If these rules are followed, your impact will grow, interest in your work will increase and so will your network of like-minded people. Fishery Scientists can take on this responsibility and run with it, and the time is now.
Category: The Fisheries Blog
Halloween’s greatest hits
It’s hard to believe we’ve been writing The Fisheries Blog for over six years. Over the years, we’ve been known to do a holiday-themed post or two. This week, we skip the traditional Monday post for a special wrap-up of Halloween-flavored posts over the year. Scary stuff! Way back in 2013, one of the first…
Fun Fish Festivals: year-round edition
By: Dana Sackett Since moving to Germany, I have loved attending the near endless number of festivals that seem to fill the calendar year round. Summer fests turn into fall wine fests, which then seamlessly transitioned into various harvest, pumpkin, and beer festivals (including the famous Oktoberfest in Munich). Next will be the winter festivals…
SciComm, the Next Generation: #GARkansas
Science communication is surprisingly diverse, a necessity in order to be effective. “Scicomm’ers” engage diverse audiences (e.g. students, stakeholders, other scientists) using diverse methods (e.g. journals, social media, town hall meetings), but communicators themselves come from a variety of backgrounds, including ages. Over the past year I’ve been inspired by one of the next generation’s…
Heatwave
By: Dana Sackett In my recent adventures as a military spouse, I found myself and my family uprooted once again and headed to a new home; this time overseas in Germany. We made this move just a few short weeks ago during the intense heatwave that wracked the eastern portion of the United States. In…
A Conference Angle: From Socialization to Publication
Conference season is upon us, and the national meeting of the American Fisheries Society (AFS) is fast approaching! Here at The Fisheries Blog, we’ve shared posts on the value of professional conferences, as well as a student’s guide to networking at conferences (I recommend reading both prior to your next conference). I’d like to share…
Book review: the Squidtoons comic
This is the coolest piece of #scicomm I’ve seen in a while: Squidtoons: Exploring Ocean Science with Comics by Garfield Kwan and Dana Song. Squidtoons has been ‘illustrating science with farts, burps, and giggles’ since 2013. Their website features entertaining comics packed with info on the amazing diversity of marine life, including a 2016 collaboration…
Reauthorizing the Magnuson Stevens Act
In 1976, Congress passed the Magnuson-Stevens Act (Magnuson–Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act). The Act originally focused on zoning and controlling territorial waters, and establishing regional councils to manage fish stocks, among other things. The Act has been reauthorized a several times and has generally been viewed as a bipartisan success story. Many fish stocks have…
Artifacts of epochs past: Rio Grande cutthroat trout benefit from private lands conservation
By Craig Springer One might say that the past is dead and gone—but that notion doesn’t fly on the Vermejo Park Ranch, near Raton, New Mexico. Managers of this private land seek to restore long reaches of mountain streams for the benefit of native Rio Grande cutthroat trout—not to mention the guided anglers who seek…
Jurassic World Fishes [Swimming Today]
Sharp teeth, bizarre shapes, gargantuan sizes, and a family tree that dates back over 100 million years…I’m not talking about dinosaurs, but ancient freshwater fishes! Twenty-five years ago today (June 11, 1993), Jurassic Park debuted in theaters. That date is fossilized in my mind because I recorded the trailer on VHS (wow, talk about ancient)…
The ideal invasive fish
There are hundreds of non-native fishes in the US. Some become harmful invaders, while others have established, but aren’t causing appreciable negative effects. As human transport networks continue to facilitate new introductions, it makes sense to ask, ‘is there something special about certain fishes that make them invasive?’. This isn’t a new idea—plant ecologists have discussed…
Are fish ‘Bad Moms’?
By: Dana Sackett The lives of fish cannot technically be compared to the lives and pressures placed on today’s human moms (that then naturally let loose in an epic party). However, in honor of Mother’s Day we decided to share some of the maternal roles fish play and imagine if these same roles existed for…
World Fish Migration Day – Geaux Fish!
“Connecting fish, rivers, and people” is the overarching theme of World Fish Migration Day, a global event on April 21, 2018. Among the primary goals of World Fish Migration Day (WFMD) are to raise awareness of the importance of migratory fishes, as well as calling for action to safeguard and restore free-flowing waterways. This Saturday…
Communicating science through digital media
If a scientist conducts research, and never tells anyone, did they really do it? Scientists communicate with one another in very specific ways: peer-reviewed journal articles and technical presentations. However, most journal articles largely go unread and conference audiences can be limited.. Public trust in science is decreasing, so it’s our job to help them understand the…
Changing venom
By: Dana Sackett You have probably heard the myth that baby snakes are more dangerous than adults because they haven’t learned to control the amount of venom they inject. The theory being that baby snakes unintentionally release much more than an adult would when they bite. While this myth has been mostly dispelled by herpetologists…
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