FFI Awards Scholarships
4 Students receive $2,000 each
Fly Fishers International recently awarded 4 scholarships to assist students who are concentrating their studies in conservation, including fish health and habitats. Below are excerpts from the essays they submitted to be considered for the scholarship. FFI accepts scholarship applications until April 1 and the awards are granted in July. For more information, click here.
Archie MacColl
Stirling University - United Kingdom
Archie's love of nature sprung from a young age, growing up in the rural highlands of Scotland, there wasn’t much choice really! He lived his whole life in a small town called Inveraray until September 2023 when I moved to university to pursue his dream of becoming a Fisheries Biologist. His passion for the outdoors occurred because of his grandpa (Donald) who coincidentally was his best friend, we used to walk for miles in the countries observing the wildlife, Stags roaming the hills, Ospreys hunting prey, Salmon leaping upstream, I was hooked! Donald always said “Treat nature right and it will keep you right” something that has lived with Archie for a long time. Around the age of 8, Donald introduced Archie to fly fishing, teaching him all the basics. For Christmas Donald bought Archie a rod, the best present had had ever received. Archie spent days upon days out in his back garden casting into hula-hoops practising getting his distance and accuracy up. Donald and Archie fished for Brown Trout and Rainbow Trout in small Lochs and rivers around the county.
In September 2023, Archie began studying towards his degree, Marine Biology BSC (Hons) at the University of Stirling. He completed Semester 1. His experience has been unreal, meeting like-minded people and thoroughly enjoying both lectures and practical work. His three modules are Cell Biology, Conserving Our Blue Planet and Building Planet Earth. Focusing on the formation of rivers, extinction, conservation of endangered species and many more topics, he volunteered as a module representative for Blue Planet, and took the issues of students to a panel of Professors and Lecturers within the Institute of Aquaculture to discuss improvements to the course specification and teaching methods. He looks forward to expanding my biological knowledge.
Courtney Ghere
University of Idaho - Moscow
North American watersheds are highly impacted by water development, especially the development of dams used for hydroelectric power and flood control. Such dams have led to the decline, listing or extirpation of many native fish species. Natural resource managers employ a diverse range of mitigation strategies in attempts to restore fish populations. However, success can be difficult to measure. In Idaho, one river severely affected by water development is the Kootenai River. Historically, the Kootenai River experienced seasonal flooding from large seasonal discharge events in the spring. Following decades of levee breaches downstream of Bonners Ferry, Idaho, Libby Dam was built for flood control of the Kootenai River. In less than a decade after construction, impacts to several native fish species were reported, including White Sturgeon and Redband Trout. Libby Dam has dramatically changed sediment, nutrient, and flow dynamics in the river. Subsequently, Redband Trout densities in the Kootenai River were reduced to a quarter of the historic population, and White Sturgeon recruitment has ceased. As a result of many compounding issues, Redband Trout were listed as a Species of Concern in Idaho and Montana in 1994, and White Sturgeon were listed as endangered under the ESA in 1994. Over the decades since, state, federal, and tribal agencies have been working together to try and restore fish populations affected by Libby Dam. Mitigation strategies have included projects such as nutrient addition, flow augmentation, and habitat restoration. However, because of the variety of life history strategies seen in both White Sturgeon and Redband Trout, it has been challenging for managers to measure the efficacy of specific mitigation strategies in increasing their growth.
The focus of Courtney's master’s research is to assess the influence of mitigation strategies aimed to increase fish growth. She will be using microchemistry to identify the life histories displayed by Redband Trout and White Sturgeon in the Kootenai River. As fish move through water, they incorporate the elements present into their calcified structures (i.e., otoliths, fin rays). When the elements in a calcified structure are measured, it is possible to know where that fish lived. Using measurements of elements in Redband Trout otoliths and White Sturgeon fin rays, I hope to map migration patterns, including spawning and rearing locations. Once locations are known, I can then assess the factors that influence growth in each environment. Developing an understanding of the relationship between growth and migration patterns in White Sturgeon and Redband Trout will increase the probability that mitigation actions are well-placed and timed, making conservation efforts more effective.
