The Warblers by Birds Canada

Bird Gaming for Conservation

March 14, 2023 Season 3
The Warblers by Birds Canada
Bird Gaming for Conservation
Show Notes Transcript

In this episode, Andrea speaks with Adam Dhalla - a 17-year-old birder, designer of the game Find the Birds, and recipient of the ABA's Young Birder of the Year award. Adam's passion is the intersection of nature and technology.

Adam describes becoming interested in birds and bird conservation as an 11-year-old. He quickly realized that birds are in trouble and that there weren't many people his age engaged in birding and bird conservation. As a gamer himself, he decided to create Find the Birds, a game that would teach kids like him about birds and conservation issues with the eventual goal of putting the game down and going out into the field.  Adam talks about the journey of finding mentors, pitching Find the Birds, and eventually launching it in 2021.

Andrea Gress studied Renewable Resource Management at the University of Saskatchewan. She pivoted towards birds, after an internship in South Africa. Upon returning, she worked with Piping Plovers in Saskatchewan and now coordinates the Ontario Piping Plover Conservation Program for Birds Canada. Follow her work at @ontarioplovers

 

Bird Gaming for Conservation with Adam Dhalla

SPEAKERS

Adam Dhalla, Andrea Gress

 

Andrea Gress  00:08

You're listening to the Warblers, a Birds Canada Podcast. I'm Andrea Gress. Join me and others as we travel on common flight paths with our guests gaining insights and inspiration from the world of birds and bird conservation in Canada. All right, folks, welcome back to another episode of The Warblers Podcast today we've got a mini episode for you. So you might recall the last episode featured Paul Riss telling us about how he's combined art with birding and sort of his punk rock attitude to try and shift the stereotypes that typically revolve around birding and the birders and the birding world. Ultimately, he's made a life and a career out of being kind of an atypical birder. And it's a really cool episode a really fun conversation. So be sure to go listen to that episode, if you haven't already. Today, we're on kind of a similar thread but a little bit different. We are chatting with Adam Dhalla, who is also doing big things in the birding world. He's thinking outside the box to try and encourage conservation efforts and get more people interested in birds. Now, the big difference between these guys is that Paul has been doing this for many years. Like I said, he's made a life out of it. Well, Adam, who we're chatting with today is just starting out. Adam is a 17 year old high school senior and an avid birder living in British Columbia. Adam has always been interested in the convergence between conservation and technology, which led him to develop a really cool game called Find the Birds. You can check it out at findthebirds.com. It's a free educational game for children, about birds and about protecting their habitats. And it's available on various apps and on Steam. So it's super accessible and a lot of fun to play if I'm being honest. Adam has delivered seminars on the games impact on conservation education, for the International Ornithological Congress, the Audubon Society, Science World and so many more. And to keep the momentum going Adam has also launched a spin off of the game called Find the Whales. And as you might guess, that one's about ocean conservation. But we are here to talk about birds. So welcome to the podcast, Adam.

 

Adam Dhalla  02:29

Thanks for having me on.

 

Andrea Gress  02:30

How you doing? I hear high school students are extra busy these days. Do you find you get some time to go out birding?

 

Adam Dhalla  02:37

Yeah, you're definitely right about the busyness part. I mean, I think it's really been recently about trying to just kind of integrate a little bit of bird stuff in kind of daily life because I have no time right now to go on like a whole trip somewhere to go birding. So it's been mostly just stuff like having the window open so you can listen to stuff outside. Maybe the best treat recently is having barred owls. I'm not sure if they're nesting, but they've been around here for a very long time and listening to do the who cooks for you all calls, like all night long, for a good few week period, a couple of weeks back, it just kind of you know, getting to know my little backyard area and my my neighborhood pretty well.

 

Andrea Gress  03:23

That's lovely. There's something about listening to owls in the night that is extra special. 

 

Adam Dhalla  03:28

Yeah, absolutely. 

 

Andrea Gress  03:29

So before we get into the really cool projects that you're involved in, could you tell me how you got into birds? Like do you have a spark bird story perhaps?

 

Adam Dhalla  03:37

For sure. So I think with all interests, oftentimes the there's the idea of Spark bird and a bird that kind of led you to find this whole world of birdwatching. Oftentimes, I think something that's, that's left out is kind of this idea of, of immersion in a way in the natural world before your spark bird. I live in Vancouver, Canada, I've been privileged to be surrounded by nature since I was a little kid. And even before becoming interested in birds and nature, I was always a part of this kind of natural area I would always go to parks, my parents would take me to parks, and even though I wasn't listening for birds, it was always a kind of natural environment. So I often is isolate 2011 as my year that I really got into birding with the snowy owl eruption down to Canada in the lower 48, where we had to think about a dozen snowy owls land an hour away from my home, and I went to see and yeah, that was a big kind of watershed moment for me.

 

Andrea Gress  04:41

Yeah, I like that a lot. I also grew up around nature. And so, you know, birding wasn't necessarily a big part of my childhood but nature and just being out in it was huge, and that's definitely shaped a lot of who I am today. So you were named in 2018. You were named the American Birding Association Young Birder of the Year, you must have been pretty young when that happened.

 

Adam Dhalla  05:04

Yeah, I was it is 2023 now, so I think I was around 13/14 at the time. 

 

Andrea Gress  05:10

Yeah. Cool. So tell me more about that.

 

Adam Dhalla  05:13

Yeah, for sure. So, up until that point, I've heard of the ABA. I mean, it's kind of like the unofficial/official kind of regulator of sightings and I watched the movie The Big Year when I was a kid and like, and a lot of the people who, you know, work in that and manage sightings, and lists and records and classifications is the ABA. So I was always kind of aware of them. But I think winning that was a great opportunity to kind of be formally anointed into this kind of world of birding and, more specifically, bird conservation. One of the, it was one of the biggest steps in the development of this game, because I think it was about two years into the concept at that point. And for the for the ABA award for young birders, there's a there's a bird conservation section. So try, I put my game into that section, I entered a game into that section. And that gave me a really good opportunity to flesh out the idea a lot more have kind of a formal, formal pitch in a way. And then also after winning it to be able to discuss with the people and the folks at the ABA, on getting some feedback, some early feedback, and even some early connections on creating this game. So kind of tactically in a way it was really helpful for the game, but it was also just a great, a great opportunity to be introduced to these really real greats in birding. And also, I guess one of the other benefits is getting a pair of Leica binoculars, which I still use.

 

Andrea Gress  06:45

A little a little prize is always good, but it sounds like the real prize is the networking and getting to meet some some really awesome birders. Very, very cool. So yeah, we keep talking about this game. You launched a few years ago. It's a free educational mobile game about birds and conservation called Find the Birds. So tell me more about what inspired it sounds like it's been in the works for a long time.

 

