The best little conference around

Every year there’s a great secret shared by about 130 clever folks with an interest in the health of aquatic animals.  Its the annual Eastern Fish Health Workshop and this year it’s in charming Charleston SC March 28-Apr 1.  What makes this meeting so terrific is the breadth of topic matter and the diversity of folks who come.  There are sessions on finfish, elasmobranchs, molluscs and even corals, and also more thematic sessions like Aquarium animal health or fish surgery, and the people are a mix of state and federal science folks, hatchery people, DVM’s and of course academic researchers in fish health.  Its small enough that the agenda is filled without the need for concurrent sessions, and big enough to be interesting and diverse.  It really is one of the best meetings on the calendar if you like aquatic animal health.  Here’s the 2011 highight sessions and their moderators:

Emerging dsDNA Viral Diseases of Fish and Amphibians - Tom Waltzek

Keeping ‘em happy, healthy, and in those aquaria – Shane Boylan

Probiotics: a SCAT-er-gun approach – Sally Molloy

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the lab: shark health – Alistair Dove

Pondering the realities of antibiotic therapies -  Mark Gaikowsky

The Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill and environmental health – Greg Lewbart

Seeing in toto: the ecology of disease – Karen Burnett

Coral Ecosystem Health – Cheryl Woodley

The Aquatic Detective: Unusual and Perplexing Case Reports

If you’ve got any interest in attending, contact Rocco Cipriano at the National Fish Health Labs and submit an abstract.  I’d love to see you there!