Kaylyn Zipp: Data, dialogue and the waterfront

My family left Broad Channel years ago though the imprint of the community and my childhood lingers. The island is where I first squished my toes in dark, sticky marshland mud and inhaled the pungent perfume of low tide in view of the glowing lights of the Empire State Building.

Once a year, I make a pilgrimage back to what the newspapers call “the Venice of New York City” in Jamaica Bay, tucked inside Gateway National Park, nestled between the relentless energy of New York City and the flight paths of John F. Kennedy Airport. Sitting on its urban beaches, listening to the hum of airplanes mixed with the calls of gulls and osprey, I’m reminded of when daily casts of my minnow trap filled with stale Wonder Bread, collecting dozens of wiggling Mummichog and flicking grass shrimp.

This little island is a lot like many fishing communities in Maine. Most families had been there for generations and owned family boats. Fish and crabs were harvested from our backyards and passed over the fence around Christmas time. Our daily cycles followed the tide. We weathered the storms together. Walking through flooded streets to get to school, moving neighbors’ cars to higher ground, and jumping in the bay at high tide to cool off during the hot July evenings. But a lot has changed.

Superstorm Sandy washed my childhood homes away, and the houses that the community didn’t lose now sit high up on already elevated streets. The community is battling increasingly strong storms and sea level rise, which threatens to turn Venice into Atlantis. Like Maine, many people of my generation have moved away as urban redevelopment raised the cost of living and island life became problematic. Those who stayed remark on the changes and work to adapt to the new urbanscape; new winners and losers.

To many, it was no surprise that the salt-encrusted dock kid would pursue a career in fisheries. Growing up in a tightly coupled human–environment system where the ocean shaped our lives, I was drawn to fisheries. It showed me early that science is lived, debated, and at times fought for. Ecological dynamics, human livelihoods, and management decisions are intimately intertwined in dynamic socio-economic systems.

My career has been an effort to build the skills to leverage science effectively in these dynamic socio-economic systems. I’ve worked to cultivate the skills to communicate clearly new techniques and issues in quantitative fisheries modeling so that conversations that shape the future of waters and communities are scientifically rigorous but socially legible.

For my PhD at the University of Maine, I study highly migratory fishes, specifically Atlantic bluefin tuna, in Walt Golet’s Pelagic Fisheries Lab. Atlantic Bluefin tuna sit at the nexus of dynamic socio-ecological systems. Bluefin tuna cross oceans and political boundaries, supporting culturally and economically important fisheries on both sides of the Atlantic. Because of their movement between the east and west Atlantic they are managed through complex international agreements at the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna (ICCAT). But fishing for tuna is more than just a job; it’s a staple of culture in communities surrounding the Atlantic Ocean and here at home in the Gulf of Maine.

My PhD research weaves tagging data, growth modeling, genetics and ear bone (otolith) chemistry to conduct population modeling to understand how tuna numbers change with fishing and move between areas. This research aims to reduce uncertainty and support better, science-based management. I have also expanded my work to include economic price dynamics, recognizing that the dockside price is often the most immediate way environmental variability and management decisions are experienced by fishing communities.

Beyond analysis, I work at the science–policy interface where policymakers must translate the weight of scientific evidence into guidance. As part of my PhD, I have contributed to fisheries assessment processes at ICCAT, where scientific uncertainty can alter economic and community realities. I have also engaged more broadly in science policy and public science discourse through my fellowship with The Wildlife Society and the American Fisheries Society. As part of these programs, I’ve communicated and elevated the voices of scientific experts to policymakers on Capitol Hill.

My childhood and professional experiences have taught me that trust in science depends not just on results but on relationships, clarity, and dialogue. People make decisions. Although data is important, it’s the conversations about the data that lead to decision-making. Every conversation is important. From the passing one at the dock or in a restaurant to the formal ones I have with policy makers and resource managers. Formally, this has led to communication becoming a central part of my work, and my PhD taking the form of public speaking engagements and magazine and web articles. Whether engaging with fishers at Atlantic Bluefin tuna tournaments, other resource managers, students here at the University, policy makers, or the public, I aim to meet people where they are and communicate science in ways that make it accessible, so we can sustain both marine ecosystems and the human communities that depend on them.

At the docks of a tuna tournament on Bailey Island, Maine, each summer I can smell the familiar pungent marshland perfume. I watch a 400 plus pound Atlantic bluefin tuna  hoisted off of a locally owned commercial vessel and I see more than a fish. Among the people there I see the same intersection of pride, uncertainty, and dependence on the environment that defined my childhood community. My research in Maine on Atlantic Bluefin Tuna feels like a continuation of the story with its own local northern flavor. Communities in Maine, like the one that raised me, are adapting to social and environmental change. This time I can help bridge the science with the lived realities of coastal communities. I’m forever thankful for the experience of being part of Dr. Golet’s Pelagic Fisheries Lab, for the opportunity to study a fish that is so important to so many communities, and for every conversation, however small, that teaches me more about the dynamic socio-ecological environment that is coastal Maine.