Adam Dhalla  07:14

Yeah, for sure. So as a kid, I started off just being interested in birds and kind of collecting sightings and that kind of love of collecting eventually sprouted into love of recording. And I became interested in photography and wildlife photography. But I think unavoidably when you spend so much time looking for things and spending time around birds, you you, you inevitably become kind of more privy to their threats and you know, their habit. So kind of through that process, I realized, okay, so a lot of birds are in trouble in terms of, you know, formal endangered classification and also just habitats disappearing. But I think a kind of exacerbating force was always that it didn't feel like people my age were getting into birding and kind of getting into conservation through birding. So I thought there's a need, there needs to be a way to kind of increase the engagement in a way of my generation. So I was about kind of 11 ish when I was thinking this because there wasn't many 11 year olds out there, I probably could count on my hand, the amount of people around that age which I saw in the field. So I thought, okay, there needs to be a way to get these people interested, this potential kind of audience for birdwatching. I also thought I was playing lots of games at the time any kid does, and especially with iPad games and stuff. And I thought that birding was kind of a natural gamifiable activity. I mean, I was playing like, I really liked Pokemon at the time. I mean, birding is pretty much just Pokemon, but in real life, so I thought, hey, there's, you know, there's this natural tendency, like kind of zoophilia is, is what Ed Wilson called it to kind of collect to to to collect observations of things and which everyone has even though they might not think they have that's why birding is so popular. And I thought we can kind of draw on that in terms of creating a game where you actually formally go into habitats. But the real important thing is that it wouldn't be angry birds No, no, no shade to Angry Birds. But it'd be real birds it'd be real locations so you'd be going to real places you wouldn't be going to like some made up forest and a made up land you'd be going to Vancouver you're going to Pacific Spirit Regional Park or or Stanley Park or somewhere like that, and you'd be seeing real birds with real information. And that eventually led to a partnership with with Cornell and all that to get some stuff in the College Library. Real images, real sounds. We have video clips of birds. So through this kind of fun experience, I think edutainment was kind of the, the word we use, you'd become, you'd become kind of immersed, immersed into this bird world, kind of through that, and the eventual goal of the game. And we often had trouble to this pitching the game companies would be people to put down the game, which is kind of counterintuitive. But we didn't want people playing this game forever. So, so the final step of this would be them to go outside. So really, the game was thought of as a stepping stone to the natural world.

 

Andrea Gress  10:33

Like that. Yeah. And, I mean, it's so obvious too right, you look at how successful something like Pokeman is, why not link it to the real birds that are out there. Because once people start paying attention, there's a lot of really cool birds in our own backyards, that, you know, we don't necessarily pay attention to, so that it's such a great idea to just bring it home for people. Do you feel like it's gone quite well?

 

Adam Dhalla  11:02

Um, yeah, I mean, it's, it's taken a lot of time to get to where it is, right now. I started came up with a concept kind of at the end of 2015/2016. So it was like, six, seven years ago now. And came up with a concept then and for good, four or five year period was mostly just doing concept art work, and kind of refining the pitch in a way my art style got better for kind of honed in on something that was simultaneously kind of cartoonish and especially, you know, children would be would like, but also, anyone could any birder could look at one of those bird drawings and say, Oh, that's a Tricolour Blackbird or, or, you know, identify two species. So kind of finding that balance was a lot of what, to what I spent my time on during those years, and, you know, strengthening connections. And again, it was, it was a hard thing, because trying to get a game company involved, was tough and trying to get an NGO involved was tough, because both had never seen something like it before. So that five year period was mostly spent just trying to do stuff and not necessarily doing much, but really hit the the kind of watershed moment in 2021, where we were able to get grant funding from the government, and in just four months, put together a team of animators and coders and put together the first level. And since then, we've launched a variety of levels with a variety of amazing people. And we've released a PC version with Birds Canada. And it's been really great since then.

 

Andrea Gress  12:40

It's so cool. I'm just going to reiterate for listeners that you're 17. And this is where you're at, you've got a game, a team of people working on this thing. It's that's incredible. So changing the subject a little bit. You are self described, activist, how do you feel about the future of birding and conservation here in Canada?

 

