Colin Bailey began fly-fishing on his father’s knee at the age of four. He learned to sample a trout’s throat to see the insects it ate, and how to tie flies to mimic its preferred prey (a skill that has earned him extra income for school, selling flies to anglers). And he listened, rapt, to his father’s stories about studying in the early ‘80s in the remote coastal wilderness of the Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre.
No surprise, then, that when Bailey graduated from Sahali Secondary School in Kamloops in 2010, his goal was a degree in biology or ecology—and to spend a semester at Bamfield.
“I really like ecology,” said Bailey of his choice of the Bachelor of Natural Resource Science program. “NRS is essentially the ecology of BC.” He also noted the anthropological side of the program. “Resource management is not just a science. People have to be involved, you can’t block one out for the other.”
In third year came the opportunity he’d been waiting for. He qualified to attend the Fall Program at Bamfield through the University of Victoria, a full semester of marine science courses, labs, fieldwork, and a directed studies research project. On top of the diverse wildlife, camaraderie (they call it a “Bamily”) and intensive learning, his project studying intertidal snails led to a discovery: he loved research.
Returning home, Bailey took the Winter 2014 semester off, because one of his fourth-year NRS courses was year-long, and would have to wait for fall. For the summer, however, inspired in part by his insect observations from years of fly-fishing, he proposed a research project to study the effects of chara weed beds and trout on aquatic insects in small local lakes. He was awarded an Undergraduate Research Experience Award Program (UREAP) grant, supervised by NRS faculty member Dr. Brian Heise.
Colin Bailey, medal winner in Natural Resource Science.
“There’s a fair amount of opportunity to do research in the program, lots of flexibility,” said Bailey. “NRS sets you up really well to do a master’s degree if you do undergraduate research.”
His summer of UREAP research collecting data in the field quickly grew into an honours thesis, and a new goal to attend graduate school. He presented a poster on his findings at the TRU Undergraduate Research Conference in March, and since successfully defending his thesis, he is preparing a paper for publication.
“I had a good time at my honours thesis defense,” he said. “I like when you find something interesting and get to explain that concept to a group of people who’ve never heard of it before.”
Bailey will be recognized at convocation this June with the TRU Medal in Natural Resource Science, for the highest academic standing in his class. And thanks in part to his undergraduate research experience, he has won a scholarship to do his Master of Science at Simon Fraser University, studying salmon ecology.
Before he leaves for SFU in the fall, he is working this summer as Heise’s research assistant, investigating new questions about benthic invertebrates, chara algae, and of course, fish.