Nicholas "Nick" Voss
University of Idaho - Moscow
It’s hard to imagine a more dramatic fall from grace than that of Brook Trout in the western U.S. Brook Trout are the celebrated icon of a centuries-old fishing culture east of the Mississippi, and 19th-century anglers settling out west quickly grew homesick for their favorite trout. Industrious fish and game agencies were quick to respond, and an era of stocking Brook Trout in nearly every western waterbody accessible by train, truck, and horseback began as early as the 1880s. Unfortunately, biologists and anglers alike would soon find that in many streams Brook Trout tended to explode in abundance and stunt their own growth, resulting in swarms of tiny fish that negatively affect larger-bodied natives like Cutthroat Trout, Chinook Salmon, and Bull Trout. Today, Brook Trout are regarded as a harmful invasive species across much of the Pacific Northwest, and efforts to block, control, and eradicate them in defense of native sportfish have cost millions of dollars.
One challenge of controlling invasive Brook Trout is that they are something of a moving target. The world is changing, and rising temperatures combined with shifting streamflows are allowing them to move farther up into pristine, coldwater streams that provide critical habitat for native trout. The problem is, our poor understanding of where, how fast, and far future invasions can spread prevents fisheries biologists from effectively planning to prevent them. A better understanding of past invasions could provide a guide to future ones, but an expansive study of many historical invasions is needed to really understand how they work, and that’s never been done.
Nick's PhD research aims to do just that. By building the largest stream survey database ever assembled in Idaho, he identified hundreds of historical sampling locations across the landscape where trout communities directly in the path of Brook Trout expansion were described decades ago. By revisiting these sites and documenting shifts in salmonid distribution and abundance, I aim to provide the first comprehensive look at where Brook Trout invasions are occurring, what their effect on native salmonids is, and what their distribution and abundance may be in the future. The results of this research will guide managers in anticipating future invasions and inform long-term planning to protect native sportfish for future generations.
Ryan Vosbigian
University of Idaho - Pullman WA
Ryan is a graduate student at the University of Idaho in the M.S. in Natural Resources program in the department of Fish and Wildlife Sciences. His work is directly relevant to fly anglers interested in Snake River steelhead. His goal is to be a biometrician in fisheries conducting research that supports and informs management. He finds this intersection of statistics and fisheries exciting and would like to be in a position where he could collaborate closely with others in fisheries. His coursework and project are strongly quantitative because he wants to develop expertise in statistics so that he can be a helpful resource for others.
Ryan's thesis project involves three aspects of Snake River steelhead (Oncorhynchus mykiss) conservation and management. Snake River steelhead are federally listed as threatened and consist of both natural and hatchery-origin stocks. Quantifying the harvest, catch-and-release mortalities, and escapement of both the natural and hatchery-origin stocks at their breeding locations is important for managing the populations and the associated fisheries. However, the current model used has no estimate of uncertainty, limiting the interpretation of the results. He extended this model by propagating uncertainty in data inputs using Monte Carlo simulation and by incorporating catch composition and escapement data using maximum likelihood. Both extensions allow for uncertainty estimation in fishery mortality and escapement.
These methods provide a useful framework for quantitatively monitoring steelhead that can be extended to other systems. In addition, he is evaluating the influence of bag and size limits on harvest and catch-andrelease mortalities of steelhead, and evaluating the effect of climate change on steelhead juvenile abundance. Understanding how bag and size limits influence the fishery is important because they are actionable management levers that can be used to influence fisheries. This work addresses how regulations influence angler effort and catch rates, which are related to abundance of available fish. In the project to understand the effect of climate change on steelhead juvenile abundance, Ryan is leveraging a long-term dataset of juvenile steelhead to evaluate how parrs have responded to flows and stream temperatures. He is testing mechanistic hypotheses for how changing flow and temperature conditions affect steelhead juvenile survival and abundance. Overall, Ryan's work will help managers make more informed decisions about fisheries management
and understand drivers of juvenile steelhead production trends.