By Benjamin J. Clemens
President, AFS— Oregon Chapter
A total of 362 scientists, administrators, fish aficionados, and students attended the 52nd annual meeting of the Oregon Chapter during March 1 – 4, 2016 in Seaside, Oregon. The theme of the meeting was, “Communication, Brokers in Information.” The vision of the meeting was to stimulate communication and cross-pollination among attendees. We attempted this through a combination of broad-topic sessions and “tried-and-true” sessions, and avoiding single taxa sessions. An exception to this was the incredibly broad and large session, “Salmonid biology.” We also tried speed presentations as an alternative communication format. Our interest in this was to combat those negative experiences many of us have had with incredibly tedious, methods-heavy papers that squelch curiosity, discussion, and understanding….(Just get to the point!). We also explored the use of art and media as a way of storytelling for science.
A total of 148 people gave oral presentations, 5 gave speed presentations, and 19 presented posters. In addition to speakers from Oregon, we had speakers from throughout the United States, including Washington, New Mexico, California, and Wisconsin. We also had international speakers, from countries including Japan, Iceland, and Canada.
Jeremy Monroe, director of Freshwaters Illustrated, and Emma Coddington, associate professor of biology at Willamette University gave the plenary presentations. The stories and passion Monroe shared through his images and videos were very beautiful and compelling. In an age of information overload and restrictions, Monroe’s message to use individual passion to tell more heartfelt, direct and compelling stories was and is timely in aiding education about, and conservation of, Oregonian fishes. Coddington’s perspectives on bias and diversity in the workplace stimulated many spin-off discussions.
We had two workshops: Coastal Stream Fish Passage — An Example Culvert Replacement Project in Seaside, and Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Use in Natural Resource Management. Special thanks to instructors Troy Brandt, Scott Wright, and Melyssa Graeper (Culvert Replacement workshop), and Dan Avery, Robin Brown, and Erik Suring (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle workshop).
Awards were presented to the following deserving individuals:
We wish to extend our heartfelt thanks to meeting attendees, workshop instructors, session moderators, an awesome cadre volunteers and any others we’ve inadvertently forgot to mention.