Wired Magazine is cool.  NOAA’s newest research vessel, the Bell Shimada is even cooler.  And Allen Shimada, the son of the man for whom the vessel was named – Bell – is an active member of AFS and is on the governing board ofAIFRB.  Thus, we thought it was high time we introduced those few who didn’t know, about the connection! Bell M. Shimada – the father of Allen Shimada – had a distinguished fisheries biologist career, making a lasting contribution in the early study of Pacific tuna stocks – so distinguished, in fact, that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) paid tribute to Shimada by commissioning their latest research vessel in his name a couple of years ago. The Bell M. Shimada is a 208-feet, state-of-the-art research vessel studies  a wide range of marine life and ocean conditions along the West Coast. The ship operates primarily in U.S. waters from Washington state to Southern California. Shimada died in a 1958 plane crash at the age of 36 during a research trip prior to taking a new job as the director of a new Bureau of Fisheries’ Eastern Pacific Tuna Investigations. He left behind his wife Rae and young children Julie and Allen, a current NOAA fisheries biologist. A native of Seattle, Shimada entered the University of Washington’s School of Fisheries in 1939, During World War II, he served in the Military Intelligence Service in Guam and at the U.S. Army headquarters in Tokyo. After the War, he received his bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate degrees from the University of Washington. In 1956 when Shimada began work for the Bureau of Fisheries to the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission, which was co-housed with the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, he earned a reputation as an expert on the habits of Pacific tuna. According to Allen Shimada, the ship’s commissioning was a high honor not only for Shimada, but Rae, who was a secretary with the U.S. Bureau of Commercial Fisheries, the predecessor agency to National Marine Fisheries Service. “However, I think [his] story is only one of the many young Nisei who volunteered out of the camps for the military or government service and who rightly belong to ‘The Greatest Generation’,” said Allen Shimada, a Chicago and Washington, D.C. JACL member. The ship was named by a team of students from Marina High School in Monterey, Calif. that won a regional NOAA contest to name the vessel. Step Aboard One of America’s Most Advanced Ocean Research Vessels By Joe Hanson / Wired Magazine Right now, off the west coast of the United States, the world’s quietest non-military ship is cutting through the waves and deploying advanced underwater sensors, high-tech trawling equipment and sensitive sonar arrays. All in search of a few good sardines. Photo 1: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration manages a fleet of aircraft and ships charged with collecting data on the nation’s oceans, atmosphere and everything in between. Recently, NOAA’s ship the Bell M. Shimada docked at San Francisco’s Exploratorium (above), midway through a survey mission between San Diego and Vancouver Island, Canada. WIRED got a chance to look inside one of the most advanced marine research vessels on Earth. The Bell M. Shimada, launched in 2010, measures 209 feet in length, and to the untrained eye looks a lot like a commercial fishing vessel. But instead of fish-processing conveyer belts, it’s full of advanced scientific instruments. The newest NOAA ship in its class, its crew is charged with monitoring west coast fisheries from Vancouver to Baja. With a range of 12,000 nautical miles, NOAA can conduct field studies stretching up to 40 days a time. Their current mission found them surveying schools of sardines and hake along the Pacific coast, both important food sources for larger fish and mammals. Photo 2: Even the most advanced fisheries research vessel in the world, its bridge armed with multi-band radar, terrain-sensing sonar and forward-looking infrared sensors, still needs paper maps. Just in case. Photo 3: From the bridge, the NOAA crew can not only pilot the ship, but also command the ship’s advanced sonar and fishing equipment. According to Commander Scott Sirois, they operate much like those on a commercial fishing vessel would, scanning the sea below them for the characteristic blip of a fish school and then trawling large nets behind them to reel in their study subjects. Photo 4: The equipment used by the crew of the Bell M. Shimada to net their catch has some key differences from that used by commercial fishermen. Instead of thousands of fish, the NOAA scientists only want to catch a few dozen at a time. Visible on the above right, their fishing net is armed with an array of GoPro cameras. This allows them to tally their haul one fish at a time, making every effort not to disrupt the populations they are studying. On the left, a net has a large metal gate with bars. This device is wide enough to allow fish inside the net, but prevents marine mammals like dolphins and seals from getting tangled up in the gear by diverting them to the side. This science is dolphin-safe. Photo 5: The crew of the Bell M. Shimada aren’t the only ones in the ocean looking to grab a few fish. In the video above, captured by one of the onboard net cameras, an uninvited visitor tries to snatch a snack but is thwarted by the exclusion gate. Click on here to see the NOAA Trawl Cam!) Credit: NOAA Photo 6: Phil White (above) is the chief survey technician on board the Bell M. Shimada. Much of the work on this fisheries research vessel doesn’t involve the fish themselves, but rather the ocean they live in. Arrays of automated collection bottles called rosettes are lowered over the side to return water samples from various depths. Inside the chemistry lab, White and fellow technicians analyze those water samples for characteristics like conductivity and density. These data are then uploaded to NOAA

