Two travel awards for the 9th World Fisheries Congress in Seattle, Washington, 3-7 March 2024, are still open for applications. The deadline for the WFC International Travel Awards (for attendees residing in low and middle-income countries) and the International Fisheries Section Bern Megrey Travel Awards (for attendees residing outside of North America) is approaching soon on October 15.

Hatchery-origin Chinook Salmon and steelhead stray compositions on the spawning grounds met management targets at the basin scale but in some cases exceeded management targets at finer spatial scales, often as a result of multiple hatchery programs contributing strays.

Marine protected areas (MPAs) need monitoring to evaluate their benefits to society. We characterized American lobster and Jonah crab populations inside and outside a newly created MPA while commercial harvest was still operating, thereby providing essential information needed for assessing future responses to planned fishing closures.

By the Committee on Names of Fishes, a joint committee of the American Fisheries Society and the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists

The eigth edition of this authoritative reference provides an up-to-date checklist of common (in English, French, and Spanish) and scientific names for all described and taxonomi­cally valid fish species living in freshwaters and marine waters of North America. It includes names for 5,089 species and 333 families, an increase from 3,875 species and 260 fami­lies in the seventh edition.

Editors: J. Wesley Neal, Thomas J. Lang, Rebecca M. Krogman, Ken Kurzawski, Kevin M. Hunt, and John Taylor

Stagnation or decline in angling participation in many locations is a major concern to management agencies and threatens to erode the political and economic support for recreational fishing. To combat these concerns, fishery management agencies are actively engaging in recruitment, retention, and reactivation efforts (R3) designed to stop the decline and begin to regrow the angling population. 

The Steven Berkeley Marine Conservation Fellowship honors the memory of Steven Berkeley, dedicated marine fisheries scientist and long-time member of AFS. The fellowship comprises a competitively based $15,000 award to a graduate student actively engaged in thesis research relevant to marine conservation. This year's recipients are:

• Recipient: Benjamin Glass, University of Pennsylvania
• Runner-up: James Garner
• Runner-up: Claire Rosemond

The Idaho Chapter of the American Fisheries Society (ICAFS) was pleased to host the Western Division of the American Fisheries Society (WDAFS) for a joint Annual Meeting at the Boise Centre on May 8–11, 2023. This was both the WDAFS and Idaho's first fully in-person meeting since 2020, with a total of 451 attendees hailing from 22 states and 4 Canadian provinces. Additionally, 54 students representing 24 colleges and universities participated.

The American Fisheries Society seeks a scientist to serve as an editor of North American Journal of Aquaculture (NAJA). Editor must be committed to fast-paced deadlines, and would be appointed for a three-year renewable term. To be considered, send a current curriculum vitae along with a letter of interest explaining why you want to be a Journal editor by e-mail to lhendee@fisheries.org. 

You can now find AFS on the social media platform Bluesky at @amfisheriessoc.bsky.social, so that we can continue to reach our many members and friends who have migrated to that platform. We will also continue posting on Twitter/X for the foreseeable future.

The 2024 National STEM Challenge - as featured on MSNBC – is in need of volunteers to help evaluate and provide feedback on student projects in the environmental stewardship category. The challenge organizers are expecting 20,000 student submissions. They are calling on AFS members to be reviewers and help instill a sense of confidence and motivation to students to pursue their passion for the environmental sciences. Volunteer today!

NOAA Fisheries announced $2.3 million in federal funding available to support collaborative bycatch reduction projects under the Bycatch Reduction Engineering Program (BREP). The funding opportunity outlines five high priority areas including: developing innovative and effective bycatch reduction technologies, developing and testing technologies or gear modifications, improving understanding of post-release mortality, reducing gear interactions between corals and sponges, and working on international bycatch issues that inform US fisheries. NOAA Fisheries invites non-federal researchers working on the development of improved fishing practices and innovative gear technologies that reduce bycatch to apply. The deadline for pre-proposals is December 15, 2023. Visit the website for more information.