Hello everyone! This blog post is dedicated to discussing the podcast that my group recorded for our final project. I personally felt like this aspect of our research was the most engaging, and I have never recorded a podcast before, so it was a completely new experience for me! Nevertheless, I really enjoyed the process of producing a podcast episode and speaking with our guest to learn more about our project...if you would like to take a listen, check it out here! For our podcast, we invited Dr. Wilson Laney, an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Applied Ecology at North Carolina State University, to speak with us about his research with the Atlantic striped bass. Dr. Laney is extremely accomplished as he serves on the Board of Directors of the North Carolina Wildlife Federation and was chosen as Conservationist of the Year by the Governor’s Conservation Achievement Awards. Dr. Laney’s research focuses on the management of the Atlantic striped bass by tagging and tracking the population’s migration and mortality. This process relies on commercial fisherman and recreational anglers who catch the tagged striped bass and report where those bass were found as well as how much the bass grew from the time they were tagged to the time of their recapture. His research found that the striped bass were indeed migrating northward. A higher percentage of recaptures were found offshore, and what was particularly concerning to me was that Dr. Laney informed us that he and his team found that there has not been a striped bass caught in a commercial fishery in North Carolina since 2011. It must be scary to see firsthand how the species in the oceans are changing as a result of human interactions with the environment. Dr. Laney and his team did not find conclusive evidence as to what exactly it is that is causing the species to shift northwards, however they hypothesize that it could be a result of changing temperatures and/or changes in prey distributions. This conclusion would match the research our group did for our paper that the prey species is also shifting possibly due to changes in climate. Even though there has not been extensive research done on how changing ocean temperatures have affected the striped bass populations, it is a solid hypothesis as we know that there have been adjustments to reproductive cycles and habitat as a results of temperature change and unsustainable human practices (refer to our paper). Having dialogue and communication with a professional in the field of research our project focused on made the content much more approachable and personable. Speaking with Dr. Laney, who had so many unique stories and experiences in his research experience, made me give much more thought and feeling to the fact that human interactions can have such a big impact on even just a single species of fish. Now, I cannot imagine how we are still remaining stagnant on these issues when so much of the ocean is still undiscovered and there could be millions of species impacted. Even though this is a fact that many people may know from academic sources, hearing firsthand stories about it makes the issue seem much more real and pressing. I feel very lucky that I was able to hear Dr. Laney speak about his research, and I hope that universities around the country can continue to make conversations with professionals about climate research more accessible.
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