Dr. Christian Artuso is a passionate birder and naturalist traveller who has visited over 50 countries, seen over 6,000 species and photographed over 4,300 species of birds. His photos appear in many magazines, books, and other media. He has birded, guided tours, small groups and individuals around the world, and is especially well known for finding owls (to date, he has seen 167 species of owl). He is most experienced in the Americas and Asia, where he was probably the first person to photograph some rare species in the wild such as the Bornean Bristlehead. He is also especially skilled at visiting remote locations and operating in difficult field conditions.

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  Christian is a conservationist and ornithologist with the Conservation unit of Migratory Birds of the Canadian Wildlife Service. He has a Ph.D. in Environment and Geography, with his thesis examining the effect of human density on Eastern Screech-Owls. He is a member of the Bird Specialist Subcommittee of the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) and many other committees. He coordinated the Manitoba Breeding Bird Atlas (2010 – 2014), coordinated the Manitoba Nocturnal Owl Survey and the Breeding Bird Survey locally for five years, and continues to work on many other projects in Canada and internationally. He volunteers for many citizen-science programs, serves on the Manitoba Ornithological Records Committee and is an eBird regional reviewer.

  Christian has published many articles on Manitoba's avifauna and received the Cliff Shaw Award for outstanding contributions to the Blue Jay (Nature Saskatchewan peer-reviewed journal). He received Nature Manitoba’s Ernest Thompson Seton Award in 2020. He was also a finalist in the individual category of the Canadian Museum of Nature, Nature Inspiration Awards in 2014. He has given hundreds of presentations, workshops and training sessions on natural history and conservation to a wide variety of audiences and uses blog posts and social media for outreach. He has trained many young biologists in field methods and identification, and he particularly enjoys providing additional information while guiding, especially on natural history, biogeography and ecology, but also on field identification and nature photography when requested.

  Christian is equally devoted to Indigenous-led stewardship. He has a passion for languages, speaking six. He has spent many years learning Anishinaabemowin (and learning about other Indigenous languages), which has deeply shaped his conservation ethic.