Two for the price of one!

So you are getting a special offer, two weeks for the price of one.  The last two weeks of my fellowship have been rather busy.  I have been trying to squeeze in as much as possible before leaving for Scotland. In summary, I have trying to bring together information I have gathered from interviewing people over the last eight weeks and try and fill in any gaps before heading back to Scotland.

I met associate Professor Chris Anderson, an economist at the University of Washington,who works on experimental economics, game theory and applied econometrics, all areas which really interest me.  Chris gave me some useful economic modelling advice concerning random utility modelling.  I hope to stay in touch so he can give me some further guidance.  For the remainder of the fortnight I have spoken to people on the east coast about how fishery closures work in comparison to the west coast.  I also met again with Ray Hilborn and Dan Holland to discuss how I can pull everything together and structure a paper.  It has been extremely valuable to be able to interact with Ray and Dan, as they have given me invaluable direction and guidance whilst I have been in Seattle.

I would really I like to thank the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust for giving me the opportunity to come out to Seattle and learn about fishing area closures.  It has been an extremely worthwhile trip and an experience which I am very grateful for.  I would also like to thank all the people I have met along the way who have kindly given up their time to talk with me and given me insights into fisheries management over here, in the States.  I really hope all those of you that have read my blog have enjoyed hearing about my time in the north west.

I best finish packing and try to squeeze the last few bits in my bag before I head to the airport.  Hopefully I will be able to lift my bag and get it to the airport without breaking my back in the process :-)  I will write another entry once I have returned to Aberdeen.  See you on the flip side!

Back to King County

So what have I been up to last week, since returning from Vancouver.  As my time in Seattle is nearing to a close I am trying to meet as many people as possible before I leave.  Last week, I went to Fishermen's Terminal to meet Joesph Sullivan, a lawyer who has written some of the fishing cooperative agreements. Joe is a law partner at Mundt MacGregor L.L.P and specialises in fisheries-related law and represents fishing vessel owners and fishermen's associations in both business and administrative matters.  It was a pleasure to meet with Joe,  he helped clear up my understanding of fishing cooperatives.  Fisheries management is complicated at the best of times, but trying to get a handle on how fisheries management is structured in the States whilst trying to review fishing closures has been challenging, to say the least.

Fishermen's Terminal

Fishermen's Terminal can be found on Salmon Bay in the Interbay neighbourhood of Seattle.  Many fishing vessels moor at Fishermen's Terminal, including some of the vessels that have featured on Deadliest Catch.


Next I spoke to Jason Didden, who works for the Mid-Atlantic Fisheries Management Council,  about the longfin squid and Atlantic herring and mackerel fisheries on the east coast.  Jason explained the voluntary bycatch avoidance programmes adopted by the fishing industry in these fisheries. From my understanding there is definitely seems to be a difference between the west and east coast in respect to fisheries managment and relationships between the industry and scientists.

My next port of call was to meet Jim Ianelli to ask him about the eastern Bering Sea pollock fishery.  I was lucky enough to get some of Jim's time before a pollock management meeting at the University.  Jim works for the Alaska Fisheries Science Centre and is an University of Washington faculty member.  In addition, Jim chairs the North Pacific Fishery Management Council’s Gulf of Alaska Groundfish Plan Team and is a member of the Advisory Panel for the Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna. Jim performs North Pacific groundfish stock assessments and was at the University to present a preview of the pollock stock assessment results  The public meeting takes place annually and this year had an incredible turn out, with attendance from the fishing industry, research scientists, faculty members and students.

Bering Sea pollock

My office mate, Carey McGilliard, recommended I speak to Anne Beaudreau.  Carey kindly put me in touch with Anne who works at the School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences at the University Alaska, Fairbanks.  Anne shared her experiences of working with fishermen and different approaches she used to contact them. During her post-doc, Anne spent time building-up relationships with Puget Sound fishers and used their knowledge of rockfish stocks to help reconstruct rockfish trends, for which there was no historical data.  Anne's work demonstrated that fishers' knowledge is a very valuable resource which we must try and incorporate into scientific advice more often.

I rounded off the week by attending the Friday lunchtime quantitative seminar given by Prof. André Punt, the Director of the School of Aquatic and Fisheries Science. André talk was titled "BMSY & BMEY: Introducding pretty good profit". André explained the challenges in estimating maximum sustainable yeild (MSY) without a good stock-recruitment relationship.  In the past proxies of MSY have achieved pretty good yield, so André explained the challenges in identifying maximum economic yield (MEY) proxies to estimate pretty good profit.

