To DFC-L, What's up at the Desert Fishes Council? Lots! check it out
1. 2006 Call for Papers is Now Available
2. Renew Your DFC Membership
3. Cuatro Cienegas Meeting Was Great
4. Cuatro Cienegas Research Station is Happening
5. Desert Fish Habitat Partnership is Under Construction
6. Updates to desertfishes.org
7. ExComm Mid-Year Meeting set for June 10-11
*** 1. The Call for Papers for the 2006 Annual Meeting in Death Valley is
now available on the DFC website. Phil promises this will be the best
meeting ever (does he say that every year!?). One thing you'll notice is
that Furnace Creek will be catering the banquet this year--with primo eats
and a veggie option, all included in your registration fee. Who knows,
maybe the temperature will even be above freezing (ambient air and food!).
www.desertfishes.org/meetings/2006/call.html
*** 2. Renew Your DFC Membership. Hopefully all of you received the letter
from Heidi, our Membership Secretary, encouraging you to renew your
membership. If you "forgot" - then now's the time! It only takes a few
clicks through the DFC Online Store. It's cheap, too. And here's an idea:
invite a colleague to join!
www.desertfishes.org/members/dfc_memb.html
*** 3. Results are in from the DFC survey regarding last years meeting at
Cuatro Ciénegas, Mexico. Thanks to the 56 people who responded to the
survey. The responses(graciously analyzed by Phil to wonderful precision)
were overwhelmingly positive well get comprehensive results out to you
soon.
*** 4. The Cautro Ciénegas Research Station proposal is off and running.
Support from the DFC allowed Dean Hendrickson and local and volunteer help
to move the station in February to a new and much better facility that just
now opened for business. Check out the station's new web pages in the Cuatro
Ciénegas section of www.desertfishes.org . An April visit to the American
Museum (AMNH) research station at Portal, Arizona,
(http://research.amnh.org/swrs/) by Dean , Susana Moncada (Cuatro Ciénegas
Protected Area Director) and Alma Zertuche (Cuatrociénegas Research Station
Administrator provided by local NGO Desuvalle) was fruitful in terms of
learning how to run such a facility and developing a collaborative agreement
with the AMNH. May 26 will be the first meeting in CC of the preliminary
members of the station's advisory board and it will be proposed there that
operations of the station in CC be generally modeled after those of the AMNH
station. If an agreement is signed (as anticipated soon) between Peace Corps
and SEMARNAT, the Associate Director of Peace Corp's new Mexico Program will
be visiting shortly before the board meeting to explore the possibility of
assigning a Conservation Program volunteer to Cuatro Ciénegas with primary
responsibility to the station and its mission.
Proposals for long-term funding of the station are being developed, but we
appreciate any suggestions and help from DFC members regarding fund raising
for the station. Obviously DFC cannot continue to support the station
unilaterally, but our contribution thus far has been critical to getting it
off the ground and substantial progress has been made since our meeting in
November. Any and all comments regarding the station, and offers of help,
are sincerely appreciated. Contact Dean at [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
*** 5. A Desert Fish Habitat Partnership (DFHP) is moving forward under the
National Fish Habitat Initiative. You may have seen a presentation at the
2005 meeting regarding this initiative. Work is ongoing with a variety of
folks to pull this together. Bottom line is to develop a unified effort for
desert fish and to compete for national resources to implement habitat
conservation efforts. Check it out at www.fishhabitat.org. The DFHP could
really use a motivated person to create an information website for the
effort. If you are interested in this or any other aspect of the DFHP,
contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
*** 6. Dean continues to make improvements to the DFC website. He recently
did something that seemed really important, but the rest of the ExComm
couldn't figure out what it was. The web pages are now hosted somewhere new,
the website still works like a dream, and www.desertfishes.org still gets
you there. If you want to know, click Whats New on the website.
Also, Dean could really use help keeping the website information up-to-date
if anyone is qualified and interested in donating some time to the DFC
cause. Maybe a professor out there could assign it to a talented undergrad
for "community service" when they nod off in class? Contact Dean at
[EMAIL PROTECTED] .
*** 7. The DFC Executive Committee is preparing for a mid-year meeting June
10-11 to discuss these and many other important topics (Do we eat at 10pm or
11pm for the banquet this year? :). If you have any hot topics to suggest we
discuss, please email your ExComm Member-At-Large, Chuck Minckley at
[EMAIL PROTECTED] .
See you in Death Valley.
For the Desert Fishes Council Executive Committee,
Nathan Allan, President
