John Bower to receive 2011 Seattle Audubon Science Award

John Bower, an associate professor at Western Washington University's Fairhaven College of Interdisciplinary Studies, has been chosen as the recipient of the 2011 Seattle Audubon Science Award, which "honor(s) an individual in the greater Seattle community who has made a significant contribution to our knowledge of the birds and wildlife habitat of our region, through publications or other means of disseminating scientific information."

John Bower has spent more than 25 years studying the natural world. Getting his start as a birdwatcher, his research includes acoustic communication in bowhead whales and song sparrows, as well as population ecology of Pacific Northwest marine birds. Recently, Bower and his family lived on Isla Robinson Crusoe, 500 miles off the coast of Chile, where he studied competition for flowers between the endangered and endemic Juan Fernandez firecrown hummingbird and the green firecrown, a recent arrival from the South American mainland. He teaches a wide variety of courses at Fairhaven, including "Marine Bird Ecology," "The Science and Music of Natural Sound," "Cultural and Biological Perspectives on Pregnancy and Childbirth," and "The Folk Music Experience."