Plenary Session for the 2010 Southern Division Meeting
2010 SDAFS Spring Meeting Plenary Session
Fisheries Management: a biased look backward and a myopic look forward
Fisheries management during my career reflected the reductionism focus of science in general during the 19th and 20th centuries. By carefully selecting some features of fisheries management and ignoring others, I attempt to give some superficial measure of credence to this perspective.
Following this brief, biased look backwards I rashly move to myopic speculation about the future. Recent emphasis on ecosystems and landscapes argues that the focus of fisheries management should shift from populations to communities. The emerging science of complexity, particularly the area of network science, appears to offer considerable promise for the study of fish and wildlife communities.
Finally in the event that some portion of the audience is still present, I shall argue that the organization of most fish and wildlife agencies ill equips them to meet the conservation challenges of the 21st century. Incorporating network concepts into organizational structures should increase agency effectiveness in accomplishing conservation objectives .
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Fred Harris
Fred Harris is a graduate of Concord College and the University of Georgia. After failing to distinguish himself at either institution, he was employed in 1972 by the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission as a district fisheries biologist. His general lack of talent and poor application of the scientific method of investigation resulted in several job changes eventually leading to his appointment as chief of fisheries in 1986. As an administrator he demonstrated considerable abilities to usurp credit for the work of others and assess blame for his own inadequacies. The agency rewarded him for these abilities by making him deputy director in 2004. He retired from the Wildlife Resources Commission in 2008 and now ponders arcane conservation issues between frequent naps.
Fred is a past president of SDAFS and AFS, which demonstrates the keen, if somewhat perverse, sense of humor that pervades the fisheries profession.