Dr. Joseph J. Kerekes has been a member of the ASFWB since 1967. He has maintained active participation in ASFWB over the years, often presenting on status of his research at the AGM.
Joe was born in Hungary. As a young man during the unrest of 1956, he came to Canada where he attended the University of Alberta. Since that time, Joe has contributed significantly to a number of professional societies and has illustrated distinguished service in research.
Joe is active in the International Limnological Society (SIL). He has chaired its working group on aquatic birds, and has coordinated the Diver/Loon Specialist Group of Wetlands International. He continues to serve on the SIL, organising conference sessions and reviews, and works with Canadian international agencies in demonstrating to other countries especially his native country of Hungary, to better understand changes in aquatic environments.
Joe has published his results extensively in the scientific literature, and has emphasised communication among scientists and land-users by organising and publishing the results of five workshops on the Kejimkujik LRTAP program, and international conferences on "Aquatic Birds in the Trophic Web of Lakes" (1991, Sackville, NB), and Limnology and Waterfowl (1994, Sopron, Hungary).
Joe is organising another major Aquatic Birds Symposium to be held in Sackville in 2003.
Joe had a productive 31-year career as a research scientist with Environment Canada from 1965 to 1996. Highlights this Career include:
Conducting basic ground-breaking research on physical-chemical aspects of limnology during the 1960s, with a focus on planktonic primary production in National Parks throughout Atlantic Canada. He pioneered research into nutrient-trophic responses of lakes, and developed an international reputation in the 1970s for his work on the ecosystem implications of eutrophication, which were reported in his OECD report on Eutrophication during a secondment to the OECD in 1978-80.
He began to work on the Long Range Transportation of Atmospheric Pollutants program (LRTAP) during the 1970s. In 1977, Joe proposed that long-term monitoring be undertaken in the Kejimkujik Calibrated Basins LRTAP project, using a whole-ecosystem approach. The inter-departmental projects which he instigated served as the basis for the ongoing integrated LRTAP monitoring and research studies for which Kejimkujik is famous.
In 1989, Joe shifted his focus to the impacts of acid rain on fish-eating birds in the Kejimkujik area, conducting a long-term monitoring program assessing populations, reproductive success and ecological constraints faced by common loons and other aquatic birds in the acid-sensitive coloured waters of southwestern Nova Scotia. Joe also applied his expertise to related projects, advising local authorities on the ecology and stressors facing aquatic birds in coastal lagoons of Mexico under the Latin American Program from 1988-91, addressing the potential for fertilisation of wetlands in Nova Scotia from 1990-94, and coordinating the volunteers who contribute to the Canadian Loon Lakes Surveys in the Atlantic provinces since 1989.
Joe continues as an Emeritus Research Scientist with the Environmental Conservation Branch - Canadian Wildlife Service, Atlantic Region, from 1996 to present.
In return for a an office, a computer and a telephone, Dr. Kerekes continues to offer expertise and skills related to his understanding of factors affecting aquatic productivity in Atlantic Canada, and his international reputation relating to impacts of acid rain on aquatic systems and the productivity of fish-eating birds.
CWS continues to benefit from his abilities to review regional issues, based on his own knowledge, opinions of his contacts, and literature reviews, as well as his specific understanding of the region's aquatic ecosystems.
Joe provides advice to CWS and other agencies, such as Parks Canada, mentors young scientists within the agency by showing them the ropes of conducting and reporting on complex field science, and works closely with staff of Kejimkujik Park in monitoring and understanding population trends of Common Loons and other fish-eating birds in the Park.