3rd Summer Shoal 2019 on fish ethology & welfare
Two full days of oral presentations, with text books on the participants' knees, followed by animated discussions in the circle under a big pine tree—and many opportunities to further discuss fish welfare issues in small groups during the breaks: This is the Summer Shoal, a unique dialogue setting among experts with different backgrounds and interests—thus encouraging cooperation beween science, practice, and advocacy.
Plenary speaker: Colum Brown
Associate Professor, Macquarie University, Australia
Culum is one of the top international experts in cognition, intelligence, and behaviour of fishes. For years he has studied the behavioural ecology of fishes with a special interest in learning and memory. Culum's academic path crossed through Melbourne University, University of Queensland and Cambridge University where he worked on social learning in a range of fishes. A further post-doc at the University of Edinburgh expanded on his background in learning by examining the ecological correlates of cognition in Poeciliid fishes. This work was conducted in collaboration with the Smithsonian Research Institute in Panama.
In 2006, he moved to Macquarie University on an Australian Research Fellowship. Culum won a young researcher award from Australian Academy of Science in 2007 and Young Tall Poppy Award in 2008. He is now an Associate Professor at Macquarie Uni. Culum is Editor for the journal Animal Behaviour, Assistant Editor of the Journal of Fish Biology, and the editor of a book entitled Fish Cognition and Behavior, published by Blackwell Scientific (2006, 2011). Apart from an exceptional scientific record, Culum is a brilliant speaker who delighted the audience with his insights into the minds of fish.
