Fisheries News & Science
Scott A. Bonar, AFS Second Vice President, U.S. Geological Survey Arizona Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, School of Natural Resources and the Environment, 1311 E. 4th Street, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85719. E-mail: [email protected] Jesse Trushenski, AFS First Vice President, Eagle Fish Health Laboratory, Idaho Department of Fish and Game, Eagle, ID Regardless... Read More
Andrew K. Carlson, Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability, Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, Michigan State University, 115 Manly Miles Building, 1405 South Harrison Road, East Lansing, MI 48824. E-mail: [email protected] William W. Taylor, Jianguo Liu, and Ivan Orlic, Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability, Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, Michigan State University, East Lansing,... Read More
Joe Margraf, AFS President. E-mail: [email protected] Wow! Talk about a fast year. I cannot believe that this is my last column. Maybe you think, is it finally over? In my first column, I whined about not being cut out to write these. Well, I actually found them much easier to do once I decided to... Read More
COLUMNS President’s Commentary Do We Advocate? Communications The King of Fish “Book Drop”: Generating Conversation and Shared Values about Salmon in Alaska Perspective Science and Advocacy in the American Fisheries Society: Seeking the Same Side of the Fence FEATURES Shaping AFS Advocacy Based on History and Need Emerging Law of Scientific Integrity—A Bumpy Birth Always Advocating... Read More
The collaborative approach to natural resource management has developed to include the needs, opinions, and perceptions of a variety of people representing science, along with those representing social or economic perspectives and often involving our political system. Read More
Effective advocacy is rarely the stuff of bumper stickers and bullhorns. People are more willing to consider new perspectives when they’re not force-fed; persuasion is most enduring when people are empowered to make their own conclusions. Fisheries advocates who face the task of building consensus around controversial issues should consider tools that help create community... Read More
According to Wikipedia (2017), “advocacy is an activity by an individual or group which aims to influence decisions within political, economic, and social systems and institutions. Advocacy can include many activities that a person or organization undertakes including media campaigns, public speaking, commissioning and publishing research or conducting exit poll or the filing of an... Read More
We discuss the need for the American Fisheries Society (AFS) to be involved in advocacy efforts. In doing so, we summarize our history, offer examples of past endeavors, capture the challenges of representing the views of a complex membership, and explain the opportunities awaiting AFS and its members. Our conclusion is that the Society must... Read More
It is said that everyone is entitled to his own opinion but not to his own set of facts. This statement is often not true in government. As we enter the Trump presidency, the ability of officials to order up customized facts—including “alternative facts”—should be a matter of growing concern to both scientists and citizens alike. Read More
Biological data collection and processing involves numerous steps, is time consuming, and is error prone. We developed the Voice Data Recording System (VDRS) that eliminates multiple steps in the traditional process by integrating voice recognition software with a normalized, relational database to capture data onto a laptop computer. Read More
