150 Fishes to Celebrate 150 Years

This list is still in progress and being added to weekly. Check back again soon!

150 Fishes to Celebrate 150 Years

In 2020, the American Fisheries Society will celebrate its 150th Anniversary. As part of the celebration, the Society will be calling attention to 150 fishes. We solicited nominations of fishes for the list by the Society’s membership.

The 150 Fishes list is a celebration of the biodiversity of freshwater and marine fishes of North America. These fishes will help tell the story of fish and fisheries of the continent. They may illustrate unique life histories, beauty, conservation issues, and challenges of managing and conserving these animals and their habitats.  These fishes represent our native biodiversity, but also illustrates how invasives and our own human nature have had impacts on our aquatic resources. Hence, this list will primarily focus on native species but may include non-natives when they tell a compelling fisheries story. From the stories of these fishes, the Society and the public can learn to better appreciate these amazing natural resources and be challenged to ensure that future generations will be able to experience these fishes in their native settings.

Nomination Process

Fish nominations are now closed.

Circulation Process

The 150 Fishes list will reside at the 150th Anniversary Website, information about individual fish from the list will be circulated through various social media platforms throughout the year.

This list is meant to be a fun for members and informative for the public. It is unlikely we will be able to include all nominations. We acknowledge that every fish has a story. There may be opportunities to discuss all the nominated fishes in the future.


FULL LIST OF NOMINATED FISH

Catchy TitleNative King of the Great Lakes
Common Name of FishLake Trout
Scientific Name of FishSalvelinus Namaycush
Image of FishImage of Fish
Description of Why This Fish Is Important/Interesting

A native top piscivore in North America. A keystone species for ecosystem stability and fish community succession of cold water lakes. The populations in the Great Lakes collapsed by the middle of the last century due to predation by invasive Sea Lamprey and fishery harvests that did not adapt to the major changes influencing population dynamics. Now following the population recovery in Lake Superior, natural reproduction and wild recruitment have become lake wide in Lake Huron, Ontario, and Michigan, accomplishing a chapter of the sciences and fisheries in North America.

Website or Journal Article for More InformationHe, J. X. Bence, J. R., Madenjian, C. P., Pothoven, S. A., Dobiesz, N. E., Fielder, D. G., Johnson, J. E., Ebener, M. P., Cottrill, A. R., Mohr, L. C., and Koproski, S. R. 2015. Coupling age-structured stock assessment and fish bioenergetics models: a system of time-varying models for quantifying piscivory patterns during the rapid trophic shift in the main basin of Lake Huron. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 72(1):7-23.
Your NameJixiang He