Jef Vreys Takes on Grassland Conservation with Brink/McLean Fund Win

20 April 2023

A career dedicated to grassland conservation

Jef Vreys is a man on a mission. He loves nothing more than grasslands, and Jef has devoted his career to protecting their valuable biodiversity. The Master’s student knows his calling, and he is ready to make a real difference for conservation.

This is why NTBC has awarded Jef the Brink/McLean Grassland Conservation Fund for 2023. This fund promotes applied research, habitat restoration, and other stewardship activities that will assist the management of the land, plants, and animals of BC’s grasslands. The fund celebrates the work of Dr. Bert Brink and Dr. Alastair McLean, who dedicated their lives to ensuring the health of BC’s Southern Interior grasslands.

“I’m very excited to be selected for this,” he said. “I’m definitely ecstatic to get the chance to receive the funds that I can put towards my work.”

Restoring and monitoring antelope brush ecosystems

Vreys is currently pursuing his Master’s Degree at University of British Columbia Okanagan. His research focuses on restoration and monitoring of Antelope Brush grassland ecosystems in the South Okanagan. Jef and his team plan to develop long-term monitoring methods for these ecosystems that can inform future restoration methods.

“It kind of gives us a baseline of where a lot of the land is at for their ecological integrity. From there, we’re going to start conducting a couple of restoration projects, and see how that goes.”

This way, Jef and his team can compare previous conditions and new conditions once these projects are underway. They are hoping to collaborate with local landowners, BC Parks, the federal and provincial governments so that future Antelope Brush-related projects are conducted with synchrony. Part of their research involves tracking biodiversity through large-scale transects, requiring drone flights for which the Brink/McLean fund will likely be used.

Antelope Brush ecosystem, South Okanagan, BC © Graham Osborne 3-I-130672

Working together to protect vulnerable ecosystems in the Okanagan

Jef has always cared deeply about nature, and wanted to work with wildlife from a very young age. After his undergraduate studies, he joined the Fish, Wildlife, and Recreation program at BCIT, where he shifted his focus more to ecosystems and their intricate connections rather than individual species. He moved to the Okanagan during the pandemic and worked for the Burrowing Owl Conservation Society of BC for a time, before shifting to NTBC as part of the Okanagan Conservation Field Crew.

Jef spent seven months with the Crew, rising to the occasion to become a crew lead, and working on amazing projects like maintaining habitat for cougars and creating/monitoring burrowing owl burrows. During this time, he connected with professors Orville Dyer and Darcy Henderson, the latter of whom now supervises his work at UBCO.

“It’s been kind of one step to the next,” Jef says. “But I’ve really enjoyed everything along the way. I’m really grateful to be in the position I am right now, with a project working on something that can hopefully make a difference.”

NTBC is proud to have worked with Jef in the past and to be supporting his work in this way. The sky is the limit for him, and we can’t wait to see where his career will go. Congratulations Jef, and thank you for your incredible work!

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We gratefully acknowledge that our Vancouver office is located on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, who have been stewarding this land since time immemorial. Our work and conservation areas encompass many lands throughout the province, and we humbly acknowledge the First Nations communities who live on and steward these lands.