2024 OCAFS Annual Meeting – Ohio Chapter of the American Fisheries Society

Meeting Highlights

Special Guest: Gary Whelan, currently the 1st Vice President of AFS and whom will be AFS President when we host the 2026 Annual AFS Meeting in Columbus, OH in 2026. He will represent AFS President Cecil Jennings and the rest of the Society officers to include giving an update on AFS and start to get discussions going on the 2026 Meeting. He recently retired from MI DNR after 40 years of state service with his most recent position being a Program Manager for Fisheries Division where he was responsible for Research, Fish Health, and a part of Habitat Management.

Plenary: Dr. Stuart Ludsin, Professor in the Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology at The Ohio State University, will be providing this year’s plenary titled ‘Managing fisheries in a changing ecosystem: Lessons learned from 30 years of Lake Erie research’. As with other large aquatic ecosystems worldwide, Lake Erie has long been experiencing change from multiple human-driven stressors. While the causes of change ecosystem change are largely known, understanding their individual and combined impacts on Lake Erie’s fish communities and the fisheries that they support has proven challenging. Herein, I draw upon 30 years of research that has largely focused on understanding both past and anticipated impacts of human-driven environmental change on the Lake Erie ecosystem, offering insights aimed at benefiting fisheries management.

Social: We are planning a social for Thursday night that will include appetizers provided by Deer Creek Lodge and Conference Center. This will be a great opportunity to network with students and professionals and we hope that you will be able to stay and enjoy the food and company. *Please indicate on the registration form whether you plan on attending*.

Workshop: We are pleased to announce that we are hosting a Habitat Assessment using Sonar Workshop on Friday instructed by OCAFS members, Dr. Mike Booth and Augustus McAnally from the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Cincinnati. This workshop will provide an introduction to the use of sonar technology in quantifying habitat in inland waters through both a conceptual introduction (approaches, technologies available, problems and pitfalls) and hands-on computer training to introduce software and hardware used for data collection, image processing, and data analysis.