I ended my week by sampling my first coffee since arriving in Seattle, and for as long as I can remember.  I have always been a tea drinker so I didn't expect to enjoy the coffee, but I was pleasantly surprised, perhaps all the sugar helped.  I now consider myself a fully fledged Seattleite :-)  Maybe I will try another this weekend,

I hope you are having a good week!  Good-bye until next time :-)

Over the border

I have returned from Canada after spending the last week in Vancouver.  I decided to travel up the west coast by train so I could take in the coastline and what a lovely journey it was.  After four hours I reached Vancouver and was greeted by Canadian border control.  Funnily enough, I was questioned more when entering Canada than when I arrived in the States.  I decided to walk to my hotel, more of a bimble with my bags, so that I could take in the sights of Vancouver along the way.  Thankfully at this point it wasn't raining but it did rain for remainder of the week. Despite being a third of the size, Vancouver feels very much like Seattle.  Vancouver is a beautiful city with a laid-back feel and lots of green space.  Going back to the coffee theme, interestingly Vancouver has more Starbucks than Seattle and Vancouver holds the accolade for highest consumption of coffee per capita in Canada.

Downtown Vancouver from Stanley Park

Upon arriving to my hotel in Downtown Vancouver I listened to the news.  I was hoping that I could escape election fever, but sadly I was disappointed.  Although news of hurricane Sandy and a earthquake off the coast of British Columbia did water down presidential battle updates.  I was a safe 720km away from the earthquake, which hit Queen Charlotte Islands, and measured 7.7 on the Richter scale.  It was the largest earthquake that British Columbia had experienced since 1949.

Back to business.  I spoke to Bruce Turris, and Brian Mose at the beginning of the week.  Bruce, previously worked for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans for the Groundfish Management Unit, now provides consultancy co-management advice for the Canadian west coast groundfish fishery after setting up Pacific Fisheries Management Inc.  Brian, an ex-fishermen, manages the vessel which he co-owns and is the Director of Deep Sea Trawler Association.  Bruce and Brian explained individual vessel quotas are these transferable quotas are used to manage Canadian west coast fisheries and have made the fishery fully accountable.  Bruce and Brian went on to describe how sponge and coral area closures in the west coast groundfish trawl are used to minimise the impact of trawlers on the bottom habitat.  Brian worked with fishermen to define fishing area closure boundaries, given the criteria for these closures stipulated by environmentalists.

University of British Columbia campus

Mid-week I headed to the University of British Columbia to meet with Rasid Sumaila and his research group.  I gave an informal talk about my WCMT fellowship and PhD.  It was also a pleasure to meet, albeit briefly, Prof. Gordon Munro whom I previously met whilst taking a fisheries economics course back in 2008 at the Centre for Economics and Management of Marine Resources at the University of Portsmouth, England. Prof. Munro was the first to publish papers using game theory in fisheries economics to analyse international fisheries management.  It was particularly great to hear that Gordon Munro is a member of the Winston Churchill Society of British Columbia.

At the end of the week I headed to Archipelago Marine Research Ltd which is in Victoria, the capital of British Columbia, on Vancouver Island. The ferry journey from Vancouver to Swartz Bay was beautiful and very picturesque, especially as we weaved through the islands off the east coast of Vancouver Island.

Greg Clapp from Archipelago Marine Research kindly picked me up from the Swartz Bay ferry terminal.  I was even lucky enough to have a mini tourist tour on our way to Archipelago's offices, before meeting Greg's colleagues, Howard McElderry and Maria Jose Pria, for lunch.  Talking of food I had a lovely halibut burger for lunch...mmmmmm. Greg and his colleague Marie Jose showed me around their offices and introduced me to many people along the way.

Views from Archipelago Marine Research across Victoria's waterfront

Archipelago was established in 1978 and provides marine resource management products and services.  Archipelago have developed a remote electronic monitoring system to help monitor and manage fisheries across the globe including countries across North America, Australasia and Northern Europe (including Scotland).  Archipelago work with representatives from the fishing industry, local communities and government to implement remote electronic monitoring, employing closed circuit camera television camera systems, onboard fishing vessels to fully document fisheries.  I learnt how remote electronic monitoring data is collected, processed and analysed.  Everyone I met kindly gave up their time to speak to me about their role at Archipelago and how electronic monitoring technology is developing.

