Several Indiana AFS Chapter members attended the Midwest Fish and Wildlife Conference that took place from December 9^th to 12^th. Those people included Tom Lauer and Mark Pyron with several of their students, some of whom gave talks, Jerry Sweeten and a few of his students, one of whom – Jared Mobley – gave the talk he won an award for at the 2007 Spring Meeting, and one Purdue student who gave a talk. In addition, several DNR biologists, a JF New biologist and a City of Elkhart biologist also attended. The Indiana Chapter was well represented at this meeting.

Stu Shipman and Angie Grier attended the North-Central Division (NCD) Governing Board meeting on Sunday, December 9^th. Joe Hennessey from Wisconsin is the current NCD President and he presented his plan of work for 2008. One of the items that he would like to see the individual chapters carry out is to provide more frequent updates about each chapter’s activities on their individual websites. In this way, we could increase our ability to advertise the activities that Indiana has on a more frequent basis for our chapter members and other individuals who find themselves on our site. If we keep it updated more frequently, then people will continue to visit our site on a regular basis.

In addition, Joe is looking for two individuals to volunteer to take on a role in the North-Central Division of AFS. This may be of particular interest to some of our newer members who do not have a lot of experience in AFS, but are interested in increasing their involvement. One of the available positions is as the website facilitator. This position does not require a lot of technical knowledge and there is some member support from some of the other Executive Committee members in NCD for the website. Joe is also looking for someone who is willing to fill the role of the Audit committee chair. If you have any interest in getting involved at a higher level of AFS, please consider filling one of these roles.

Continuing education in NCD will have more support at future Midwest conferences. If you have a workshop idea for the next Midwest, please send Angie Grier your idea. The NCD Executive Committee also discussed increasing the travel award, also known as the Joan Duffy Award, for students to go to the Midwest to present a paper. What the NCD would look for from the individual chapters if this occurs is that the amount that we award our winning student each year should increase to match what the NCD awards the student. The reason this was addressed is because the cost of attending the Midwest conference can be prohibitive, particularly if the student has no other source of funding, so $200 does not go very far towards covering the total cost of travel.

The Indiana Chapter was presented with the NCD award for Best Communication, which is not surprising considering how well Janel Palla and Jason Doll have done with that committee. In addition, Jared Mobley was awarded a $100 Joan Duffy scholarship. He is the student that the Indiana Chapter selected as being our choice for receiving that award. In addition, he is the only undergraduate student to have been awarded that this year.

Many of the talks that were presented dealt with the themes of the National Fish Habitat Action Plan and the effects of climate change in the Midwestern Region. Both of these topics will have a large impact on the way we conduct the business of Fisheries in our state, both currently and even more so in the not-so-distant future. Many of us who still have 10 or more years left in our fisheries careers will have to face the harsh reality of climate change, and how the increase of temperatures will increase the range of many invasive species we do not want to see and decrease the range of many native species that we do not want to lose. In the Midwest, a group of individuals from several states, including Indiana, has partnered together to form the Midwest Glacial Lakes Partnership. This group has formed under the auspices of the National Fish Habitat Action Plan and is in the process of moving from a candidate partnership to a full partnership that will receive funds to do projects and administer those projects under the national initiative. If anyone would like more information, please contact Gwen White, who is the Indiana representative for this partnership.

Angie Grier
IAFS President