Biographies

Satellite Tagging

Chaired by Malcolm Francis, NIWA, Wellington, New Zealand
www.niwascience.co.nz

Barbara Block

A Professor in Marine Sciences at Stanford University, California USA, Barbara has received the Presidential Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation Award. With her colleagues Aquarium, she has established the Tuna Research and Conservation Center, where bluefi n and yellowfi n tuna are held in captivity for physiological study, and new techniques in wildlife telemetry and molecular genetics are used to directly examine the movement, stock structure and behaviour of tunas and billfi shes. At the Hopkins Marine Station, the deployment of pop-up satellite and archival tags. Barbara is Chief Scientist of the Tagging of Pacifi c Pelagics program – a multi-disciplinary team tagging 4000 predators in Concerned about the real possibility of northern bluefin tuna becoming commercially extinct, and armed with the scientifi c data to improve fi shery management, she has teamed up with anglers to found the Tag-A-Giant Foundation in 2006.

www.tunaresearch.org

Archival Tags

Chaired by Andy Seitz, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, USA

David Righton
& Julian Metcalfe

With an established reputation for developing and applying advanced tagging technology, David and Julian are two of the leading European scientists from the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, Lowestoft, UK. Their research in collaboration with other European Fisheries Institutes is the world’s largest archival tagging study and is focused on the migratory behaviour of Atlantic cod in the North Sea.

www.codyssey.co.uk

Radio Telemetry

Chaired by Larry Hildebrand, Golder Asscociates Ltd. Castlegar, B.C. Canada, www.golder.com

Steven Cooke

Steven Cooke is the Assistant Professor of Fish Ecology
and Conservation Physiology at Carleton University in
Ottawa, Canada. His research is focused on understand-
ing how the behaviour and physiology of fi sh respond to
natural and anthropogenic events using radio telemetry.

www.carleton.ca/biology

Acoustic Tags

Chaired by Mike Stokesbury, The Ocean Tracking Network, Dalhousie University, Canada
www.oceantrackingnetwork.org

Michelle Heupel

Currently based at James Cook University, Queensland, Australia, Michelle specialises in studying the movements, behaviour and life history of sharks and rays with acoustic monitoring technology. Her research in Florida and Queensland has shown how elasmobranchs use nursery habitats and respond to hurricanes and tropical storms.

www.jcu.edu.au/school/mbiolaq/research

Biological Markers

Chaired by Tony Fowler, SARDI, Adelaide, Australia
www.sardi.sa.gov.au

Steve Campana

As the Director of the Otolith and Shark Research Laboratories, Bedford Institute of Oceanography, Dartmouth, Canada, Steve Campana leads international projects in fi sh population dynamics and develops new technologies for age determination, stock discrimination and fi sh tracking.

www.marinebiodiversity.ca/shark
www.marinebiodiversity.ca/otolith

Transponder and Non-electronic Tags

Chaired by Jeremy McKenzie, NIWA, Auckland, New Zealand www.niwascience.co.nz

Lee Blankenship

As Director of Biological Services for Northwest Marine Technology, oversees the biology unit which evaluates and develops both current and new tagging technologies. Lee recently retired from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife as a Senior Research Scientist where he supervised the Stock Identification program which involved working with coded wire tags, genetics, otolith marks, passive integrated transponder tags and scale analysis. Lee consults throughout the world as an expert in fish biology and tagging and is currently an independent scientist working on the Pacific Northwest Hatchery Reform Project for the states in the Pacific Northwest.

Integrated Approaches

Chaired by Jennifer Nielsen, President American Fisheries
Society, Alaska Biological Science Centre, USA

Ron ODor & Mike Stokebury

An expert in cephalopod behaviour, Ron O’Dor works for the Census of Marine Life, Consortium in Washington DC, USA. His current research is giving a new perspective on changes in the distribution and movement of fish and marine mammals from satellite, archival and acoustic tagging studies in response to climate change. Dr. Mike Stokesbury is the Director of the Ocean Tracking Network, Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia, Canada. His tracking studies have shown the migration and behaviour of Atlantic salmon, Greenland sharks, and Atlantic bluefi n tuna. The Ocean Tracking Network is conducting the world’s most comprehensive and revolutionary examination of marine life and ocean conditions. Their work has led to the global expansion of the network of acoustic receivers and by using globally unique codes in tags lasting up to 20 years, this new technology is detecting tagged fish moving along rivers and across oceans.

www.oceantrackingnetwork.org

Fisheries Management

Chaired by Mark Maunder, Inter-American Commision, La Jolla, California, USA
www.iattc.org

John Sibert

Actively involved individual and population tagging data analysis, John manages the Pelagic Fisheries Research Program, University of Hawaii, USA. The Program provides scientific information on pelagic fisheries for tuna, billfish and other species covering about 1.5 million square miles of the Pacific. John had a leading role as the co-editor of the proceedings of the 2000 Symposium “Electronic tagging and tracking in marine fisheries” and has also worked on skipjack tuna growth and movement in Noumea.

www.soest.hawaii.edu/PFRP