WDAFS Archives, Reports and Minutes

Western Division of the American Fisheries Society
EXCOM Teleconference Minutes
Date: June 24, 2003

Participants: Tom McMahon, Joe Margraf, Mary Buckman, Jim Whelan, Jim Tilmant, Tom Pettengill, Dave Lentz, Dave Ward, Vaughn Paragamian, Eric Knudsen, Lynn Starnes, Yvonne Muirhead

Congratulations to the California/Nevada Chapter and the Minnesota Chapter for being co-recipients of the National American Fisheries Society’s Chapter of the Year Award.

From the initial accounting figures for the 2003 meeting in San Diego, the WDAFS will receive $15,000 in revenue and the Cal/Neva Chapter will likely break even. In addition, it looks like we came in approximately ~$10 000 under budget (we had budgeted for $160,00). The accounting for the meeting is still in progress and we anticipate final figures for attendance and accounting in another month or so;
Registration for the meeting was estimated to be around 500 people (breakdown of attendance: 265 AFS members; 89 non-members; 12 Mexicans; 2 retired; 57 students; 46 daily; 18 exhibitors; and 26 guests); and,
Mexican Connection - The results of our efforts to encourage Mexican participation in San Diego were mixed. We had lower attendance by Mexican colleagues than was hoped for. In spite of that, the Mexican sessions went well and were reasonably well-attended. In particular, the discussion of a Mexican chapter was successful, with a plan being formulated to have a 2004 meeting in LaPaz to discuss chapter formation and prepare for a possible 2006 WDAFS in Mazatlan. The question remains: should we keep up the process of inviting and encouraging Mexican participation for the 2004 meeting in Salt Lake City? The theme for the meeting will be relevant to many inland Mexican fisheries interests so it makes sense to do so. The EXCOM needs to discuss this issue on the next teleconference call and also discuss the possible bid for the 2006 meeting to be held in Mazatlan. Lastly, it was mentioned that it is very difficult for Mexican AFS members to participate on the conference calls since telephone service from Mexico is very expensive. Members of the EXCOM suggested that email should be the primary method of contact and to establish a contact person in Mexico to generate interest with other Mexican fisheries professionals.

The Committee is finalizing the first call for papers and should be ready to go out soon;
The outline for the Plenary session is not complete yet, but they are working on it;
Lynn Starnes is working with Bill Bradshaw on the fundraising effort and the funding letter should be complete soon;
Lynn Starnes mentioned that everyone organizing a symposium for the conference will be on the 2004 committee. This committee will be having conference calls on the last Friday of the month and they still need someone to organize the Poster session for the conference;
The dates for the conference organizations meeting in September will be finalized on the June 27/03 conference call;
Lastly, the memorandum of the understanding (MOU) needs to be redrafted so the Whirling Disease Foundation can participate in the conference organization as well as the profits from the conference. Lynn Starnes mentioned that she is enjoying the opportunity to work with the Whirling Disease Foundation.

Jim Whelan mentioned that he would be contacting committee members to discuss a working draft for the WDAFS;
The fire suppression article written for the Tributary did not generate a lot of feedback and we need to find some more positive examples of what is working to contain fires;
The burn plan needs to address many of the constraints of fire suppression such as genetic stocks and that more research and monitoring should be taking place;
Members of the EXCOM suggested that Jim Whelan should contact Jason Pyron (208-885-3558) and Art Gamete from the Idaho Chapter (208-588-2224) to help with the WDAFS working document. In addition, a member of the EXCOM recommended that someone from the Oregon Chapter should weigh in on this issue

The retreat will be held in October 2003 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Phoenix, AZ. It will cost $85 single and $110 for double occupancy at the hotel, which is below the Federal employee rate. Some members of the EXCOM could not make the original dates (Oct. 16-18, 2003) that were proposed so Tom McMahon has given us some alternative dates to vote on. The retreat dates to vote on are:
- Tues. Oct. 14-16, 2003;
- Thurs. Oct. 16-18, 2003 (original dates);
- Sat. Oct. 18-20, 2003; and,
- Tues. Oct. 21-23, 2003;
Please email your vote to Tom McMahon by July 1, 2003. It is important to get all the WD officers to attend as well as every Chapter President or their proxies.

Ken McDonald has approached WDAFS to assist with the independent review of the entire pallid sturgeon situation. Because there are currently conflicting positions on what to do regarding this issue, the Inter-agency Upper Basin Working Group is at a stalemate and would like the WDAFS to do an unbiased review and to make recommendations of their findings;
It was suggested that the Environmental Concerns Committee (ECC) along with the Pallid Sturgeon Subcommittee should find 3 - 4 reviewers to take on this review. There are already resources in place to pay for the reviewers’ work;
There was some concern expressed by certain members of the working group regarding Harold Tyus’s involvement in this project because he had been somewhat involved in pallid sturgeon issues previously, he might not be seen as unbiased. So, Harold has stepped aside as the ECC coordinator for this project and the WD now needs to find a replacement. Yvonne Muirhead will send a note to the WDAFS list server to solicit WD members to participate and/or coordinate the peer review. Don MacDonald, Eric Knudsen and the ECC will determine the best person for the position.

