The legacy of celebrated Canadian author and bird conservation advocate Graeme Gibson will continue through a $1-million gift to Western University from his longtime partner, acclaimed author Margaret Atwood.
The donation will establish the Graeme Gibson Chair in Avian Biology, a new research position at the London, Ont., school focused on understanding how birds move, behave and adapt to changing environmental conditions.
Western president Alan Shepard said the gift will help advance the university’s internationally recognized bird and migration research programs.
“In addition to their extraordinary leadership in Canadian writing and the arts, Margaret Atwood and Graeme Gibson have been lifelong champions for birds and nature conservation efforts across Canada and around the world,” Shepard said. “Western is deeply honoured to receive this gift in Graeme’s memory to advance world-leading bird and migration research.”
Atwood said the donation honours Gibson’s lifelong passion for birds and conservation. Gibson, a Western arts graduate, died in 2019 at the age of 85.
The chairholder will join Western’s biology department and become part of the Centre for Animals on the Move, an interdisciplinary research hub that studies the movement of birds, bats, fish and insects. The successful candidate will also have access to the university’s Advanced Facility for Avian Research (AFAR), which Atwood described as one of the country’s leading bird biology programs.
Atwood said the new chair builds on an existing connection between Western researchers and the Pelee Island Bird Observatory, which she and Gibson co-founded in 2003.
“Graeme would be very pleased. He was devoted to birds, evidenced by his best-selling The Bedside Book of Birds,” Atwood said.
“Birds are the canaries in the coal mine. They indicate the health of an ecosystem. Also, imagine a world without birds or birdsong. Birds have long been a symbol of hope, and hope is what we need more of right now.”
Atwood said the gift also reflects Gibson’s ties to Western, where his experiences as a student inspired his first novel, Five Legs.
“Graeme would have gotten a kick out of a chair in his name at Western because he went there, with mixed and hilarious though ultimately beneficial results,” she said.
