A gathering of Wisconsin's fisheries experts

           The Wisconsin Chapter of the American Fisheries Society held their 42^nd annual meeting a couple of weeks ago in Rothschild.  Each year, fisheries students and professionals get together to share information about current fisheries issues.  The gathering involves oral presentations, poster sessions, smaller meetings and socials.  The smaller meetings typically focus on the organizations internal affairs but this year there was a meeting of the WDNR Lake Michigan Team.  The bulk of the meeting is individuals giving oral presentations about ongoing or recently completed.  The poster sessions allows individuals to present their research in poster form.

            Most of the oral presentations were about studies on individual species.  The most reported on species was muskellunge, but there were also presentations on brook trout, common carp, lake sturgeon, lake whitefish, largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, walleye and zebra mussels.  The most common topic, not including individual species, was habitat studies, including a report on the Ozaukee fish passage program.  There were also two presentations on climate change, one on angler behavior and one on the effects of regulation.  The poster session, like the oral presentation, was dominated by studies on individual species.  There were also posters about studies on habitat, mercury and angler behavior, including a report on the fish consumption by older fishermen survey.

            Summaries of each presentation are available on the Wisconsin chapter of the American Fisheries Society website.

Presentations: http://www.wi-afs.org/Portals/0/PDF/Annual%20Meetings/Abstracts_WI-AFS_2013.pdf

Posters:   http://www.wi-afs.org/Portals/0/PDF/Annual%20Meetings/Poster_WI-AFS_2013.pdf