American Fisheries Society conference, Pittsburgh

So here we are...welcome to my blog of the 2010 AFS Conference Pittsburgh....not lost you yet?..good...read on...

Saturday 11th September

After a fairly uneventful flight (apart from a 1 hour delayed departure leading to a missed connection in Philadelphia - but sorted by US Airways staff who had already re-booked me onto the 5pm flight -a good job as immigration and customs were the usual painfully slow experience....I arrived at Pittsburgh at 7pm (although my body clock was showing midnight...), took the 'super shuttle' (along with other fisheries bods) to the hotel and checked in. The hotel is fantastic - really old and with loads of character.

Sunday 12th September

I tried to catch up with sleep on the Sunday morning, and then walked down to the conference centre to register. After registering I attended the business meeting of the Fisheries Administration Section, chaired by Bob Curry, who represented the AFS at Stratford last year. I gave a report on the situation in the UK, including highlights such as the new Marine and Coastal Access Act and lowlights including the current financial situation. One of the items on the agenda was a discussion on an AFS policy on lead shot. Recently conservation organisations including the Audobon society has put pressure on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The EPA refused to take any action on lead shot but is considering measures affecting larger fishing weights. There is some debate within the AFS regarding a position on this – and there are other implications because some of the fisheries funding in the US comes from tackle taxes so any ban on lead sinkers would affect this.

Following on from the Administration section meeting, I attended the business meeting of the Fisheries Management Section, chaired by Ron Essig who some of you may remember from the Leeds Conference. I gave the same report to this meeting, with apologies to those who had attended both!

The meeting had was given a report on a proposed fisheries database. The section had contributed to the publication of a book , Standard Methods for sampling North American Fishes http://www.afsbooks.org/55059C (and receives healthy royalties!!) . The proposed database would allow members to download standard datasets and upload their own contributions. Such a great idea -why has it not been done already?

At the meeting Fred Harris (who some of you may remember attending the Greenwich Conference in 2001 at the time of the dreadful events over in the US) was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the Society - a great honour for Fred, who gave a typically understated, self-effacing speech of thanks -and got a long standing ovation. Fred has served in a number of capacities for the AFS, and has contributed an incredible amount to the society -so is a well deserving recipient of the award.

In the evening the welcome social was a great opportunity to catch up with AFS members that I had met in Nashville last year and exchange experiences about the current economic climate and its challenges. I also caught up with Professor Ian Cowx -one of the few other brits attending -he will be giving an address to the Plenary session tomorrow.

During the evening I met Jennifer Nielsen, who works for the US Geological Survey in Anchorage, Alaska. Jennifer is a past president of the AFS, and has contributed a large number of publications to salmonid genetics and stock management. Jennifer is working on salmon genomes, and more specifically the effects of climate change. She told me of the changes that have taken place to salmon populations in the Alaska region in the last ten years, in many cases occurring through chance events such as straying. Jennifer suggested that climate change is having impacts through this mechanism even over a comparatively short (10 year!) time scale.