From deep sea fishing for flounder, to cage diving with great white sharks, to spending weeks at a time on commercial fishing vessels, Jennifer has devoted her life to the ocean.
The Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office is now virtually paperless when it comes to reporting and permitting. Getting there took a lot of work—and collaboration—by NOAA, partners, and fishers.
There are many paths that can bring a person to the deck of a fishing vessel in the frigid waters of the Bering Sea. For fisheries observer Sarah Williamson, that path included a lifelong love of the ocean and a nudge from a social media post.
NOAA Fisheries and partners developed and calibrated an ecosystem model of the Gulf of Mexico that revealed key trade-offs between Gulf menhaden and their predators, which could assist in managing the stock.
“Salty, watery, muddy, bloody, little space, on a constantly moving deck” may not be the words most people would apply to a job they actually enjoy doing. But for fisheries observer Woody Venard, it’s an accurate description.
