Liz Bateman, Creature conserve scholarship recipient

“Creature Conserve is a unique organization in that they specifically fund projects that incorporate art for conservation outreach. After working in fisheries biology for several years, I discovered a lack of information and visual identification materials available for minnow species in my province, so I wanted to create illustrations of every native species to help watershed groups and other biologists identify them in the field but also to call attention to the fact that these overlooked fish species are under threat of predatory invasive species and changing environmental conditions. I wrote many grant applications but no funding organizations would support me as my project was art-based rather than field or lab research. Thankfully, Creature Conserve bridged that gap between art and science and saw the value in my project proposal and those of many others all around the world. This has been such a positive experience and I hope to stay connected with Creature Conserve and the community around it even after my scholarship project is complete. 

The one-on-one meetings with Creature Conserve mentors have been a real highlight of this experience because as a scientist and self-taught illustrator, I have never had any community of experienced artists around me to provide critique, guidance, or support before. The time spent checking in on me and offering advice made me realize how the folks at Creature Conserve not only financially support artists and scientists, but also value them and want to help them make a difference. I was so impressed and grateful for how willing the mentors were to encourage me to be flexible and try new things throughout my project instead of rigidly adhering to the original proposal.”

Liz Bateman is a graduate student in Nova Scotia, Canada, working in fish telemetry and is a self-taught nature illustrator. Her project is on the conservation of native freshwater minnow species. These small undervalued fish are a key component of healthy aquatic ecosystems, but are under threat of climate extremes and predatory invasive species. Very little is known about minnows in her province and to conserve them, we must first be able to identify them, but unfortunately many of these fish look very similar and many anglers, biologists, and naturalists in Nova Scotia aren't aware how many species there are or how to recognize them. For Liz’s project, she has created scientific ink illustrations of all species and will use these to produce both posters and ID guides as both outreach to highlight how little we know about minnows here, but also as a tool to help improve identification skills.

Nova Scotia, Canada

Instagram: @lizbateman_art