Joe McMullen's and Patty Herman's award winning posters

Staff of Columbia National Fish & Wildlife Conservation Office (NFWCO) attended the 2008 Biological Forum - Missouri River Natural Resources Conference (MRNRC), February 25 - 29. The forum, held in Nebraska City, Nebraska, highlighted issues facing management of the Missouri River. Information was presented in over 40 posters and three days of oral presentations. Representation from our office included two well received presentations and seven posters.

Nick Utrup presented data on stocked pallid sturgeon dispersal, and Clayton Ridenour presented habitat preferences of chubs in the Lower Missouri River. Columbia NFWCO was well represented in the poster session. 

This year, two of the three poster presentation awards at MRNRC came home with Columbia NFWCO employees. Patty Herman won an award for her poster “Evaluating Wound Treatments of Shovelnose Sturgeon Egg Checks” co-authored by Wyatt Doyle, Emily Kunz and Tracy Hill. While still congratulating his co-worker, Joe McMullen was granted the same honor for “Fish Assemblage Similarities in Natural and Constructed Side-channels on the Lower Missouri River” co-authored by Zac Beussink, Jeff Finley and Tracy Hill. Each winner was presented with a framed picture of a Missouri River scene by Joe Riis.

Colby Wrasse, Andrew Plauck, Brian Elkington, Clayton Ridenour and Andy Starostka also authored informative and striking posters of ongoing research conducted by Columbia NFWCO. A number of staff from our office were also co-authors on posters presented by other state and federal agencies.

The talks, workshops, contributed papers and poster sessions provided the chance to discover new ideas and techniques for managing natural resources and communicating with the public. Participation in this biological forum addresses the Service’s Partnerships and Accountability Goal of the Strategic Vision. Cooperative participation of staff between projects and among agencies also supports the “Partnership Goal” and the “Workforce Management Goal” of the Fisheries Program Vision for the Future.

--Joe McMullen and Patty Herman