Archive for category: News

The Ontario Chapter was saddened to learn of the passing of Dr. William Beverley (Bev) Scott on Monday, August 18, 2014. Bev was a strong supporter of the American Fisheries Society and the Ontario Chapter and had just turned 97 in July.  Dr. Scott was curator of ichthyology at the Royal Ontario Museum from 1950 to about 1974 and coauthored Freshwater Fishes of Canada with Dr. E.J. Crossman. A video entitled Scott and Crossman: The Freshwater Fishes of Canada is available for viewing on the science.gc.ca website. Bev was also recently featured in a video prepared by an EVC student, Vanessa Minke-Martin (see History within History). Dr. Scott’s work was also featured in a DFO Science and Research article: Not the Retiring Kind: Scientist emeritus Bev Scott.  William Beverley Scott’s biography, written by David G. Smith of the Smithsonian Institution, was published in Copeia, 2006(2), pp. 307-315.  A brief obituary and service details are posted at the Stoddart Funeral Home Book of Memories.

The Ontario Chapter of the American Fisheries Society (AFS-OC) Executive Committee has provided comments on the draft Provincial Fish Strategy prepared by the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR). “Ontario’s Provincial Fish Strategy: Fish for the Future” is a guiding document for managing fisheries resources in Ontario. It identifies provincial fisheries goals and objectives and tactics to achieve them. The main purposes of the strategy are to improve the conservation and management of Ontario’s fisheries resources; and to encourage fishing as an activity that contributes to the individual well-being and the social, cultural and economic well-being of communities in Ontario. View AFS-OC Comments.

The Great Lakes Fishery Commission today commended the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for completing the “Great Lakes and Mississippi River Interbasin Study,” (GLMRIS) a major report aimed at finding ways to prevent the movement of harmful invasive species between the Great Lakes and Mississippi River basins. The study, mandated by Congress, outlines a range of options available to re-separate the two basins, which were connected artificially more than one hundred years ago. The options presented, while protecting the entire Great Lakes basin from species like Asian carps and snakehead, also benefit the people of the Chicago region through better flood management and improved water quality. The report did not provide an exact plan (called a “preferred option”) for implementation, prompting the commission to join with scores of interested organizations and policy-makers to call for an immediate effort to agree upon and fund a specific project to achieve separation. Read more

Fisheries and Oceans Canada and the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, today announced the test results of a single live Grass Carp (Ctenopharyngodon idella) caught near Dunnville, Ontario in the Grand River, near Lake Erie. Testing has confirmed that this specimen was sterile, and therefore not able to reproduce. Read more

Jack Imhof received a Conservation Pioneer Award at the 19th Annual A.D. Latornell Symposium recognizing his 25 years with the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR), decade with Trout Unlimited Canada (TUC) as well as other academic and volunteer pursuits, including as President of the Ontario Chapter of the American Fisheries Society (AFS-OC) which included being part of the organizing committee for the 2008 AFS Annual Meeting that drew over 1,200 fisheries professionals. Read more