 Guildford Way.
On behalf of the Vancouver Bird Advisory Committee and Stanley Park Ecology Society, we’d like to thank Adam for his excellent work and congratulate him on being this year’s award winner!
Stay tuned for a special webinar presentation from Adam in the coming months!
