Author: lori

hosted by:
Rutgers Student Subunit of the American Fisheries Society

Thirty-three attendees (18 undergraduate students and 15 graduate students) from 4 universities (Rutgers, Rider, Stockton, and Monmouth) attended the ‘Introduction to R course’ taught by Joe Caracappa on December 9, 2018 at Rutgers University. This 5-hour course was aimed to introduce students to a new programming language and gain the necessary tools to independently use this software. Additionally, there was an hour long mentoring match-up over lunch where graduate and undergraduate students were paired up.

This course gained some notice on social media as well! Both the Stockton University subunit and other attending members highlighted their attendance on Twitter. Theses posts were both retweeted by a number of accounts (including the AFS Student & Early Career Professionals).

Everyone really appreciated all the support from the MAC AFS chapter.  The event wouldn’t have been possible without it!

This was a very beneficial workshop for all that attended and created a lot of buzz about our subunit and AFS as a whole!

On Saturday, December 7th the Rutgers University Subunit of the American Fisheries Society hosted an Introduction to GIS & CV writing workshop in New Brunswick. This hands-on 6-hour course introduced participants to ArcGIS and provided students an opportunity to learn how to view, manipulate and analyze spatial data. Students were able to work through two analysis independently while using actual data.

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Additionally, students participated in an interactive CV Workshop where they discussed how to best build a CV to make themselves as competitive as possible for graduate school, jobs, and scholarships. This workshop was advertised widely within Rutgers University and to both the MATES and Stockton Subunits. This course was attended by 12 students from the Rutgers Subunit.

The Mid-Atlantic Chapter of the American Fisheries Society has an Amazon Smile account where 0.5% of proceeds from eligible purchases are donated back to the Chapter. The Amazon Smile website has all the same products as the Amazon website with the added benefit of being able to raise money for non-profits like us. The Chapter uses the money donated by Amazon for the sole purpose of funding Student Subunit activities! Follow the link below to start supporting the Mid-Atlantic Chapter with your Amazon Smile purchases.

And now now you can access AmazonSmile through your Amazon Android App (iPhone compatibility coming soon). Directions to activate Amazon Smile on your Amazon app can be found here.

Hosted by the Stockton University Student Subunit of The American Fisheries Society

On Sunday April 14, 2019 Stockton University’s Student Subunit of the American Fisheries Society held a Joint Meeting with fellow Mid Atlantic Chapter Subunits, Rutgers University and the Marine Academy of Technology and Environmental Sciences (MATES), which was held at the new Stockton University Atlantic City Campus. The meeting consisted of two keynote speakers: Jeff Brust, an administrator within Marine Fisheries of the NJDEP, Jeff conducted a presentation on A Day in the Life of a Marine Fisheries Administrator: A Look into the Development of Policy and Regulations. The second Keynote Speaker was Captain Jason Snellbaker who highlighted the importance of enforcement of enacted regulations by Marine Fisheries, which Jeff had gone into detail about, through examples of cases that he has encountered over his extensive career as a Conservation Officer within the Marine Enforcement Bureau. Following the keynote speakers time was allotted for a lunch break and networking across the industry professionals, graduate students, undergraduate students, and high school students in attendance. Once the networking session concluded students from each subunit had the opportunity to present their research to members in attendance. This was conducted in two separate sessions, the first consisting of posters in which attendees had the chance to freely roam to hear about each project and ask questions, and the second consisting of powerpoint presentations developed by each student presenter. The poster session consisted of four posters from MATES Students: Teresa Brostow, MATES ’19, “Analysis of Effects of Location and Weight in Crab Pot Movement in Barnegat Bay, NJ” (Study focusing on the movement of commercial versus recreational crab pots); Makenzie Fries, MATES ’21, “The Effect Various Bycatch Reduction Device Shapes have on Malaclemys terrapin and Callinectes sapidus” (focusing on the shape of BIRDs in crab pots and how they affect catch and bycatch); Steven Holmberg, MATES ’20, “The Effectiveness of Bycatch Reduction Devices (BRDs) on Reducing Bycatch Without Reducing Crab Pot Efficiency” (compared three BRD types and measured catch per unit effort); and Eric McGivney, MATES ’20, “Study of the Rate of Degradation of Crab Pot Bycatch Reduction Devices” (looked at the degradation of crab pot escape panel features).

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Powerpoint presentations were conducted by Penny Demetriades, MATES ’19, “A Comparative Analysis of the Prevalence of Pleurogonius malaclemys Parasitic Infection of Ilyanassa obsoleta in Barnegat Bay, New Jersey” (Study of a parasitic Trematode prevalent on mud snails along the east coast of the U.S.) as well as Emily Slesinger, Rutgers, “Black sea bass physiology in the context of seasonal variability and long-term climate change” and Nicole Deck, Rutgers, ”Caribbean Stony Coral Disease Prevalence”. To wrap up the day we completed a tour of the Stockton Atlantic City Campus to showcase the amazing amenities the new campus has to offer. Overall the meeting was seen as a great success. Students were very engaged and had great opportunities to expand upon their AFS experience. Continued collaboration and communication across subunits was developed and cultivated within this meeting and we were very thankful for all that attended as well as all that presented.

Hosted by Rutgers University Student Subunit of the American Fisheries Society

On Saturday April 27th, 2019 nearly 94,000 people attended Rutgers Day where the Rutgers Student Subunit offered a fish printing activity for guests of all ages. Fish printing, more formally known as Gyotaku, originated in Japan where fishermen would make prints of fish in order to keep detailed records of the species and sizes of the fish they caught.

Although the “fish” used for this activity were not real (they were actually made of rubber), Subunit members were still able to engage participants in a fun activity while teaching them about the creatures they were painting. While we certainly had some enthusiastic adults make fish prints, children were the main participants in this activity with the seastar being their favorite rubber sea creature to print.

In addition to the Subunit table, our colleagues at the Center for Fisheries and Ocean Sustainability had an interactive fish identification game, a short trivia quiz, and demonstrations of field gear fisheries scientists use. On top of that, the Oceanography Graduate Student Association hosted a Jersey coast touch tank filled with local fish and invertebrate species, which drew a large crowd. Overall, Rutgers Day was a success and Subunit members certainly played a large part in educating the public about fish and fisheries. Our participation in Rutgers Day would not have been possible without the support of the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of the American Fisheries Society and Jenny Shinn at the Haskin Shellfish Research Laboratory.