At the Annual Meeting and Dinner, Peter Pyle will receive the Eisenmann Medal, the Linnaean Society’s highest award, given for excellence in ornithology and encouragement of the amateur. Peter will introduce us to the Gulf of the Farallones, which lies within an “Eastern Boundary Current System,” one of five such current systems around the world, where cold ocean currents and other environmental factors lead to high ocean productivity: an estimated 85–95% of the world’s seafood originates from these five systems. Peter’s talk will cover the ecology and conservation of the Gulf’s marine vertebrates, from birds to pinnipeds to cetaceans, with emphasis on his main research species, breeding and pelagic seabirds, and great white sharks. We will not only learn about some of the Gulf’s keystone species but will also look in on the excellent research that has been undertaken in the Gulf and the conservation and management actions that have resulted.
Peter Pyle is an identification specialist and consultant for the Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary’s Beach Watch program. He is a Research Associate at both the California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco, and the B.P. Bishop Museum, Honolulu. Peter works as a staff biologist for the Institute for Bird Populations, Point Reyes Station.