Small victories: one wingbeat at a time
Posted onMay 9, 2025byMariel Terebiznik|Canada's New Noahs, Conservation Success, News and EventsPhoto: D. Craven
Since 1988, the Canada’s New Noah program has provided young conservation biologists in Canada the opportunity of a lifetime. Each year, WPC selects a dedicated biologist from applicants across Canada to undertake a 3-month course at the Durrell Conservation Academy in the U.K. followed by a 6-month internship on the islands of Mauritius and Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. This is an opportunity unlike any other for young Canadians to learn firsthand how the world’s most successful conservation recovery programs are managed and to bring this knowledge and experience back to improve Canada’s conservation capacity. Rosie Heffernan is WPC’s 33rd Canada’s New Noah and reports on her experiences and how she will apply them on return to Canada. The Canada’s New Noah Program is generously supported by the Alan & Patricia Koval Foundation.
As World Migratory Bird Day lands on my last days in Jersey, I have started to feel a strong kinship with one particular bird. It is not our classic Canadian species that remind me of home like the Canada Goose or the Common Loon, but the lesser known yet remarkable Northern Wheatear (Oenanthe Oenanthe). These small birds travel from Canada across the Atlantic Ocean to northwestern Europe, before flying south to Africa in a near perfect parallel to my own travel route (some of the species take an alternative route across Asia but they don’t match my metaphor). While I have the benefit of taking airplanes rather than flying myself the whole way, we both have undertaken massive journeys – the wheatears chasing good breeding grounds and myself following a conservation passion. While both journeys seem almost too daunting to imagine from the starting point of Canada, I have come to appreciate how major milestones of this journey have been achieved on the back of small victories that we got to one footstep (or wingbeat) at a time.
Northern wheatear (Oenanthe oenanthe). Photo: S. Tomanovic, Getty Images.
As I face my final days on the DESMAN (Durrell Endangered Species Management) course with 3 months gone by, I can see some huge causes for celebration. Myself, my classmates, and our organizations hit some major milestones during our time here. For starters, we finished an intensive 3 month learning experience covering topics as broad as conservation livelihoods to genetics. While the diplomas won’t arrive until after all the assignments are handed in, we still got through it together. We also celebrated several birthdays including a 30th and 40th birthday for my classmates, but also the 100th year of Gerald Durrell who founded the Durrell conservation trust and the training academy that hosted me. Durrell also founded Wildlife Preservation Canada who is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. Everywhere I look, there are massive undertakings that deserve recognition and celebration. But as I look back on my own milestones during the DESMAN course, it is those smaller victories that truly stand out.
This theme of small victories was woven throughout the DESMAN experience. They popped up during our leadership training where we explored how taking the time to celebrate and acknowledge the small wins improves team morale and helps push towards larger goals. During our week learning how to plan a conservation project using the standardized system of Conservation Standards, taking time to consider and appreciate each small step of conservation action and how they work together to lead to a bigger goal was an integral part of the planning process. Getting past our exams and major assignments were also small wins that we celebrated as a class with dance parties in the backyard or nights out in the town. Even the structure of the DESMAN course itself celebrated our small victories. Every so often we had a full week dedicated to a topic, like GIS, communication and facilitation skills, and the Conservation Standards. These weeks functioned like mini courses embedded in our larger one, with even a few extra students joining in for them. At the end of each course, we had a mini graduation ceremony as we picked up our certificates to celebrate our accomplishments for the week. And sometimes, as a class we celebrated just getting through the day.
But what stands out most of all was the smallest of moments early in the course. After some admittedly depressing lectures on the state of the world’s biodiversity and climate change, we took time to go around the class and share what gave us hope. Those small conservation wins and the passion of other people for conservation were those beacons of hope for us. We hope and have seen how the changes we can make as conservationists, however small, add up to larger victories. Wildlife Preservation Canada got to 40 years of saving endangered species in Canada one day at a time. The scope of conservation need is huge, and the problem is dire, but as the Northern Wheatear and every other migratory species teaches us – every huge undertaking is made up of small steps. As I wrap up my time in Jersey, I will follow my Wheatear cousins south. There we will split up as they go to sub-Saharan Africa and I head to Mauritius, both of us reaching another milestone in our journeys.
Mariel Terebiznik
34th Canada’s New Noah
Mariel has always had a deep relationship with nature and conservation, having grown up spending most of her time outdoors in parks. Pursuing this passion, Mariel studied in ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Toronto, where she received both her Bachelors and Master of Science degrees. There, Mariel focused on being in the field as much as possible, travelling to Ecuador to work with lizards and spending an inordinate amount of time in Algonquin Provincial Park contributing to long-term monitoring projects. Mariel also co-founded and co-directs a grassroots organization called Field Research in Ecology and Evolution Diversified (FREED).
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