Before leaving Vancouver I took some time to visit Stanley park, a lovely urban space with some beautiful gardens.  This was a very interesting trip, I learnt about how independent First Nations, British Columbia's indigenous population, have for centuries relied on natural resources, finding much of their substance in the sea, for their food and livelihood.  The Canadian north west salmon fishery has supported the aboriginal First Nation population.  To this day, First Nations engage in resource sharing agreements which can pose challenges for fisheries management.

Stanley Park commemorative statue of Robert Burns

As I walked around Stanley Park I came across many statues, including our very own Robert Burns. Apparently Robert Burns has more statutes dedicated to him, around the world, than any non-religious figure.  There was also a statue of a 'girl in a wetsuit' which was presented to the Vancouver Park Board in 1972 to represent Vancouver's dependence on the sea.

'Girl in a wetsuit' statue, Stanley Park

After a week I left a rainy Vancouver and headed back to Seattle, which was equally wet.  I have a busy week this week with lots of appointments, so I will update you at the end of the week.

Obama has achieved more than the minimum 270 electoral collage votes, so looks like he will be returning to the White House as President.

Halfway :-(

I tried to post this yesterday but my hotel internet connection was very intermittent.

My week kicked-off with a visit to Karl Haflinger on Vashon island, a short ferry ride across Puget Sound from west Seattle.  Karl is a very busy man, so I was fortunate that he had time in his busy schedule to meet with me.  Karl's company, Sea State Inc, are contracted and authorised by fishing cooperatives to act as a monitoring agent.  Karl's role is to receive, monitor and process fisheries observer data to inform cooperative members of the status of fish stocks being harvested.  The fishing cooperative agreements are extremely detailed, which I think is probably part of their success, but it also makes the agreements very complicated to understand. However, the  more people I speak to about the evolution of US fisheries management, fishing cooperative agreements and spatial fisheries management, the more I can begin to understand.  It was a pleasure to speak with Karl as he really helped me understand how the pieces of this complicated fisheries jigsaw fit together.

Seattle skyline's taken from across Puget sound, just to prove it hasn't been raining every day

Following great start to the week I set off on Wednesday to meet Joe Sullivan, a lawyer involved in setting up fishing cooperatives, but I was two weeks early...doh!  I felt a bit silly but it was bound to happen sooner or later as I have been trying to arrange lots of appointments.  Thankfully I didn't have to travel too far, looking on the bright side, at least I know where Joe's office is when I meet him in a fortnight.

I left Joe's office and headed to University Village, a retail area, to meet Dan Holland and his colleague, Alan Haynie, also from the Northwest Fisheries Science Centre.  Dan and Alan gave me some very useful location choice modelling advice over a beer, the best way to discuss economic modelling.

Thursday afternoon was departmental seminar time. This week, Julian Olden spoke salmon and small mouth bass in a talk entitled 'invasive species in hot pursuit of Pacific salmon'.  Julian talked about the work he and his research team have been modelling the distribution and extent of spatial overlap of salmon and small mouth bass in the John Day river, an unregulated river, in eastern Oregon under various scenarios.  Julian's take home messages from his work suggest that  climate change could induce a shift in distribution of Chinook salmon upstream, whilst the water temperature may operate outside of mechanism to limit the movement of bass upstream.  As I've hear in other departmental seminars there are many challenges in managing non-native species and there will be challenges in implementing multi-objective restoration programmes.   After four weeks, I may have forgotten to mention a rather important aspect to these departmental seminars.  Following each seminar, beer, wine and nibbles are served.  I am sure you would agree with me that wine and beer make for a good seminar and encourage everyone to come together, the way forward I think :-)

I was recommended to try teriyaki before leaving Seattle, so on the weekend I located Maneki, a Japanese restaurant in the international district area of Seattle.  The restaurant has been going for 20 years and the reviews certainly matched the reasonable priced and great tasting food.  Unfortunately, because the Huskies were playing Oregon Beavers, the restaurant was fully booked so I was unable to reserve at table, so instead ate at the restaurant bar.  Whilst tucking into my dinner and epically failing to use my chopsticks, I met two people involved in the fishing industry....small world!  The first guy was from Peter Pan Seafoods, one of Alaska's leading seafood producers and his friend worked for Trident Seafoods, a harvester, processor and marketer of Alaskan seafood. They both said they Thankfully I had my WCMT business cards to hand, you never know when you will need to whip those out.  They both said they might be able to put me in contact with some fishing industry representatives.  After previous defeats, Washington Huskies drew 2-2 against Oregon Beavers.  Go Huskies!

