May 7, 2009
Influential fishery biologist to speak May 13
One of the Pacific Northwest’s most influential fishery biologists speaks Wednesday, May 13, about the turbulent transition of U.S. and global fisheries in the last half of the 20th century.
Lee Alverson’s career spans more than six decades and he has worked for state, federal and international agencies serving, for instance, as director of the Northwest and Alaska Fisheries Science Center, National Marine Fisheries Service, in Seattle. He’s an affiliate UW professor of both marine affairs and aquatic and fishery sciences.
During his talk, he will use examples from his recently published book Race to the Sea: The Autobiography of a Marine Biologist while looking at the exploitation of the world’s oceans during his career. The talk will be at 4 p.m. in room 102 of the Fisheries Sciences Building. It is free and open to the public and followed by a reception. Please RSVP to uwsma@u.washington.edu by May 8. Click here for more information.
Amazon.com says about his book, “His career and story cover the period (1950-2000) during which world fisheries would explode from small boat coastal activities to distant water fleets of large vessels. World catches would increase over 300 percent after WWII and most of the world’s oceans and seas would be heavily exploited.”
In the 1970s, for instance, Alverson was in the thick of tracking harvesting by foreign fleets off the U.S. coasts and suggesting that Congress extend U.S. control out to 200 miles, something it did in 1976. In his career he has also been involved in allocation battles among U.S. fishermen and conflicts between conservation groups and fishermen.
