The Carr Award has been awarded 9 times since it’s inception. Robert Bercha is our most recent awardee in 2014. More awardees can be found scrolling to the following pages.
Robert Bercha
Awarded 2014
Robert’s professional training was as a geologist, and he has since had a distinguished career in the oil and gas industry that that has extended over two decades. But Robert has also had a life-long interest in entomology, and he has passed that interest on to his children. During the last ten years he has supported others like himself by building a publicly available resource (“The Insects of Alberta“) on entomology that is characterized by both quality and depth. Robert’s “Insect of Alberta” web resource includes information about a
substantial proportion of the insect species that may be found in Alberta, and has evolved into the first stop for information by many people in the province. His entomological accomplishments have entirely been made in his spare time, in the midst of many other family activities, and this has given him an ideal perspective for connecting with other amateurs and parents.
Robert’s sustained efforts to reach out to other people like himself have contributed greatly to science literacy in Alberta. Robert also continues to contribute to entomology in other ways, most notably by recording odonate and hymenopteran diversity in support of long term ecological monitoring.
Jan Scott
Awarded 2009
Jan Scott, of Medicine Hat, is an amateur in the purest sense; she does not have formal training in entomology, and is not employed in entomology, but pursues it purely out of personal interest. She is particularly interested in caterpillars, and has reared many species to adults. Jan has become known around town as “the caterpillar lady”, and has put in many volunteer hours with the Police Point Park Interpretive Centre in Medicine Hat. Over the past few years, she has reached out to various entomologists in the province to feed her curiosity and learn more about insects. As she has become aware of learning resources, she has expanded her knowledge on the insect fauna in her part of Alberta. Now that she has become an expert in her own right, Jan freely shares that expertise with others in southeastern Alberta, and she has contributed many new and unusual records of Alberta insects to other researchers. She is an active member of the Alberta Lepidopterists’ Guild.
Charles Durham Bird
Awarded 2007
Charles Durham Bird was born on July 7, 1932, in Oklahoma. His father was an entomologist who worked with Norman Criddle, and his mother was a botanist, so he was brought up in an environment very rich in the theme of natural history. As a child, Charley spend many days at the Entomology lab at Aweme, where his father worked. As a young man, Charley spent three summers working on the Northern Insect Survey (including a year with Alexander Klots) and two years in forest entomology in Manitoba. Charley obtained a B.Sc. from the University of Manitoba, and a M.Sc. and Ph.D. in botany from Oklahoma State University. In 1962 he took a teaching position in botany at the University of Calgary. Although employed as a botanist, Charley always maintained a broad interest in all things biological. He retired from the university in 1979 to become a rancher, which he pursued full-time until his final retirement in 1992. Then, rather than adopting a life of leisure, he continued to pursue his biological interests with a passion. Because of his vast contribution to Alberta Entomology, it is the pleasure for the Entomological Society of Alberta to award to Charley Bird the F.S. Carr Award.has preparation.
