So, You Want To Be A Fish Biologist?

My first fish. Notice I'm not touching it. I was solidly in my 'fish are gross' phase at this point in life.

I was recently told that my blog is reaching several young scientists ranging anywhere from middle school students all the way to undergraduate.  Welcome aboard!  This post is for you and meant to both warn you about the life of a fisheries ecologist but also get you excited by how cool my job is.   

The inspiration for this post was a trending hashtag on Twitter last week.  When I saw #WhenIWas12IThought I took a moment to think back to my middle school self.  I was a B student, hated science, and thought for sure I would become a medical doctor. While I looked forward to lazy Sundays fishing with my grandfather, I thought fish were gross and certainly not something you would (or should) ever devote a career to studying.
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And here I am today, devoting my entire life to studying fish. 

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What changed?  Honestly, a series of random events.  I wanted to take an Advanced Placement class senior year of high school and Environmental Science seemed like the easiest option. I didn’t realize it until later, but that was the first class I took that I actually enjoyed. As a freshman in college I was randomly placed into another environmental studies class that focused on streams. Having now spent nearly 20 years in school, I can faithfully say that class was the hardest I will ever take and made me question weekly if I was smart enough for college. At the same time, I loved everything about it including long days in the cold rain collecting data and even longer nights in the library trying to write research papers for a professor with exceedingly high expectations. I then needed a summer job, and that same professor was willing to pay me to research trout behavior. I call this my “Monopoly moment.” From there I passed go, collected $200 (not really that far from the truth...fish research pays very little), and have been running laps around the game board ever sense (and even managed to stay out of jail).
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My first research job required monitoring fish behavior for 12 hours a day on stream-side platforms. We were trying to see how feeding fish (feeders are under that blue bag in the stream) affected fish movement. Here I am, 10 years later, still studying fish movement.

The moral of my story is that career paths don’t need to be straight and paved. That’s probably not new advice.  And, there are a lot of articles giving more great pointers about how to get a job in the field after you graduate college-  volunteer at various organizations, do undergraduate research, and network with professionals in the field, etc.  While I could reiterate all of those points, they won’t help you decide whether fisheries science is actually a good fit for you.  For that, I have a few points of advice:    

• Give fisheries a second (or third, fourth, etc.) try.  There are aspects of fisheries science that I am completely disinterested in, and had I found those first I may have given up on the field. As a fish biologist you can study anything from tiny creeks to oceans, cells to sharks, and Antarctic to Amazonian species. You can spend a lot of time outside or in the lab collecting data, or you can choose to spend more time analyzing datasets from other biologists. You can work closely with other scientists, or choose to do more public outreach and education.  You can focus on human health, population genetics, or recreational fishing. Fisheries science is incredibly diverse, so there is a fit for nearly every interest. But, it might take some time to find it, so don’t give up on the career path early.
• The topics of study may be limitless, but the field itself is very small. This means that competition for jobs is fierce. The good thing is that excellence in the field isn’t determined entirely by good grades.  Those are important.  Let me say it again… you need to demonstrate that you are intelligent and can think critically about fish ecology.  But, also important is your ability to write well, communicate effectively, repair a transmission, haul heavy objects, start a fire, change a flat tire, and build odd things.  Those don’t all sound like elegant skillsets you would imagine from a professional, but that’s the reality of the field.  You may be sent to collect data in remote field sites without cell phone service, and your supervisor needs to know you can get yourself out of trouble if needed. Likewise, really important field equipment breaks all the time and you have to fix it or you won’t get your data. The most intelligent ecologist isn’t always the best fit for the job.  
• That last point makes it sound like this career is a real-life National Geographic documentary. Yes, my office very often doesn’t have a roof- I’ve worked in gorgeous environments from the Rocky Mountains to Panamanian rainforests.  But, for every hour outside I probably spend 3-4 at the computer (that doesn’t count winter where I’m almost exclusively inside). Don’t get into this career under the assumption you will get to be outside every day. 
• Likewise, field ecology isn’t a 9-5 job. This is particularly true during graduate school, which you will almost certainly want to at least consider attending as most jobs in fisheries require a Master’s degree. When the critter you study is doing important things (spawning, migrating, etc.), your life will revolve around their schedule. Sometimes there are big grants or contract deadlines that land on your desk at the last minute. There will be weeks you work upwards of 60-80 hours and have no choice.  Fortunately, by the time you hit that point in your career, most of your friends are also ecologists and understand why you keep cancelling plans with them.

Even when you are outside in a Panamanian rainforest listening to howler monkeys, field work can still be extremely boring and require staring at a computer screen.

• If you hate math, public speaking, and writing, fisheries and wildlife probably isn’t a good fit for you.  The data that we collect usually ends up in really complex models that are necessary to understand how the world works and make critical management decisions. I’m not saying you need to be an expert in calculus, but to understand these models you need to be willing to dissect equations and study statistics.  Likewise, communication is key.  This is a highly collaborative field that needs to play nice with other lab groups.  We are also unique in that a lot of funding comes from tax dollars and we are studying an aspect of the environment that a lot of people have very strong opinions about.  As a result, we are often asked to talk to the public and serve as authorities on our research topics. Further, if you decide to go into research full time, your professional worth is in large part measured by the number of publications you produce. Communication skills are really hard to develop and require years of practice and a lot of really harsh feedback from your peers.  My advice, both for developing these skills and growing as a scientist, is to find someone that is better than you and spend as much time around them as possible. Ask them to mentor you, and develop thick skin early.  You won’t get better by eating sugar coating.

Another way to develop communication skills is by presenting an oral or poster presentation at a conference. You can usually get conferences paid for by your advisor, so these are actually like free vacations. Here I am standing at my poster at the American Fisheries Society meeting in Portland Oregon.

• Be ready to move. There are a limited number of jobs and graduate school positions in fisheries, and there’s a good chance you won’t find an opening in your desired state, let alone your favorite city. Plus, a lot of really great jobs are seasonal, meaning you’ll only be hired for a few months before you will be back on the job market.  When you are looking for graduate school, you will want to find an advisor whose research interests match yours, and that could very easily take you out of the country or time zone. This can be a little heartbreaking for people that want to stay close to family and friends. But, with every move you learn a whole new ecosystem, network with a new group of colleagues, experience a different area of the country, and grow as a scientist. Extra points for anyone that moves to a new country for their work; those people are a whole different breed of awesome. 

​All of that may make you wonder why anyone picks and keeps this profession.  Truth is a lot of people do quit once they realize they won’t become the next Steve Irwin (this was nearly a deal breaker for me). In all seriousness, this field really isn’t for everyone. But, if you love the outdoors and the animal you study, the long hours slip by quickly. And, I do get to work outside, often exploring environments that few humans will ever get the privilege to see and using some really cool equipment (I catch fish by pumping electricity into the water..how cool is that?). Most importantly, I work with some of the most charismatic, hardworking people I know. There are few fisheries ecologists that don't have fond memories of working past the point of exhaustion and then staying up late chatting around a campfire. It's these stories that make me realize that most of us look at fisheries as more than just a career.  When you decide to join the fisheries brotherhood, you make a commitment to wear flannel, own ugly fish shirts, ridicule your friends a little too much, party hard, and show up early the next morning ready to get the job done. Today, I couldn't imagine not being part of the fisheries family.   
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So, bottom line, the old adage has a lot of truth- if you pick a job you love, you’ll never work a day in your life.