AFS is offering more than 100 publications at greatly reduced prices. From now until January 15, 2024, take advantage of our Year-End Book Sale and save on selected titles. Complete your science library at dramatically reduced prices—all sale publications are priced at just $6.00–$11.00! No refunds or returns on this special offer. These reduced-priced titles are available through our online bookstore only, and sale applies to the complete hard-copy book only, not PDF downloads or ebook purchases. $1 of every purchase will be donated to the AFS Publications Endowment Fund. 

Session proposal submission is now open for the 2024 Annual Meeting in Honolulu, Hawai'i, September 15-19. Submit your ideas for symposia, innovative sessions, and continuing education courses by February 23, 2024.

Take advantage of early registration rates by registering now for the 2024 World Fisheries Congress, March 3-7, in Seattle, Washington. Early registration rates end on January 31, 2024. And don't forget to check out the variety of training workshops being offered on Sunday, March 3.

This holiday season, make an investment in a student’s future or contribute to a colleague’s professional growth by giving them the Gift of AFS Membership. This is a gift that gives all year long! When you purchase the gift of AFS Membership, you provide a friend, family member, or colleague with the many benefits AFS has to offer. Already a member? Put membership renewal on your wish list this year – relatives can renew your membership for you by contacting kkotche@fisheries.org.  

Renewal time is a great opportunity to review your contact information and make any changes. Additionally, we’ve added new demographic questions to help us get to know our members better so that we can tailor programs to fit all members’ needs! Simply log in to your account to make any changes to your profile or demographics. Click here for a video tutorial and additional guidance on how to renew your membership and update your profile.  

The White House on Thursday announced a 10-year plan to restore salmon populations in the Columbia River basin, including studies into the possibility of removing the lower Snake River basin’s four dams. The Administration announced it has reached an agreement with state and tribal leaders in the Pacific Northwest, which will contribute more than $1 billion to restoration along with previously allocated funding. In 2022, AFS approved a policy statement on Snake River dams urging removal of the four dams to help recover at-risk populations of salmon and steelhead.

AFs joined the Great Lakes Fishery Commission in submitting comments to the Environmental Protection Agency urging that Great Lakes-only cargo ships ("Lakers") be required to treat their ballast water to prevent further spread of aquatic invasive species around the Great Lakes.

In this feature article in Marine and Coastal Fisheries, the authors demonstrate the complexity of fish reproductive strategies and how reproductive traits are species-specific and differ between warmwater and coldwater systems, affecting population productivity. They present a unified framework and terminology to describe fish reproduction and new methods to assess key reproductive parameters.

The theme of the 2024 AFS Annual Meeting, “Conserving Fishes and Fishing Traditions through Knowledge Co-Production” achieves two objectives. First, it is consistent with AFS's mission of conserving fishes and aquatic ecosystems and developing fisheries professionals. Secondly, it acknowledges the centuries-old sustainable fisheries and fishing traditions of this unique locale that existed long before science-based fisheries management, as practiced today, was developed. In this column, I suggest that collaborating with Indigenous communities on conservation approaches to managing shared resources may enhance the current management practices that typically ignore this knowledge base.

Fish mislabeling is a global issue with far-reaching consequences for both food security and biodiversity conservation. This practice involves the intentional or unintentional misidentification of fish species sold in markets and restaurants, often driven by economic gain or cultural preferences. The mislabeling of threatened fish species further exacerbates the problem. This manuscript focuses on an emerging mislabeling practice in the Brazilian Amazon coast, which impacts a critically endangered elasmobranch species, the Daggernose Shark Isogomphodon oxyrhynchus.