Future of Fisheries: Perspectives for Emerging Professionals

Carry a Big Net—Cast It Far and Wide

Robert M. Hughes, Daniel J. McGarvey, and Bianca de Freitas Terra

doi: https://doi.org/10.47886/9781934874387.ch40

This is a vignette of events that led three fisheries scientists from very different places to collaborate on transcontinental and intercontinental research projects involving large data sets that none of us could have collected or synthesized alone. How did this happen and what results have come of it?

Robert Hughes (Bob): I grew up near a Michigan lake, where fishing was an important form of recreation and fish were a key component of the family diet. In this time, I began to understand the consequences that rapid population and economic growth can have on aquatic ecosystems. This catalyzed my decision to study biology and to earn an M.S. in resource planning and conservation from the University of Michigan, with the hope of protecting the natural resources I had come to value. I subsequently completed a Ph.D. in fisheries at Oregon State University and was hired as a contract research scientist at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) lab in Corvallis, Oregon, where I worked for 30 years.