FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 23, 2017
Contact: Martha Wilson
Tel.202.445.9514
(Tampa, FL) August 23, 2017 – Dr. Carol Ann Woody received the President’s Fishery Conservation Award today at the 2017 American Fisheries Society (AFS) Annual Meeting in Tampa, Florida. AFS President Joe Margraf presented the award at the meeting’s plenary session. The President’s Fishery Conservation Award is awarded for singular accomplishments or long-term contributions that advance aquatic resource conservation at a regional or local level.
“We applaud the distinguished contributions of Dr. Woody and thank her for her continuous efforts to advance aquatic resource conservation,” said AFS President Joe Margraf.
Dr. Woody is an exceptionally strong advocate for the conservation of wild Pacific salmon, particularly in Bristol Bay, Alaska, where this summer 56 million sockeye salmon returned to the region’s pristine rivers. She is specifically recognized for her decade long effort to communicate scientific understanding of the potential risks to fisheries from mining Bristol Bay’s massive copper porphyry deposits and to provide baseline data on water quality, habitat, and fish communities in the region. Her early and sustained efforts to collect and communicate the relevant science on risks to the salmon fishery provided essential information for stakeholders and decision makers at local, regional, state and national levels. Dr. Woody went beyond just doing the science and spent countless hours mentoring students and communicating the science with tribal members, non-governmental organizations, policy makers, and subsistence, sport & commercial fishers, helping ensure their own understanding and decisions were informed by the latest scientific findings related to development in one of the last global strongholds of Pacific salmon.
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Editor’s Notes:
Links: (fisheries.org)
About AFS: Founded in 1870, the American Fisheries Society (AFS) is the world’s oldest and largest fisheries science society. The mission of AFS is to improve the conservation and sustainability of fishery resources and aquatic ecosystems by advancing fisheries and aquatic science and promoting the development of fisheries professionals. With five journals and numerous books and conferences, AFS is the leading source of fisheries science and management information in North America and around the world.