The 'Goodbye Nashville Hello Pittsburgh' social last night was fairly low key - just a case of using up all the wine and beer....! I ended up in a sushi bar later on with Ian Cowx and others - very tasty - although having said that I made sure that everything I ate was cooked - didnt want to go down with anything the day before I fly!
So I've checked out now and am just waiting until I catch the 2pm airport shuttle. The flights both look Ok -at least they havent been cancelled.
It has been a fantastic experience, I have met so many people here and hopefully those links will continue. I am already looking forward to attending Pittsburgh next year!!
Friday, 4 September 2009
Thursday, 3 September 2009
Thursday 3rd
The Conference is starting to wind down now – many delegates are making their way home during the day. I attended the Inland Fisheries session first thing to listen to Ian Cowx present on the crisis in Inland fisheries. The sub title was ‘Fish are the messenger- people are the solution’ which I’m sure I’ve heard before somewhere…!
I spent the rest of the morning in the Instream Flow symposium, where there were some interesting presentations on flow assessment, water availability and habitat assessment (pHabsim).
Tonight is the ‘Goodbye Nashville Hello Pittsburgh’ social, which will probably be a lot smaller than the previous socials.
Attending the AFS Conference has been a fantastic experience - I have got so many things to take back with me, not only for the 'day job' but also for the IFM Conference. The AFS also values the exchanges and their officers - Bob Curry this year and Dirk Miller in 2010 are really looking forward to their visit. I am sure we will make them as welcome as they have made me.
I spent the rest of the morning in the Instream Flow symposium, where there were some interesting presentations on flow assessment, water availability and habitat assessment (pHabsim).
Tonight is the ‘Goodbye Nashville Hello Pittsburgh’ social, which will probably be a lot smaller than the previous socials.
Attending the AFS Conference has been a fantastic experience - I have got so many things to take back with me, not only for the 'day job' but also for the IFM Conference. The AFS also values the exchanges and their officers - Bob Curry this year and Dirk Miller in 2010 are really looking forward to their visit. I am sure we will make them as welcome as they have made me.
Wednesday, 2 September 2009
Wednesday
Another early start – these are becoming the norm! Breakfast with Wayne Hulbert, the first Vice President of the AFS –he is from Laramie, Wyoming and works on stream habitat restoration at the University there.
First session was on Water Scarcity in Western North America, and there were some interesting presentations on flow and salmon – adult migration, spawning and early rearing effects of flow and climate change. A paper on groundwater storage in the Mattole headwaters proposed the value of beaver dams in protecting river flows (and also coho salmon)…hmmm!
After the break I attended the Freshwater Fish ecology symposium where I particularly wanted to see a paper entitled “In search of the holy grayling”. This was about arctic grayling in Alaska, and there were some interesting survey problems including frozen rivers in May (!) and getting to survey sites by helicopter. When the rivers melted the water temperature was 1.5 degrees C and the survey team was faced with the problem of carrying out scuba surveys in such cold water –they solved this by using students….they seem to have similar problems to us in sampling grayling – and found that dry fly worked a lot better than electrofishing. They were looking for graduate volunteers to carry on the work – I nearly volunteered!!
As the Trade show was due to finish at 2pm, I took the opportunity to tour round and promote the IFM Conference – I doubt whether any of the exhibitors will make it across but suggested inserts in delegate packs – those I spoke to (including Halltech, HTI, Lotek, NMT and OMI (Didson) sounded keen). Also when I spoke to EMCO I discovered that their UK rep (Hydrosphere) was already attending.
Final session of the day was Population Dynamics. An interesting presentation by Kai Lorenzen (of Imperial College) on a population dynamics model of hatchery enhanced fisheries which may be relevant to the UK. The subsequent paper was on comparison of smolt migration and residualization between wild and stocked steelhead trout – again with some relevance to the UK.
For the evening we all (about 1200!!) embarked on coaches for the short trip to Smileys Hollow, where we were fed delicious barbequed fod , drank as much beer as we wanted and were entertained by a band. AN excellent evening and the highlight if the week in terms of activities.
First session was on Water Scarcity in Western North America, and there were some interesting presentations on flow and salmon – adult migration, spawning and early rearing effects of flow and climate change. A paper on groundwater storage in the Mattole headwaters proposed the value of beaver dams in protecting river flows (and also coho salmon)…hmmm!
