Midyear Report to the AFS Governing Board, February 2007
To: Dr. Jennifer Nielsen, President, AFS
From: Joe Larscheid, President, Fisheries Management Section
Date: February 13, 2007
1. Motion Report
- Recommended Motion: None
- Minority View: None
- Background for Motion: Not applicable
II. Activity Report
(A) Charge or Annual Program of Work: No specific charge or program of work defined.
(B) Summary of Outcomes and Accomplishments Organized by Focus Area in Strategic Plan with the appropriate goal, strategy, and target referenced.
Aquatic Stewardship
Strategy AS 2.3. FMS is a sponsor and provided $2,000 to the Urban Fishing Symposium planned for the 2007 AFS annual meeting in San Francisco. Publication for this symposium is slated to be completed in 2008.
Strategy AS 2.3. FMS is a sponsor and provided $5,000 to aid the publication of the 4th National Reservoir Symposium.
Strategies AS 2.3 and AS 2.4. Other funding requests were handled by the Excom as per FMS operating procedures regarding requests of $500 or less. The Equal opportunity section travel award is now a line item in FMS annual budget ($500 annually). The FMS also provided $500 to the National Fish Habitat Action Plan Workshop, and $500 to support the Fisheries Database Summit II .
Goal AS 2.8. The FMS website now has a link to the results of a survey of state, federal, and provincial natural resource agencies that sought information in changes in fish culture and stocking practices over the past several decades. The project was headed by Randy Jackson (NY), and the information was published as part of the proceedings for the Propagated Fishes in Resource Management symposium (AFS Symposium 44). Substantial changes have occurred due to concern over fish genetics and biodiversity, and the Section wants people both inside out outside of AFS to know just how much the agencies have responded. Webmaster Fred Janssen (TX) continues to do an outstanding job of keeping the website updated and fresh.
Membership Services
Strategy MS 1.5. FMS recognized many volunteers during 2006. Jerry Rasmussen received the FMS Award of Excellence for his work in the science and management of large rivers. The Great Lakes Fishery Commission and the Missouri River Natural Resources Committee both received a Conservation Achievement Award. Fred Janssen received the Award of Merit for his 10 years of service as web-site developer and webmaster for the FMS. This year we had two inductees into the Hall of Excellence (our section’s highest honor), Drs. Robert Carline and Wayne Hubert. Dr. Carline has an extensive record of research activities in fisheries management, a wide breadth of fisheries experience, has received many awards, and has given extensive service to AFS at all levels. Dr. Carline was present to receive the award and graciously thanked the many colleagues and students that worked with him during his career. Dr. Hubert also has very broad experience in fisheries management and ecology, native species conservation, salmonid ecology, habitat, and fisheries assessment. Dr. Hubert also has many editorial accomplishments and has greatly advanced fisheries management and education. Dr. Hubert graciously accepted the award and also thanked many previous colleagues and 84 (WOW!) previous graduate students. To ensure future recognition of deserving individuals, the FMS past presidents will serve as part of the awards nominating process.
Goal MS 2. FMS initiated an ad hoc committee to deal with an Assessment of Fish Aging Techniques. The goals of the committee include 1) a survey of state and Canadian provincial freshwater fish agencies on the use of fish aging structures; the survey will include queries on structures used for aging, the use of back-calculation of lengths from annuli, and assessment of precision and validation; 2) develop a literature review of fish aging techniques, precision, and validation; and 3) make recommendations for aging techniques. The committee chair is Mike Maceina (AL), and committee members include Jeff Boxrucker (OK), Dave Buckmeier (TX), Scott Gangl (WY), Dave Lucchesi (SD), Dan Isermann (MN), Randy Jackson (NY), and Pat Martinez (CO). In February 2006, a eight question survey was sent to all state and provincial USA and Canada freshwater fishery administrators. A total of 45 USA state and 6 Canadian provincial fish conservation agencies responded to the survey. Scales were more commonly used to age black bass, crappie/sunfish, and moronids than otoliths, but scale and otolith use to age salmonids and percids was nearly equal. The use of pectoral spines to age catfish was about twice as great compared to otoliths. Scales, followed by cleithra, were the predominant structures used to age esocids. The Committee on Assessment of Fish Aging Techniques has completed a draft paper that summarizes the analysis and results of the state and provincial fish agencies responses to current fish aging techniques, and has completed a literature review on validation, precision, and back-calculation techniques for major recreational and commercial freshwater fish groups. The survey showed that the availability of known age fish from stocking or from marking wild fish and their subsequent recapture was quite high and offers the opportunity to validate annuli on structures for a variety of species. Recommendations from the Committee are being drafted to improve aging procedures and protocols. Randy Jackson (Committee member) has completed a draft paper on the history of aging fish. The Committee plans to submit both papers to Fisheries for publication by the end of 2006.
Goal MS 2. The first and second editions of Inland Fisheries Management in North America, edited by Chris Kohler and Wayne Hubert, were widely adopted as texts for introductory fisheries management courses at universities and became "best sellers" among the books published by the American Fisheries Society. The second edition was published in 1999 and is quickly becoming outdated, so plans are being laid to produce a third edition in the near future. Wayne Hubert and Michael Quist have agreed to serve as editors of this edition. As with the first two editions, this will be a joint project by the Education and Fisheries Management sections. Hubert and Quist recently assessed two options for funding the project. One option involved the sections paying for the production costs and sharing equally in half of the net revenue from the book. The second option is the current standard for production of books in which the AFS covers production costs. After publication, the supporting section(s) receive 7% of total sales minus fulfillment costs until production and development costs are recovered, then the section(s) receive 10% of total sales minus fulfillment costs. The assessment indicated that it was financially advantageous to the sections to adopt the second option. The editors have asked that each section support the project with a $5,000 contribution for a graphic artist to prepare figures in a common format among all chapters. This contribution will be discussed and voted upon at the 2007 annual meeting of the sections. In the meantime, the editors are proceeding with the establishment of a steering committee to assist in the development of the book structure and identify potential chapter authors. They anticipate that the writing process by authors will be initiated in the spring 2007 and hope for publication in 2009.
Goals MS 2, ITO 3, and ITO 4. Work continues by the FMS Fisheries Techniques Standardization Committee on Standard Sampling Methods for North American Freshwater Fishes, which will describe standard methods to sample fishes in particular freshwater environments. The goal for this book will be to recommend a small group of methods for each of the primary freshwater environment types -- small lakes and ponds, reservoirs, large natural lakes, wadable streams, and large rivers, with a distinction between coldwater and warmwater fishes. Chapter outlines have been reviewed by the book editors, and by outside reviewers. Chapter authors include a mix of academic and agency personnel from Canada, Mexico, and the United States. Financial support has exceeded $131,000 with support from the U.S. Geological Survey, AFS (both FMS and the Education Section), U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, Arizona Game and Fish Department, and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.
Goal MS 2. The FMS is involved with an ad hoc committee concerned with the future development of standard weight equations. The need for this committee is based on the publication by Gerow et al., 2005, “A New Method to Compute Standard Weight Equations that Reduces Length-Related Bias”. North American Journal of Fisheries Management 25(4). 1288-1300. The consensus of the committee is that we should not have a highly directed effort to evaluate published Ws equations and develop new ones. However, there is a substantial need for documentation of a systematic process to follow in assessing published equations, gathering weight-length data, assimilating suitable data sets, accessing software, computing new equations, and archiving the data that are used. Ken Gerow is willing to continue to assist in the development of software for conducting assessments and computing new equations. The goal is to develop a Standard Operating Procedure for this process. It could be published and made available via the Internet to minimize production costs.
Strategy MS 4.3. FMS made the annual $500 contribution to the Equal Opportunity Section for their student travel support program a line item in our annual budget.
Information Transfer and Outreach
Strategies ITO 2.1, MS 4.6, AS 1.3. FMS continues to participate, in conjunction with the Fisheries Administrators Section (FAS), in an exchange program with the United Kingdom’s Institute of Fisheries Management (IFM) involving our respective Section’s Presidents. The basic approach is that each Society’s President would attend the other’s meeting in alternate years. AFS would be represented alternately, by the President of FAS then FMS. FAS president Gary Saul made the trip in 2005 and, FMS president Joe Larscheid made the trip in 2006. Don Gabelhouse (FAS) is slated for 2007 and Ron Essig (FMS) will make the trip in 2008. The original proposal was to support this endeavor for two cycles, and then decide whether we could justify the continued expenditures.
(C) Recommendations or Suggestions for Future Consideration: None.
III. Financial Status (provided only to Society Financial Officer and will not be copied and distributed in the briefing book): Files were sent via e-mail directly to the Society Financial Officer.