2013 Annual Meeting

Bismarck, North Dakota

A couple of special “thank-yous” go to those speakers who made the trip over from Minnesota, Montana and Indiana and made the extra effort to travel all the way to Bismarck to share their aquatic insights with our membership.  Gwen White, Past-President with the North Central Divison of AFS, spent three entire days with our group, and I hope you got the chance to talk to this remarkable fisheries professional.

 

The special session on oil and gas development in western North Dakota organized by the Environmental Concerns Committee brought us a taste of the new reality associated with natural resource conservation in this rapidly changing landscape. Over lunch, Keith Trego provided us with a glimmer of hope for a new conservation funding source potentially coming to North Dakota this legislative session. Our ability to use those potential new resources the most effective manner possible will certainly be a challenge given the magnitude of the impacts associated with the on-going development.

 

Our oral and poster presentations continue to shine and those who had the unenviable task of scoring have my deepest sympathies – all presenters were worthy of recognition, but a few stood out.

 

The Best Professional Paper: Effectiveness of three compounds to anesthetize Rainbow Trout during PIT tag implantation surgery. Jake Davis, South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks. The Best Student Paper – Effects of Catastrophic Flooding on Fish Communities in the Lewis and Clark Delta. Andrew K. Carlson. South Dakota State University. We had a tie for the Best Student Poster award – “Do boat ramps influence aquatic invertebrate composition in near-shore areas?” Bradley Smith, Jeffrey Grote, Jake Mecham, Tobias Rapp, Tanner Stevens, Steven Chipps. South Dakota State University, and “Quantifying prey consumption by northern pike in Pactola Reservoir.” Natalie C Scheibel and Steven Chipps. South Dakota State University.

 

Congratulations to all of you.

 

Congratulations also go to Ryan Wilson and Katie Bertrand co-winners of our Outstanding Young Professional award, the North Dakota Sport Fishing Congress as our Aquatic Habitat Award winner and Rob Holm as our Robert Hanten distinguished professional award. Chris Longhenry also deserves plenty recognition for his excellent leadership as our past-president. Aaron Andrews with SDSU was our 2013 Schmulbach Scholarship winner. We also recognized five of our upcoming leaders with our Sauger Scholarships (Aaron Burgad, Anthony Rodger, David Bogner, Dalton Benage, Aaron Andrews). Our student participation and leadership continues to be exceptional!

 

Last but certainly not least, thanks to all three of you who stepped up and offered to serve on the Executive Committee beginning in September – Natalie, Kurt and Mark.

 

-Mike Olson