Building on the vision of Dr. Mark Pegg and Dave Buckmeier, our team came together in the summer of 2021 to brainstorm a means to determine the availability of known-age fish structures and the feasibility of collecting, processing, and providing digital imagery free to the public. Having an open access resource such as this will preserve these valuable structures and provide opportunities for those to engage in and learn the age estimation process.
Thanks to an initial Multi-State Conservation Grant provided by the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, a lab was established at the University of Georgia to begin processing known-age structures.
Our mission is to provide a publicly available repository of digital imagery from known-age fish structures that will serve as an archive of valuable known-age references and be a conduit for education and training for aspiring and experienced fisheries biologists alike for the advancement of fisheries management.
Associate Professor
University of Georgia
& Principal Investigator for the Project
Research Technician
University of Georgia
& Fish Age and Growth Lab Supervisor
Professor
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
& Co-Investigator
Research Program Director (Retired)
Texas Parks and Wildlife Department
& Co-Investigator
Fisheries Research Supervisor
Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks
& Co-Investigator
If you would like to contribute known-age fish structures, please fill out the following form and one of our team members will contact you.
We prefer to accept unprocessed fish structures so that we can process them in a standardized manner and provide the highest quality digital imagery. However, we will accept previously processed structures or digital images of known-age fish structures. Physical structures can either be returned or donated to the Georgia Museum of Natural History.
Thank you for your interest in our project!