Adam Dhalla  13:03

I mean, I think in in ways it's positive and negative, obviously, we tend to focus on the negatives, which is kind of the job of an activist really, so, you know, can't be blamed. But I think in terms of the kind of wide swath of tools that we're going to be able to utilize in this kind of fight or whatever you want to characterize it as for birds and conservation habitats is growing. And the kind of huge swath data given to us by things like eBird and other citizen science projects gives a totally new way to do not just ornithological studies, but also ecological and conservation studies, we can look at massive macro changes in populations and such, which would have been completely impossible before. But now we can do things and map populations over time in ways that could never happen before and kind of see the effects of our actions in real time almost. So things like that, obviously not good enough alone to stop the several things that are driving birds to extinction around the world. But it definitely gives a larger set of tools that we can use to try and do that. I think the rise of birding is undeniable although it might not necessarily be in the youngest age group. Definitely. People are getting more involved. I think maybe the most I think one of them, you know, it's not the biggest threat but I think something that at least is overlooked in younger kids is kind of maybe this kind of scary trend to kind of instant gratification and such as I'm like a sound like a boomer when I'm talking about this, but but it is definitely concerned that doesn't work in the favor of birding. And I think that's definitely something that needs to be worked on in a way that collectively as a society, we becoming more kind of used to this instance. I mean, you can point to whatever example you want TikTok or, or whatever. But it just in general, this kind of shift to instant gratification, which is not what birding is. So I think that is something that we're kind of fighting against. And that's one of the reasons why we didn't make the game. You know, it just like a million birds appearing on the screen and you just tap them. I mean, obviously, it's a little exaggerated from real birding, just to make it, you know, a game. But, but it's, it's not going overboard. And I think that's one of the kind of conditioning to become less dependent on that instant gratification, not just a bird to think it's important social issue. But definitely, it's one that affects birding and people becoming interested in birding and therefore, conservation and bird conservation.

 

Andrea Gress  15:50

Yeah, the instant gratification thing is actually very, very interesting challenge that I see it in myself, too, that I have less patience for so many things. You know, I like the instant gratification. But I do feel like some of the apps and things we've got for birding can help feed that a little bit. You know, people can go in their backyard and turn on the Merlin sound ID and get the gratification of like, just hearing what you know, help getting help to hear what's around them. And learning that way. So yeah, it's it's interesting. It's an interesting challenge that you raised. But also, you've raised how there's so many cool tools and so much knowledge and data that we have at our fingertips. So it's, it sounds like, I'm I'm feeling optimistic. I feel like you've got some optimism there, too. Hey

 

Adam Dhalla  16:44

Definitely. 

 

Andrea Gress
Cool. Very cool. So I gotta ask, what’s next for you? You must be graduating soon? 

 

Adam Dhalla 16:50

Yes, I'm graduating this year holy. I am graduating this year, and I'll be going to university somewhere. I think I'm definitely poised to do kind of weirdly, this always kind of catches people off guard, because a lot of people have heard of my work mostly through conservation. But I'm interested in doing mathematics and AI. And I mean, I talked I think briefly about the use of AI and such in bird studies. But also just this kind of broad idea of, of, of utilizing, again, vast swaths of data in bird conservation, and also going on the AI side now and seeing how we can improve those two goals and apply them back to bird conservation is something that interests me.

 

Andrea Gress  17:36

There's so many different ways you can build a professional life around being interested in birds. And I think you're you're like, well underway. I'm, I'm, I'm excited. I feel good that we got folks like you in the future, going to be working on some of these hard math problems and AI things. And I think it's going to really come together for us if lots of lots of kids like you are out there. So on that note, thank you so much for joining Adam. It's been kind of fun learning more about this game and what drives you.

 

Adam Dhalla 18:06

Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to rant about what I love.

 

Andrea Gress  18:11

Awesome. Well, thank you so much. Listeners can go and play the game. That's your homework. It's real tough. You can download and play Find the Birds on the Apple App Store on Google Play or on Steam. And please remember it is free. So go check it out. 

 

The Warblers is a podcast of Birds Canada. Our goal is to bring you the information you need to discover, enjoy and protect birds. If you like what you hear, please subscribe, leave a review and share this podcast with everyone you know, Birds Canada relies on the support of donors like you visit birds canada.org/warblers podcast to make a donation today. The warblers is produced by Jody Allair, Kate Dalgleish, Ruth Friendship-Keller, Kris Cu and Andrea Gress with music by Jose Mora and art by Alex Nichol. Until next time, keep birding.