Our Team and Partners

Our Team

Dr. Heather Bears, MSc, PhD, R.P. Bio

Dr. Bears is the founder of Zoetica Environmental Consulting Services, and its sister company Zoetica Wildlife Research Services Inc. With over 15 years of experience, she is a technical expert in wildlife and wildlife habitat, genotoxicity in fish, biostatistics, and population modelling. She is a systems thinker, interdisciplinary enthusiast, and the brains behind the ZoeticaNet concept. She is highly adept at orchestrating large, interdisciplinary scientific teams for tackling EIAs, reviews, and for solving research problems where solutions exist between disciplines. She has a working understanding of most scientific disciplines, and can recognize how to utilize and combine the skills and knowledge of specialists to arrive at solutions. For more information click here.

Dr. Camille Warbington, BSc, MSc, PhD

Dr. Warbington is a highly experienced wildlife ecologist and quantitative ecologist. She has a passion for research into understudied wildlife populations, habitats, and communities. Her skills with all aspects of research - from study design to data analysis - result in benefits to conservation, human-wildlife coexistence, and sustainable development. Dr. Warbington has strong skills in large mammal population modelling to determine resilience to various threats and changes to mortality rates (e.g., sustainable harvesting thresholds), statistical analyses in R, Bayesian statistical applications, project management, research design, and scientific and multi-cultural collaboration. Dr. Warbington began her academic career at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which is well-known for its expertise in population modelling. There, her research focused on survival analyses of white-tailed deer within distinct ecoregions that differentially influenced their population dynamics. Using various research techniques, she was able to collect unique field data to fill important gaps, and employed novel Bayesian and frequentist methods to answer previously difficult questions needed to understand the population dynamics, and ultimately management, of this species. Following a move to the University of Alberta, Dr. Warbington focused on research of other large mammals such as the sitatunga of central Uganda, and other medium- and large-sized mammals in the northern boreal forest region. Dr. Warbington joins Zoetica following her latest position at the Alberta Biodiversity Institute where she worked on novel techniques to statistically analyze and improve motion-triggered wildlife camera study designs to render this method more powerful for answering important biological questions.

Celia Chui, BSc, MSc, R.P.Bio

Celia is an innovative ecological and molecular consultant. She has 5 years of applied research experience and 6 years of experience working in a BC Centre for Excellence Lab. Ms. Chui is well versed in survey protocols and best practices, identification of vertebrates by sight (and sound for birds), field work and data collection for wildlife and fish research, and analysing data. Since starting at Zoetica, Celia has been instrumental in conducting research for ESIA reviews of major infrastructure projects, and in conducting research for regional ecosystem planning in the face of climate change. Ms. Chui has complimentary expertise in next-generation gene sequencing (metabarcoding), which may soon have applications in environmental DNA (eDNA) analysis for passive detection of rare species in the environment, and for examining wildlife DNA periodicity within Arctic ice core samples.

Kim Pearson, BSc, MSc, P.Bio

Kim has worked in the conservation field for over 17 years. She earned a M.Sc. at the University of Lethbridge and a B.Sc. at the University of Alberta and is a Professional Biologist (Alberta Society of Professional Biologists). For ten years she collaborated on stewardship, community engagement and public education efforts with the Nature Conservancy of Canada's Waterton Park Front Project, one of the largest private land conservation efforts in Canada. She has consulted for industry on First Nations reserves, prepared baseline documentation reports for a private Alberta land trust, and completed species at risk reports and plans, wildlife monitoring and project management for provincial and federal governments. She is a member of the board of directors of the Waterton Biosphere Reserve Association.

Hongkang Lin, BSc, MSc

Hongkang an aquatic toxicologist, with a specialization in the toxic effects of diluted bitumen on fish. He has professional experience in environmental contamination issues with particular expertise in aquatic toxicology, contaminant fate and transport, and ecological risk assessment. Hongkang’s recent work with Zoetica has primarily focused on risk and impact assessment related to oil spills and potential contaminant exposures. The assessments are part of the regulatory review processes associated with developmental activities in oil & gas and linear infrastructure (i.e., pipeline) industries.

Amanda Hamilton, BSc, MSc, MF

Amanda is an enthusiastic and highly motivated wildlife biologist with commiserate experience in Forestry. She earned her B.Sc. in Wildlife Biology at McGill University, followed by a Master’s of Science in Forest Sciences from the University of Freiburg in Germany, and a subsequent MF (Master’s of Forestry) from UBC. Amanda has additional skills in GIS mapping, field and laboratory work, and over eight years of academic experience in wildlife biology and forestry. Amanda is highly familiar with northern boreal ecology and small mammal trapping and handling for population surveys.

Deanna Mackinnon, BSc, GIS

Deanna is a well-versed wildlife-focused GIS Specialist. She earned a BSc in Physical Geography and Spatial Information Science from Simon Fraser University. She has experience sourcing data from a variety of sources, producing various mapping products, and completing a variety of spatial analyses for wildlife research and land-use planning projects. Deanna has produced maps to serve a variety of purposes, including for: planning and undertaking fieldwork, public engagement, report figures, conveying habitat suitability, and buffering sensitive data. She has tailored maps for various audiences, from technical experts to laypersons.

Dr. Andrea Buckman, MSc, PhD, R.P.Bio

Dr. Buckman is a senior ecologist and toxicologist with expertise in aquatic and marine biology, marine mammal genomics, terrestrial ecology, and biostatistics. She has extensive experience producing environmental effects assessments, cumulative effects assessments, mitigation and monitoring plans, baseline reports, and designing research studies. Dr. Buckman also excels in managing scientific teams, leading large projects, and maintaining relationships with clients. She has built strong relationships with government scientists, salmon hatcheries, First Nations, sport fisheries, and other stakeholders. She has over 15 years of experience in research, consulting, and project management.

Dr. Regan Cross, BSc, PhD

Dr. Cross is a knowledgeable and skilled vegetation ecologist, scientific editor, and communicator. She is well-versed in scientific writing, plant identification, study design, public speaking, and data visualization and statistical analyses in R. She is particularly knowledgeable about drivers of plant species’ distributions, and the implications of species adaptability and changes to ecological drivers (e.g., climate change) in dictating the persistence of plants/ecological communities at the edges, or beyond, their known geographic ranges. Dr. Cross also has extensive experience designing and conducting field experiments, and years of academic research focused on plants and pollinators. In previous roles, Dr. Cross co-developed a guide for assessing climate resilience to determine locations for planting Little Forests in urban areas. By assessing plant species diversity, canopy cover, and soil qualities, the guide prioritizes areas in need of restoration. Dr. Cross also previously designed and taught an online field course on Urban Biodiversity to undergraduate students in 2021.

Associates

Jim Allen, BSc, M.Pl., M.C.I.P., R.P.P., R.P.Bio.

Mr. Allen is a senior environmental planner and conservation biologist with 22 years of experience in natural resource management and environmental consulting across Canada. Mr. Allen has a unique skill set, as he is both a professional biologist and a registered professional planner. Therefore, he is able to take complex biological information and use it to design landscape management plans that optimize multi-stakeholder interests and conservation values. Many of his projects have involved developing tools for mapping and land use planning for conservation, as well as maintaining and restoring natural ecosystems and processes. He has also managed community and stakeholder engagement efforts for many projects. Mr. Allen has a strong background in bird and habitat conservation and has conducted many reviews of pipeline and mining projects with Zoetica, particularly with regard to the impacts of these projects on vegetation due to dusting, changes in surface hydrology, impacts to soil pH, and impacts of climate change on vegetation.