On Sunday I headed northbound for Vancouver, Canada. I will write to you at the end of the week to update you on my travels in Vancouver.

US fishing cooperatives

Things are starting to come together, everyone has generously given me their time and recommended people that I should get in touch with.  Week three has been very productive, I have had some in depth and useful conversations regarding how temporary fishing area closures are being used in the States.

Since the Fisherman's Collection Market Act of 1934, US fishermen have been allowed to jointly harvest, market and price their product and subsequently fishing cooperatives were set.  This week I was fortunate enough to speak to Dave Fraser, who manages the Pacific whiting cooperative.  Dave gave me some really interesting insights into the implementation, operation and management of  whiting fishing cooperative.  The cooperative was set-up in 2011 to minimise the risk of cooperative members catching prohibited bycatch, which were managed using very low levels of quota, which if caught could close the fishery.  The fishing cooperative agreement allowed members to better manage target and bycatch species by pooling their quota.  A spatial management plan defines areas of high and low areas risk which members should avoid to minimise the risk of catching prohibited bycatch species.   It is early days but it seems an interesting alternative approach to fisheries management driven to an extent by the fishing industry.

A Pacific whiting. Source: www.fishwatch.gov

I also talked to Michael Bell from The Nature Conservancy, a non-government organisation, whom in 2011 were involved in setting-up a non-whiting west coast groundfish fishery cooperative.  The cooperative agreement works along similar lines to the Pacific whiting cooperative but this cooperative have their own rules and a separate agreement which their members must abide to.  Whilst fishing cooperative agreements are not regulatory they are legally binding to all signatories.  The fishing cooperative agreements seem, at least to myself as an outsider, very complicated but from what I hear they do appear to be achieving their objectives.  Hopefully, the early success of these fishing cooperatives will continue as teething problems are ironed out.

Martin Hall from Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC), told me about management initiatives to reduce bycatch involving co-management.  From Martin's experience, of working in South American, there is often little political will, social problems, poor compliance and weak enforcement from government authorities when it comes to fisheries management.  Martin described a leatherback turtle co-management project he is currently involved in.  IATTC are working closely with stakeholders, including fishermen, to define area closures to protect female nesting turtles. Hopefully this partnership will prove successful both in terms of marine spatial planning co-management and reducing the threat of bycatch on vulnerable nesting leatherback turtle populations.

During Ray Hilborn's weekly lab group meeting I presented my Winston Churchill Memorial Trust (WCMT) travelling fellowship.  As I hand out my WCMT business cards and spread the word of the Trust I am yet to come across someone who is familiar with the WCMT, hopefully it won't be too long before I meet somone who is.

Final thought of the day.  This short 135 page pamphlet dropped on the doormat, I wonder if there is an election coming-up?!

Week two

Over the last two weeks I have continued to spread the word of the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust.  Thank-you for all your words of encouragement :-) The view from my office window has certainly helped me settle in.  The view also makes me feel as though I am on the set of 'Sleepless In Seattle'.

One of the major challenges last week was trying to make appointments.  As the end of the year beckons, it is an extremely busy time for those involved in fisheries management. The year culminates in a meeting at which representatives from the eight US regional Fisheries Management Councils come together to decide upon fishing quotas for the forthcoming year.  Apparently there was a big North Pacific Fisheries Management Council (NPFMC) meeting earlier this month, which might also explain why everyone has been so busy.  I was invited to attend the December meeting of the NPFMC in Alaska.  This is the last meeting of the year for the NPFMC before representatives join the other seven regional Management Council.  It was lovely to be invited but unfortunately my time in the States will have come to an end.  I have since discovered that these meetings are open to the public, which I think makes for a wonderfully transparent process.

I attended a mini-workshop run by Dan Holland, the economist I met during my first week, regarding preliminary analysis Dan and his colleague, Steve Kasperski, completed on income diversification of fishers in the communities on the US West Coast and in Alaska.  Dan presented income diversification indices, at the level of individuals and fishing ports, which suggested greater diversification lowers income risk.  Dan discussed the possible barriers to diversification including; regulatory pressure, costs of diversification i.e. fishing gear, licences or quota, and lower efficiency resulting from lack of specialisation.

