Hotels are filling quickly for the 2023 Annual Meeting in Grand Rapids, but we will be adding a new block of rooms this week. Booking within the AFS room block gives you the peace of mind that you are getting a great conference rate while staying at a vetted property nearby the conference venue. Book your room by July 27!

Make plans to come a little early and join one of our Continuing Education Courses offering valuable career skills:

• Introductory GIS for Fisheries Biologists
• Advanced GIS for Fisheries Biologists
• Data Wrangling Using the Tidyverse in R
• Database Concepts, Design, and Application in Wildlife and Fisheries Science
• How To Run Citizen Science Projects with Anglers
• Aquatic Plant Identification
• Informing Fisheries Management with Individual-Based Models in R: Design, Implementation, and Analysis

We are excited to announce three recently opened travel award opportunities to support attendees from outside the US for the upcoming World Fisheries Congress (Seattle, USA; 3-9 March 2024)! 

• WFC International Travel Awards
• Bern Megrey Travel Awards
• NexGen Mekong WFC Fellowships

Registration is now open for the Congress! See our now full line-up of training workshops.

This year, the Hutton Junior Fisheries Biology Program is launching the Hutton Funding Challenge 4.0. Our goal is to raise $5,000 for the Hutton Program starting from July 11th through August 23rd. All donations will go directly to the Robert F. Hutton Fund to support the placement of more high school students in internships for the summer of 2024. We have a few gifts for donors! Receive a virtual zoom background designed by our 2023 scholars for $10 or be part of a special Hutton Scholar meet and greet for $50. This year we received 500 applicants and were only able to fund 43 scholars; help us reach our goal of $5,000 so we can support more students in the future.

Regardless of the donation amount, all donors will be named on our website to thank you for your support. If you’re interested in donating, click here. 

We’ll be sharing more information on Facebook and Instagram (@afshuttonprogram) as well as a donations meter on our Instagram page that will be updated as the campaign moves along. If you have any questions, please contact: aocasioortiz@fisheries.org.

Grab a hardcover copy of the 2009 edition of Standard Methods for Sampling North American Freshwater Fishes for only $30 this summer! This book established standard sampling methods recommended by the American Fisheries Society for assessing and monitoring freshwater fish populations in North America. 

The authors assessed trends in relative abundance of fish species and sizes of wild, endangered Razorback Sucker across a large reservoir over 17 years. Abundance of common species, including Razorback Sucker, were highest at the same sites, suggesting species might be responding to similar environmental conditions.

When the position of Fisheries Editor-in-Chief was advertised it had a deadline 2 months out. I applied within 3 hours of seeing the call! I was giddy at the prospects of taking on such a role and when I received communications that I was the one, it took a few days for the smile to fade. To say I am excited about Fisheries is an understatement. I love what it is today. And I am jazzed about what we can do with it to further amplify its value to AFS members and nonmembers alike.  

On June 26, the House Natural Resources Committee Subcommittee on Water, Wildlife and Fisheries held a field hearing in Pasco, Washington titled, "The Northwest at Risk: the Environmentalist’s Effort to Destroy Navigation, Transportation, and Access to Reliable Power." 

Seeking to bring the most up-to-date science to members of Congress and their staff on this issue, AFS submitted its "Statement on the Need to Breach the Four Dams on the Lower Snake River" to demonstrate the urgency and importance of taking swift action to move forward with addressing the needs of all stakeholders before it is too late to prevent extinction of salmon and steelhead.

In 2022, AFS reviewed the peer-reviewed literature and found the science to be clear and compelling: The lower Snake River dams must be breached in order to protect those fishes from extinction and to provide the potential for healthy and harvestable populations. The Western Division of AFS approved the statement last December and the AFS Governing Board approved it in January.