Dr Bryan Nelson Memorial Lecture

A first of its kind lecture is to be held in memory of the world’s leading expert on gannets, Dr Bryan Nelson MBE, who passed away in 2015.

As a tribute to Bryan, the Scottish Seabird Centre and RSPB Scotland are jointly hosting a memorial lecture which it is hoped will become an annual event. The first will be held on 6 October, 19:30, at Napier University (Craiglockhart Campus) in Edinburgh.  

Bryan Nelson spent his life working to better understand and conserve seabirds. He was a great supporter of the Scottish Seabird Centre from its inception and served as a Trustee until shortly before he died in 2015. He was a lifelong RSPB member, and a founding member of RSPB Scotland’s Galloway Local Group.

He and his wife, June, famously spent three years in the 1960s living in a small hut on the Bass Rock where his pioneering research work helped to unravel the fascinating life history of Britain’s largest seabird, the gannet.

Bryan also carried out important research on seabirds in the Galapagos and worked to help save the very rare Abbots Booby (a relation of the gannet) which is only found on Christmas Island in the Pacific. It was in danger of becoming extinct because large scale phosphate mining was removing the forest in which it nested. Bryan’s research and campaigning helped to ensure the protection of most of the remaining forest and the future of this extraordinary bird.

The speaker for this first lecture will be well-known seabird biologist, Professor Mike Harris, on the subject of ‘The Puffin: Past, Present and Future’.  

Tickets are available from the online shop at www.seabird.org, by calling 01620 890202 or from the Scottish Seabird Centre Admissions Desk.