Guest Speaker: John Tayless “Plankton, Herring and Sea Lions; The Annual Herring Migration Explained” Sun, Feb 21st, 2016.

Posted on February 18, 2016 by Botany
Comox Valley Nature is pleased to welcome Dr. John Tayless, who is well known in the valley as the founding president of North Island College. Dr. John Tayless is a marine biologist who specialized in coral reef ecosystems. His talk will outline why the herring appear with such regularity in the waters of Comox Bay, Lambert Channel and Baynes Sound around the second week in March. John will show how the herring, with the planktonic micro-crustaceans “copepods,” are so important in the conversion of vegetable protein to animal protein in sustaining the populations of salmon, sea lions, orcas, eagles, gulls and the other higher vertebrates that make up the ecosystem of the Salish Sea.

The annual herring migration brings with it a cornucopia that enriches the food web just when the spring reproductive cycle of many species is getting underway and begs the question: “Should there be a herring fishery at all”?

John spent a total of seven years around the South China Sea based in Indo-China and Borneo. He was Curator of the University of Hawaii’s Waikiki Aquarium, educated in the United Kingdom and immigrated to Canada in 1975. North Island College brought him to the Comox Valley where he was the college’s founding Dean. He retired from the college in 1990, as President, to join the Common Wealth, taking up a post once again in South East Asia. John was elected a fellow of the Linnean Society in 1968 and Fellow of the Zoological Society in 1970. He is now retired and with his wife Fiona, is enjoying the beauty of the Comox Valley and the valley life style. John’s lecture, entitled: “Plankton, Herring and Sea Lions; The Annual Herring Migration Explained” will take place at the Florence Filberg Seniors Centre at 7 pm (sharp) February 21, 2016.

 

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