I will be visiting Vancouver during the last week of October, I just need to make my travel arrangements now.  I have arranged to meet a couple of people from Archipelago Marine Research and also Bruce Turris who is involved in the management of the Canadian West Coast Groundfish fishery.  I have been in touch with Greg Clapp, from Archipelago Marine Research, who says he might be able to put me in touch with some industry representatives....fingers crossed!

I had a really interesting chat with Carey McGilliard, a post-doc in Ray Hilborn's research group, about her work on marine protected areas and data poor stocks.  Carey works on measures of fish stock density in relation to marine protected area to formulate harvest control rules and models how these rules change the performance of fish stock assessments over time.  Carey has spent some time working with fishers, although not directly, on Californian data poor stocks and cited institutional barriers as one of the main problems in involving the fishing industry in research.  Carey also gave me some useful sights into US fisheries management and suggested other people I should speak to.

Peter Westley,  now a post-doc at the University of Washington, held the departmental seminar.  Peter talked about his work on biological invasion and adaption of Newfoundland fish species, which contributed towards his PhD. When Peter started talking about the adaption of brown trout, introduced to Newfoundland from Scotland, it put a wee smile on my face to hear Peter talk about Scotland.  I frantically started making notes when I realised that Peter's work is relevant to that of my housemate's PhD.

Finally, being British and not to deviate from my stereotypical traits, I must mention the weather.  Over the weekend I got to experience Seattle's infamous rain, after an unusual 48 day dry-spell!

That's all for now folks.

A husky for life, not just for Christmas

After spending my first weekend failing to crack jet lag but successfully orientating myself around Seattle, I was just about ready to get started on Monday.  To be honest, I had been feeling a little anxious as I wasn't able to make that many firm arrangements to meet people before arriving.  Nevertheless, bright eyed and busy tailed, I jumped on the hydro-electric bus and made my way to the University of Washington.

Seattle is quite an environmentally conscious city, besides the eco-friendly buses, many electric cars roam Seattle as part of the national Electric Vehicle Prjoect.  Cycling to work also appears to be popular but not to the same degree as in The Netherlands.  Although you can't attach your bike to a Dutch bus.  There are also many recycling points throughout the city to encourage residents and visitors to recycle their waste.  The University itself is also ranked highly when it comes to envronmental initatives.

The University sits on a 700 acre campus on the edge of Lake Union.  The main campus is off Central Plaza, also known as Red Square because of the brick.  There was no need for me to worry about my first day at the University.  After going through the formality of various paperwork, I went to meet Prof. Ray Hilborn at the School of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences.  I later met Ray's research team at their weekly lab meeting where we discussed Costello et al's., including Ray Hilborn, latest offering to Science Express entitled 'Status and solutions for the world's unassessed fisheries'. I was made to feel very welcome and will be spending time meeting with various people from Ray's department over the coming weeks.  In a few weeks time I will be giving a summary of my research and talk about my Winston Churchill Memorial Trust travelling fellowship.

Later in the week I met Ray with Dr. Dan Holland and one of Ray's PhD students, Kotaro Ono.  Dan Holland works at the Northwest Fisheries Science Center (NWFSC), one of six regional science centres for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) referred to as National Marine Fisheries who conduct research to support management and conservation of the Pacific Northwest region's marine fishery resources.  Unfortunately because I am a foreign national I was not able to meet Dan at the NWFSC, instead he came to meet us at the University.  We talked about what I wanted to achieve from my fellowship and who I should meet with during my time in Seattle, Ray and Dan are very well connected.  During my fellowship I shall be aiming to find out the differences between the USA and Scotland when it comes to participatory fisheries management and fishing industry led conservation initiatives.

So, after the first week of my fellowship I have begun organising meetings with people.  I have also organised dates for my trip to Vancouver to visit some people at Archipelago Marine Research and hopefully some industry representatives. 

During my first week I also attended the weekly departmental seminar.  Glen Van Blaircom gave a fascinating talk about the near extinction and resurrection of a black abalone population on a small island, San Nicolas, off the Californian coast. Glen passionately talked about his research on black abalone over the last 30 years.  Glen gave us an insight into the devastating effects of withering syndrome that swept through the population, killing 99.2% of the population in the early 1990s, the subsequent growth in the population two decades later and the management challenges that lie ahead.


All visiting scholars to the University of Washington are given honorary status as Huskies, the University logo, for life.

 On that note, I sign-off as a Husky.  More to follow at the end of this week!