After the break I attended the Freshwater Fish ecology symposium where I particularly wanted to see a paper entitled “In search of the holy grayling”. This was about arctic grayling in Alaska, and there were some interesting survey problems including frozen rivers in May (!) and getting to survey sites by helicopter. When the rivers melted the water temperature was 1.5 degrees C and the survey team was faced with the problem of carrying out scuba surveys in such cold water –they solved this by using students….they seem to have similar problems to us in sampling grayling – and found that dry fly worked a lot better than electrofishing. They were looking for graduate volunteers to carry on the work – I nearly volunteered!!
As the Trade show was due to finish at 2pm, I took the opportunity to tour round and promote the IFM Conference – I doubt whether any of the exhibitors will make it across but suggested inserts in delegate packs – those I spoke to (including Halltech, HTI, Lotek, NMT and OMI (Didson) sounded keen). Also when I spoke to EMCO I discovered that their UK rep (Hydrosphere) was already attending.
Final session of the day was Population Dynamics. An interesting presentation by Kai Lorenzen (of Imperial College) on a population dynamics model of hatchery enhanced fisheries which may be relevant to the UK. The subsequent paper was on comparison of smolt migration and residualization between wild and stocked steelhead trout – again with some relevance to the UK.
For the evening we all (about 1200!!) embarked on coaches for the short trip to Smileys Hollow, where we were fed delicious barbequed fod , drank as much beer as we wanted and were entertained by a band. AN excellent evening and the highlight if the week in terms of activities.
Tuesday, 1 September 2009
Tuesday 1st September
The trade show social was good – food consisted of mini burgers, and there was copious amounts of beer to be drunk. We also had the opportunity to view the submitted poster papers – there was an interesting one on triploid brook trout stocking.
After the trade show I met up with Ian Cowx, Ron Essig and Dirk Miller and we went to BB Kings Blues club. I wasn’t sure what we were getting when the band started to play – it was a bit jazzy (not my taste – jazz seems to me to be music that doesn’t know where its going, and when (if!) it gets somewhere, I think, why did you bother?). Anyway, the band soon started playing blues – the band consisted of drums, bass, trumpet, sax and lead guitar. The lead guitarist was incredible – he ended up climbing on the bar to play. A brilliant night, and I felt a bit worse for wear this morning –it must have been the buckets of beer they served….
This morning’s session was fish passage again, much of the material was reviews of previous work, but there was one paper featuring work on larval swimming and the Reynolds number. The presenter outlined that swimming in larval fish is viscosity related i.e. their movement is mostly controlled by their environment. In addition, their sight, hearing and lateral line are all poorly developed – all of which has implications for screening.
This afternoon is the AFS Business meeting, which I have a slot at to speak about the IFM and the UK. Tonight I am invited to the International Section reception, after which I think I may need an early night – as we are all off to Woody Hollow for the main social event tomorrow night and I have a feeling it may be a long night….!
After the trade show I met up with Ian Cowx, Ron Essig and Dirk Miller and we went to BB Kings Blues club. I wasn’t sure what we were getting when the band started to play – it was a bit jazzy (not my taste – jazz seems to me to be music that doesn’t know where its going, and when (if!) it gets somewhere, I think, why did you bother?). Anyway, the band soon started playing blues – the band consisted of drums, bass, trumpet, sax and lead guitar. The lead guitarist was incredible – he ended up climbing on the bar to play. A brilliant night, and I felt a bit worse for wear this morning –it must have been the buckets of beer they served….
This morning’s session was fish passage again, much of the material was reviews of previous work, but there was one paper featuring work on larval swimming and the Reynolds number. The presenter outlined that swimming in larval fish is viscosity related i.e. their movement is mostly controlled by their environment. In addition, their sight, hearing and lateral line are all poorly developed – all of which has implications for screening.
This afternoon is the AFS Business meeting, which I have a slot at to speak about the IFM and the UK. Tonight I am invited to the International Section reception, after which I think I may need an early night – as we are all off to Woody Hollow for the main social event tomorrow night and I have a feeling it may be a long night….!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)