2018 Conference

April 30, 2018

Each year the FSRS hosts a conference for its members, industry, scientists, and general public to meet and discuss recent findings and news within the fisheries industry. This year we celebrated our 25th conference and AGM with over 100 people in attendance!

We want to thank everyone who came out to our 25th annual conference on March 7th and 8th, we appreciate all of your support over the years, and welcome and thank you to all of the new comers. The conference started with a wonderful opening ceremony where our M.C, Magali Gregoire presented the organization beautifully. Our FSRS president, Ken Snow began the presentations with a welcoming and a few words about the organization. It is amazing to look back on the past 25 years of the FSRS and see how far we have come as a society.

We are very thankful to our presenters: Ms. Patricia King (Retrospective of my time at FSRS); Mr. Darren Porter (Fisherman – Third Eye Approach, the Path to Wisdom through the Integration of Traditional, Local and Academic Knowledge); Ms. Lauren Scopel (UNB- Using Seabird Diets to Help Estimate Recruitment and Abundance of Atlantic Herring); Dr. Jae Choi (DFO – Snow Crab Update); Mr. Robert Freake (Transport Canada) and Ms. Amanda Dedrick (Fisheries Safety Association of Nova Scotia) who presented key points of the Fishing Vessel Safety Regulations pertaining to the local FV fleet; and Dr. Adam Cook (DFO – FSRS Recruitment Data). A warm thank you to our discussion panelists, Mr. Sam Elworth (FSRS Founder), Mr. Carl MacDonald (DFO), Mr. Anthony Charles (SMU), Mr. Randy Boutilier (Fisherman) and Mr. John Garland (Clearwater Seafood), as well as, our keynote speakers Dr. Nancy Shackell and Dr. Blair Greenan (DFO – Our Coasts, Our Fish and Our Comunities in Changing Climate: There’s Good News and Bad News…). We would also like to thank our student poster presenters for participating in this year’s student poster competition; Matthew Dunlop (UPEI and NSIS Science Merit Winner), Joana Costa (Dalhousie University and People’s Choice Award Winner), Sarah Kingsbury (Saint Mary’s University), and Jake Poulton (Dalhousie University). It was wonderful to see all of the research being done to help ensure the sustainability of Atlantic fisheries.

This year we added a Panel Discussion and “Break Out Groups” during the conference to allow those from different industries to interact and discuss given topics. This went over very well and highlights/key points from the panel discussion and break out groups can be found within the Post Conference_Report.

Once again, thank you to all of those who came out to support this milestone year for the FSRS. We look forward to working with all of you in the future.

The FSRS Staff