BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — The third annual Noreen Clough Memorial Scholarships for Females in Fisheries have been awarded to Hadley Boehm, a Ph.D. student at the University of Missouri, and to April Lamb, who is studying for a master’s degree from North Carolina State University.
This year there were 63 applicants representing 43 different colleges and universities from across the United States and Canada. The review committee was hard pressed to choose a single recipient this year, so it was decided to award two scholarships to women who exemplified what Clough hoped to see in future fishery scientists.
Boehm is working with the Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) to evaluate the striped bass fishery in Bull Shoals Lake. In 2013, MDC began an experimental stocking plan in Bull Shoals Lake to create and sustain a low-density trophy striped bass fishery. Research objectives for the project include providing MDC managers with information they need to make science-based management decisions about the striped bass fishery and to address stakeholder concerns about the potential impact of striped bass on traditional sport fishes like black bass.
Lamb is working to understand the impacts of invasive common carp and how they affect restoration efforts in North Carolina’s Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuge. Historically dominated by thick beds of submerged aquatic vegetation, Lake Mattamuskeet has recently experienced a drastic decline in ecosystem health, including lake-wide losses of submerged aquatic vegetation, widespread declines in water quality and the increased occurrence and severity of harmful algal blooms. Her research evaluates the feasibility and challenges of carp removal to levels necessary to cause recruitment failure, allowing the lake to heal.
Noreen Clough blazed many trails in the field of fisheries. As the first female regional director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and later as the conservation director of B.A.S.S., her long and distinguished career was dedicated to the conservation and management of fish and wildlife. Along the way, she served as a mentor to many and a revered colleague to countless others. Clough passed away in January 2015 from pancreatic cancer. As a tribute to her impact on careers and lives and for the good of the resources she helped conserve, friends and colleagues established an endowment to provide a scholarship in Clough’s memory to a female student working toward a career in fisheries conservation.
The scholarship winners were each awarded a framed certificate from the Southern Division American Fisheries Society Black Bass Conservation Committee and checks for $1,000 to be used for college expenses.
A request for proposals for 2020 scholarships will be posted on Bassmaster.com this fall and circulated to college and universities across North America that have fisheries science programs.
