Exploring Careers Related to Animals

Anyone working with animals and other living things relies on the following skills:

Observation

Patience

Perseverance

Teamwork

Communication

As a Fisheries Assessment Biologist, these skills are extremely useful. For example:

1. Observation Scientific data collection relies on observations. Scientists working on research surveys and on fishing trips identify different species and invertebrates based on their physical characteristics (appearance). The animals are carefully weighed and measured, and the sex and maturity are determined based on external characteristics or by cutting them open. The stomach contents of the fish are also examined to see what they have been eating. All of this information is collected and analysed to tell something about the fish and invertebrate populations.

Otilith Extraction

Tagging Yellowtail Flounder

Taken by Blythe

2. Patience

It takes a lot of time to collect and analyse scientific data. If you don’t make sure that the information is useful, or that you have obtained your data in the right manner, you may need to repeat what you have done. As well, If you are going out on a fishing boat or a research vessel you need reasonably good weather to do your work. Sometimes you spend a lot of time sitting waiting for the weather to improve enough for the net to go in the water.

3. Perseverance

When you are working with animals in a natural environment, things don’t always work as planned. Unfortunately, fishing gear can break or computers can malfunction. In these circumstances, you have to keep going. You must become a problem solver and find a new way to obtain the information that you need.

4. Teamwork

All fisheries research is done by a team of workers. These workers include the fishermen, and the crews of the research boats who take the scientists to sea and help to collect the samples and conduct experiments. On a fishing trip, a vast amount of information is collected 24 hours a day, so a team of researchers is needed to sort, measure, weigh, identify and sample the catch and enter the information into a computer database.

Back on land the data is edited by computer technicians and any problems are identified and corrected. The data is often analysed by a group of workers and it is then presented to other scientists, fisheries managers and people from the fishing industry to get their input. Working as part of a team is fun and makes the job much more enjoyable because you don’t feel you are isolated or doing everything by yourself.

5. Communication

An important part of fisheries science is communicating your scientific findings to other scientists and the general public. This is done in scientific papers published in journals, meetings and conferences, and also in more informal publications like press releases to the newspapers.

Taken by Blythe

If you are interested in becoming a fisheries assessment biologist, then you need to have a good background in biology, math, and computer science. You must also obtain a Bachelor of Science degree from a university. A B.Sc. is a prerequisite for almost every job in fisheries science.

What to do if you are interested: