Sustaining ecosystems that support fisheries, lakes and wetlands will be the common focus of more 300 scientists coming to Windsor to share their findings from across Canada, the U.S. and the United Kingdom.
Those researchers will attend the 66th annual Canadian Conference For Fisheries Research, being held at the St. Clair Centre for the Arts in cooperation with the Society of Canadian Limnologists and the Society of Wetland Scientists.
“The consistent message is that change is occurring on a scale that hasn’t been seen before and properly managing these resources has never been more important,” said Trevor Pitcher, a professor in Biological Sciences and the conference’s local organizer. “How we manage fisheries is an issue that affects everyone, whether you own a cottage, if you fish recreationally, or if you’re a consumer of fish.”
The conference kicks off tonight with a social gathering and follows with two days of lectures, panel discussions and poster presentations. Some of the conference themes include invasive species; Great Lakes fisheries and environmental policies; climate change; contaminants and trophic transfer; and disturbed ecosystems, threatened species and restoration.
A theme certain to generate a great deal of attention is one devoted to research that came out of the Experimental Lakes Area, Dr. Pitcher said. Located in northwestern Ontario, the centre consisted of 58 lakes where scientists have been conducting whole ecosystem research for the last 40 years, until the federal government abruptly announced the centre would be closed down this year. The closure created a public outcry and the scientific community has been vigorously protesting against it.
“This will be a swan song for a lot of the research that’s been done there,” he said.
Steven Cooke, a fish ecologist from Carleton University will deliver one of the plenary lectures, entitled The Future of Fisheries and Aquatic Ecosystems in Canada: Roles of Human Capital, Public Engagement and Scientific Evidence.
For more information, visit the conference web site.