..Second Vice President Margraf will have the pleasure of helping to develop, coordinate, and manage probably one of, if not the largest, most broad-ranging, complicated, and innovative fish and wildlife conferences ever to be held. Doug Austen A joint Fish and Wildlife meeting has never been done be- fore at the national level, yet many of our Chapters and Divisions have become pretty good at hosting such events. Chapters frequently meet with their fisheries counterparts in neighboring states or with their wildlife colleagues in their own state. A great example is the Missouri Natural Resources Conference (mnrc.org), which has, for over a quarter of a century, been bringing together some combination of the Missouri Chapter of AFS, The Wildlife Society (TWS), the Society of American Foresters, and the Soil and Water Conservation Society. At the AFS Division level, our Northeast and Midwest members have been meeting jointly for many years under the auspices of their regional state fish and wildlife associations. Going back even farther, many of us actually obtained our degrees in university programs that were balanced fish and wildlife departments. Since the beginning we’ve recognized that fisheries and wildlife resources are intimately intertwined and are often best studied together. However, until recently, the two largest scientific societies have not been able to find a way to meet jointly. Certainly, there are obstacles to such an effort. The size and complexity of our meetings is a serious challenge for organizations of relatively modest means. Each society certainly also has a strong desire to maintain its own individuality. Bureaucracy also plays a role. We’re on different meeting planning cycles and decision processes often don’t align. Yet at our 2017 Annual Meeting, to be held in Tampa, we will be meeting jointly with TWS for the first time in the history of the societies. So what led to this rather substantial development? First of all, you should be aware that TWS is located in the office suite directly above AFS. Their executive director, Ken Williams, has his office directly above mine. Those of you who know Ken and his energetic conversational style will immediately realize that I am thereby made aware of his presence virtually every day. Office juxtaposition aside, one of the first conversations upon my starting at AFS was a long and fruitful lunch with Ken where we explored many options for TWS– AFS collaboration. Second, the selection of Tampa for the 2017 meeting, a location with clear Gulf of Mexico connections, opened up the immediate opportunity to highlight one of the largest ecological disasters and recovery efforts in our nation’s history. Of particular significance is the broad, ecosystem approach of the restoration that, appropriately, recognizes the Gulf of Mexico as the sum of not just those immediate Deepwater Horizon insults but also all of landscape transformations and the resulting accumulated and transported impacts taking place throughout the largest river basin in North America. The only way to adequately discuss the science of the restoration of the Gulf and the Mississippi River basin is from the perspective of all natural resources with fish and wildlife being of obvious importance to our two societies. The Gulf provides the raison d’etre for a conference that focuses on the integration of wildlife and fisheries science in the broadest and most all-encompassing sense. Third in the process of developing the 2017 meeting is the leadership of AFS. In our officer progression, the second vice president, Joe Margraf, has a major role in establishing the tenor of the 2017 meeting. This was, to a large degree, “his” meeting, where the theme, plenary speakers, and the overall focus of the event are established by Joe. One possible reaction to being presented with this type of event would be to negate the entire idea. Too problematic, the possible loss of identity, challenges of shared ownership, just too far out of the norm for AFS. In fact, just the opposite was the response. He embraced this approach and became a strong advocate for the joint event and made the motion to endorse the joint meeting to our Management Committee (which won unanimous support). As a result, Second Vice President Margraf will have the pleasure of helping to develop, coordinate, and manage probably one of, if not the largest, most broad-ranging, complicated, and innovative fish and wildlife conferences ever to be held. Tampa will be a groundbreaking event; our wonderful hosts with the Florida chapters of AFS and TWS will begin working with the Bethesda office staff to start the process of figuring out the organizational structure of this event. New ground will be covered in joint ownership, branding, development of symposia, plenary speakers, sponsors, and all of the thousands of details that will demand attention. We’ve got over three years to put this together and will likely need every year, month, and day to make it a great success. Regardless of how large an AFS conference is, all of our events are of the utmost importance and we are continually in the process of planning them. In just a couple of months we’ll be in Québec City for what is increasingly looking to be an exceptional event—a beautiful city, with over 40 symposia and, at last count, over 1,600 abstracts and a wonderful host in our Canadian and Northeast members. Then, off to Portland in 2015 where we know we’ll have a phenomenal event hosted by a group of seasoned meeting planners in a great northwest city.   Become a member of the American Fisheries Society (AFS) to read more articles like this.