The EXCOM needs to develop the appropriate language to change the bylaws to enable the past-president to become a voting member. Eric Knudsen has drafted some proposed by-laws language changes and will send them for review by Joe Margraf. While on the call, Joe Margraf noticed a number of inconsistencies within the WDAFS bylaws and has graciously offered his time to propose changes to them. Eric Knudsen has agreed to work with Joe Margraf on these changes;
All the proposed changes to the bylaws will be first reviewed by Dirk Miller and then will be sent to the WDAFS EXCOM for review. The proposed changes to the bylaws will need to be published in the Tributary at least 30 days in advance of the 2004 Annual General Meeting in Salt Lake City, UT. At the meeting, the proposed bylaws will be reviewed and voted on. The final step requires approval by the AFS Governing Board.

The Time and Place Committee is looking for a location to host the 2006 and the 2007 Annual Meetings of the WDAFS. The EXCOM prefers to have every other meeting located at an inland location so that issues can be addressed at the meeting and followed up on in the alternating year. The 2005 AGM will be hosted in Anchorage, AK and will focus on all topics, but will have a slant toward marine topics. The Chapters that would benefit most from hosting the 2006 AGM are the Oregon, Montana and North Pacific International Chapter. The Oregon Chapter has graciously agreed to step aside if the Montana Chapter would like to host the meeting since they believe that Montana would probably have a better inland location to host the meeting. If the Montana Chapter declines the offer to host the meeting, the Oregon Chapter would be more than happy to host the event and the meeting will likely be held in Portland;
Members of the EXCOM agreed that the NPIC Chapter would greatly benefit from hosting the meeting since they are the largest Chapter, but are struggling to engage their members in Chapter and Division activities. Yvonne Muirhead mentioned that the Program Planning Committee (PPC) from the 2002 WDAFS conference in Spokane, WA are planning a follow-up conference in 2006 which will be held somewhere inland in BC, Canada. There is a good chance that the NPIC will likely co-convene their Chapter meeting with this conference. In addition, the 2002 conference was an overwhelming success for all involved including the WDAFS and this conference would likely be a good money maker for the Division;
Eric Knudsen mentioned that at the 2003 AGM in San Diego, our Mexican colleagues wanted to form a Chapter of the WDAFS. They have devised a plan to have a planning meeting in 2005 regarding the formation of a Chapter in La Paz, Mexico and to host the WD AGM in 2006. Eric Knudsen will follow up with the people in Mexico and let them know that the WDAFS has already planned to host the 2006 AGM in the USA or Canada at an inland location. With that said, Eric Knudsen will suggest to them that they could host the WD AGM in 2007. Mary Buckman indicated that the Parent Society has recently sent out an email inviting WD Chapters to co- host the 2007 AGM of the Parent Society since the Chapters of the Southern Division failed to respond to their request. It was suggested that the 2007 AGM of the Parent Society could be co-convened by the Mexican Chapter and the WD in Mexico. This would be a good kick start for the Mexican Chapter and they could rely on the strength of the WD to help with the meeting’s arrangements;
Members of the EXCOM expressed some concern regarding international travel for federal employees since Sept. 11. It seems that the government is more lenient with travel to Canada than the rest of the world, but we are unclear on their policies to Mexico;
There was not a NPIC or a Montana Chapter representative on the call today so Dave Lentz has agreed to follow up with the Oregon, Montana, and NPIC Chapters to find out their position on this issue.

The Mexican scientists at the 2003 AGM in San Diego were quite interested in forming a Mexican Chapter and have developed a course of action on how to proceed. It was suggested that we start soliciting members by establishing a Mexican Fisheries Committee for the Division. The committee would be charged with the coordination of all activities in Mexico; promoting communication on the website, through email communications, and the Tributary; and, promoting an AFS Chapter. Eric Knudsen has agreed to draft the charges of the committee and will forward them onto Tom McMahon and Don MacDonald for their review; and,
Jim Tilmant has kindly agreed to help Eric Knudsen out with the formation of the committee and the Chapter.

Mary Whalen has sent out an email regarding the WD website account. The webmasters at AFS have indicated that we are currently being charged $20/meg and we are using 36.6 megs on our website. Therefore, we will be charged $740 this year which is a substantial increase from last year (which we were charged $300 for the year). The reasons for the increase are that the Parent Society would like to discourage people from putting large amounts of files on the server and the WD is paying more for the website since we have more files on it than last year. Mary Whalen has been able to check out another web hosting service, One World Hosting and their prices are very competitive. The quotes that we have received are $24.95 per month (paid monthly), $20 per month (paid yearly) or $17.50 per month (paid 2 years at a time). The plan includes 200 MB of web space, database support, stats and lots of emails. We would need to purchase a domain name, which costs $70 for two years, and www.wdafs.org is available as of conference call. We could also house the Chapter webpages as well on this site;
It was suggested that someone should call Gus Rassam to get a sense of his reaction for changing our website account, his opinion on the matter, and if the WD list serve will be affected in its capabilities, if we decide to change accounts; and,
Tom McMahon suggested that we continue this discussion on the next conference call and he will contact Mary Whalen to get more information on this matter.

The next conference call is scheduled for July 22, 2003 at 10:00 - 11:30PDT. Yvonne Muirhead will contact Eric Knudsen to see if he can set up this call.