and off we go.....!

Early start (they all are!) to attend the Plenary session. After the usual welcome from the local AFS organiser a squad of troops brought in the colours for presentation , and the assembled took the oath.


First talk of the plenary session was our very own Ian Cowx - who gave a challenging and thought provoking talk on Fisheries and the Science imperative. Ian posed the question (amongst others) whether fisheries managers ask the right questions of scientists and do they get the information they need to take the correct management decisions.


After Ians talk the Carl R Sullivan award for Fishery Conservation was awarded to Charlton Bonham (Trout Unlimited) and Richard Roos-Collins (Natural Heritage Trust) for their work in achieving a historic agreement in the Klamath River Basin. This much dammed watercourse has been subject to many disputes (some violent) over the years over water use, but the agreement just signed will lead to the removal of four dams (hoorah!!) and water allocation to restore environmental flows – a fantastic achievement.

Later in the meeting there was a presentation by Larry Schweiger, who is President of the national Wildlife Federation. Larry gave an impassioned talk on climate change and the need for action, including some quite dramatic images of polar ice cap melts.

Fred Harris received a further award from the AFS for meritorious service – he has served the AFS in a number of offices and ways for many years , and gave (again) a typically modest acceptance speech.

It is always difficult to decide which of the many sessions to attend at the AFS but I started off (following Larry Schweitzers talk) with session on climate change. There were some interesting presentations on vulnerability assessment of fisheries ( and other biology) to climate change. The US Fish and Wildlife service are just about to publish ‘Scanning the Conservation Horizon – a practitioners guide to climate change vulnerability assessment’ –which should be worth reading. A further presentation looked at Chinook salmon and the effects of damming on the populations –but concluded that a major influence was the phenonmenon known as the Pacific Decadal Osscillation (equivalent to our North Atlantic Oscillation) – which influenced upwelling (and hence productivity, food availability) in the ocean.