I have updated the site title to match the new domain, and the new themes to be explored here 🙂

Again, it’s summer, so allow me to share some re-wilding (well, sorta…) that I’ve been up to in my yard. I do enjoy varietals, so excuse the not strict wild-typing here. Otherwise, I have several natives to at least the state level, if not county. (Probably my next project is going to be separating that out.) I have species/varietal info in the photo captions, and also a list from the end of the walkway to the steps in order.

Here is the list of what’s planted, in order:

• New Jersey tea
• “prairie splendor” deep rose coneflower
• “Pollynation magenta” coneflower
• “green twister” coneflower
• whorled milkweed
• butterfly flower (Asclepias tuberosa)
• “fireball” bee balm
• “ice ballet” swamp milkweed
• Hibiscus moscheutos
• Jacob’s ladder
• wild lupine
• orange coneflower (Rudbeckia fulgida)
• “pow wow white” coneflower
• “Luna red” Hibiscus moscheutos
• “sunstruck” false sunflower
• purple coneflower
• Asclepias syriaca
• New England aster
• “balmy pink” bee balm
• “Goldsturm” Rudbeckia fulgida

As mentioned in my prior post, I intend to do some walk-throughs and take some notes on some fisheries analysis processes. Right now, I’m going to add some notes on where I’m at, which is not the beginning! Ideally, more tutorials to come, and more content to be presented in order 🙂

Currently, we’re working through the age-structured assessment program (ASAP). The leader of our subcommittee was kind enough to provide us a tutorial and commentary, so this is me transcribing some notes for myself (and hopefully that someone else might find helpful)…though plenty will be specific to me and this exercise/session/assessment.

Inputs

Any

• For tog in our region, dead releases are lumped in with total catch (i.e. not handled separately in the “discards” tab)
• provided to us: time series of data for MRIP index and CAA
• The scale of what’s entered on the catch-at-age tab doesn’t matter (e.g. if a prior year used 1000s of fish, you can use raw numbers because ASAP converts it to proportions immediately)
• “scan …results” under “Run” allows you to read results back in
• can set option to keep terminal open to see more output
• for final run: adjust effective sample sizes based on output

Retrospective

for me: your last block starts 2018 so set there to not “overrun” the next block

Note to self — 1:13:30 gets to running the model (below)

Interpreting results

Diagnostic Results

• stage 2 multipliers is where you find the ESS you can re-run with
• you can try to optimize RMSE…(you don’t have to)
  • increase CV where RMSE > 1, decrease where it’s < 1
  • if CV is too big, it won’t fit to the index
  • ideal: indices and catch RMSE = 1

ASAP Model Results

• SSB: roughly 4321 is ok
• MSY: roughly 933 is ok

Retrospective results (1:24:40)

R plots (1:30:12)

Starting the placeholder post that will be fleshed out at the end of the year!

• Audubon’s oriole and northern beardless-tyrannulet (3/28)

Disclaimer: anything published here on my blog is my own personal content, and does not necessarily reflect the views or positions of NJDEP.

One of my primary responsibilities of my still-new (i.e. as of this year) job is to work on stock assessments. As such, I’ve been on a steep learning curve of the assessment process! I intend to do some walk-throughs here (and maybe even a video walk-through at some point). I think publicly accessible documentation on this process is at times lacking, and given that this is a process that involves public comment, I think it’s important! So, I’d be thrilled as you learn along with me.

Today is more or less the kickoff for me to start working on the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Council (ASMFC) tautog update.

Agencies responsible for federal regulations…

• Department of Defense
• U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps)
• the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
• the Department of the Interior, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS)
• the Department of Commerce
• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
• the Department of Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) (formerly the Soil Conservation Servic

I have recently started a new job in the Marine Bureau of NJ Dept of Environmental Protection! (Here is where I add the disclaimer that anything published on my blog is my own personal content, and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of NJDEP.) I will still get to interface with Aves insofar as they interact with our fisheries, but given the new fish focus in my career, I am launching a new domain: birdv.fish

I will also be taking this opportunity to refocus/reorganize the content of my blog etc. there, though all of the content that is here will be archived and available there too. I will be looking into the best way to migrate email subscriptions if something needs to be done on that front, so stay tuned. Also, my upcoming retirement of this domain casts it back into the sea for a new owner. Originally, I snagged this domain name with hopes of turning this page more broadly into something of an avian ecology news blog, but I never got around to converting it from my own personal research/birding blog. Years ago, I took some time to put together more general interest content, but that has fallen by the wayside in my current endeavors. So, I leave it to the adoption of perhaps someone who can do this title more justice. I will still be here for now as I get the new site up and running, but please add your bookmark now (as you can see on the link, currently it is just a clone of this site!)

Today was my first day guiding for fall fest this year! I was so glad my friend Emily invited me to co-lead the kayak trip with her.

What a perfect way to celebrate our workshop well received: a hike along Medicine Bow trail in the alpine zone of Rocky Mountain National Park! We didn’t see ptarmigan but we were able to pickup radio signal from our tags on a local flock. They seriously seemed to be keeping ahead of us, just over each hillside we traversed…eventually, we let them win.