54th Annual Meeting

The Wisconsin Chapter of the American Fisheries Society holds an annual meeting to promote the conservation of fish and aquatic habitat in not only Wisconsin but around the world.  These meetings have been held in all parts of Wisconsin and in conjunction with other AFS Chapters from neighboring states.  Information for the current meeting is shown below while past meetings are found on our past meetings page.

54th Annual Meeting of the Wisconsin Chapter of the American Fisheries Society

The WI-AFS Executive Committee is excited to announce that the 54th Annual Meeting of the Wisconsin Chapter of the American Fisheries society will be held in person from 1:00 pm Tuesday 14-Jan through 12:00 pm Thursday 16-Jan 2025. The meeting will include scientific presentations, poster session, continuing education workshops, our annual business meeting, awards presentation, and networking events.

Location: Radisson Hotel, LaCrosse Wisconsin. 200 Harborview Plaza, La Crosse Wisconsin

Dates: January 14 – January 16, 2025

PRESENTATION ABSTRACTS 

POSTER ABSTRACTS

PROGRAM AT A GLANCE 

Hotel Reservations

There is a block of rooms available at the Radisson Hotel – La Crosse under the name “American Fisheries Society – WI Chapter”. Several options are available for reservations, but you must ask for the room block name to get the discount. The single occupancy room rate is $98/night (1 king bed, city view), and the double occupancy rate is $128/night (2 queen beds, river view). Reservations need to be made before Friday, December 27, 2024.

Reservations can be made by:

Registration will be open soon

The registration fee will be $75 for student members, $75 for retired members, and $160 for regular members. Registration includes meeting attendance, socials, and meals (Tuesday reception & dinner, Wednesday breakfast/lunch/dinner, and Thursday breakfast/lunch). Members will need to renew their membership to receive email updates.  More detailed information will be sent via the Google Groups email and updated here as details are finalized.

Presentation and poster abstract submissions are DUE By Friday, December 20, 2024, and final call due by Wednesday, January 8, 2025. Abstracts will be reviewed after each call due date, and all presenters will be notified by Friday, January 10th at the latest.

Presentations can be “Speed” talks (10 minutes total) or “Normal” talks (15-20 minutes total). All presentations are judged unless the authors opt out of judging during abstract submission.

The annual scholarship supporting raffle is back! We encourage all members to submit handmade items.

WI-AFS sponsored education class: Tuesday, January 14th

To kick off the 54th Annual Meeting of the Wisconsin Chapter of the American Fisheries Society, WIAFS will be offering two continuing education opportunities for meeting attendees on the afternoon of January 14.  From 1230-230pm, Dr. Richie Erickson (USGS, UMESC, https://www.usgs.gov/staff-profiles/richard-erickson) will be conducting a workshop on alternatives to null hypothesis statistical testing using R at the Radisson hotel.  Details about the workshop can be found below:

Null-hypothesis significance testing (NHST) has been the dominate approach for statistical analysis for the 20th century to the present. However, computational advances and the misuse of NHST has caused many scientists to consider alternative approaches. This course will provide a briefer overview of why people are “moving beyond p < 0.05” and more usefully, describe statistical methods to not use NHST. The course will include some lecture, but mainly focus on hands-on R examples.  The course is self-contained for R (all the code necessary for the course is included in the learning materials); however, participants will get the most out of the course if they have prior experience reading data files into R and doing basic exploratory methods such as plotting and summarizing data.

Learning objectives:

  • Learn about limitations of NHST
  • Learn about some alternative to NHST
  • Learn how to implement NHST methods in R

From 300-500pm, we also plan to hold a fish ID workshop (with primary focus on the fishes of the Mississippi River) on the UW-La Crosse campus, which is only a short distance from the Radisson hotel.  We are still working out the finer details for this fish ID workshop, but we intend to provide it for those interested.  At this time, sign up for participating in these continuing education opportunities using this link: https://wi-afs.org/wi-afs-sponsored-training/.  There will be no fee to participate in these workshops.   For questions, please contact WIAFS continuing education co-chairs Joseph Mrnak (mrnak@wisc.edu) or Greg Sass (gregory.sass@wisconsin.gov).  Additional details will be provided as the meeting draws closer.  Happy Holidays!

As part of the Annual Meeting of the Wisconsin Chapter of the American Fisheries Society, a Fish ID workshop will be held on the UW-La Crosse campus on January 14 from 3-5pm.  UW-La Crosse has graciously agreed to pay for parking fees for WIAFS members participating.  Parking will be available in Lot C-2 (the parking lot nearest the football stadium) from 2-6pm.  To avoid getting a parking ticket, guests must register their vehicle before or when you arrive to campus by following the directions below.

  1. Click on the Parking Link
  2. Enter the license plate (change state, if not WI)
  3. Click Park
  4. Click Done

AGAIN, CARPOOLING FROM THE RADISSON TO THE FISH ID WORKSHOP IS STRONGLY ENCOURAGED!

Please join me in thanking President-elect, Dr. David Schumann, for all his effort in making this Fish ID workshop and the logistics a reality.  See you all next week.

 Student Events

At the meeting, there will be several opportunities for students to network with professionals attending.  A student-mentor luncheon will be organized on Wednesday January 15th from 12 – 1 PM in the hotel ballroom . During this time, professionals who have volunteered will be spread out across multiple tables so that students can mingle and have conversations with them. Don’t forget to participate in the annual cornhole tournament which pairs a professional with an early career/student as partners.

Keep in mind that the student equipment fund will be available again this year for subunits that are interested in submitting a request.  The initial deadline for requests is March 1st, 2025.

Finally, WI AFS is looking for input and participation on committees from students.  In particular, the Social Media and communications committees are looking to receive help.  If you are interested or want more information, please contact Kristina Pechacek at kristina.pechacek@wisconsin.gov

Cornhole Tourney Info

We’ll be having another cornhole tournament at this year’s welcome social, 6:00 – 9:00 pm, Tuesday 14th at the Radisson Hotel – La Crosse. Sign up in advance using the online form For questions contact Brandon Wambach. Brandon is looking for cornhole boards so if you have some you are willing to bring, please let him know.

We have an online sign up this year!  We will be collecting the registration fees at the venue, please check in by 6:15 so we have time to get the final organization into our bracket!

3rd Annual Wisconsin AFS Cornhole Tournament

Location: Radisson Hotel – La Crosse, 200 Harborview Plaza, La Crosse, WI 54601
Time: 6:30 PM to 9:30 PM
Cost: $10 for each professional, FREE for students! Each competitor will receive 2 raffle tickets for participating.
Prize: The winning team will win $20 (each person) worth of raffle tickets!

 

If you have any questions, please contact David Schumann.