Jack Eschenroeder

Jack is a fisheries biologist with experience in a variety of freshwater systems, including delta and coastal lagoon environments. He has coordinated international conservation projects focused on monitoring and research related to aquatic biodiversity, community well-being, and civil society capacities in communities throughout the Cambodian Mekong, where he has also co-coordinated nation-wide studies of fish movement using acoustic telemetry and fish diversity using eDNA. In the US, Jack has coordinated field monitoring programs focused on aquatic habitat and salmonid populations in numerous Pacific Coast and Bay Area streams, including the Salinas, Carmel, and Guadalupe rivers. Jack is proficient in a wide range of methodologies, including passive integrated transponder (PIT) tag antenna systems, eDNA and genetic techniques, automated fish passage monitoring systems, and acoustic telemetry systems, including Vemco tags in numerous Mekong fish species and JSATS acoustic tags in juvenile salmon. His sampling experience also encompasses boat, backpack, and barge electrofishing; hook-and-line sampling; Kodiak, midwater, oblique, and benthic trawls; and trammel, drift, gill, fyke, hoop, and seine nets. Jack is also an FAA licensed drone operator and a US Coast Guard licensed operator of uninspected passenger vessels (OUPV).

Jack is experienced in the use of R statistical software to conduct analyses and create data visualizations. He regularly writes reports and develops communication materials for multiple websites and social media platforms operated by FISHBIO. He has worked previously as a fisheries research technician with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the University of Missouri, and as an avian research technician with the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Jack holds a master’s degree in biology from Georgia Southern University, where he studied the hybridization of an endemic freshwater fish species with an invasive congeneric relative, and assessed the effects of anthropogenic alterations of the watershed on contemporary genetic diversity. His past academic work and experience with FISHBIO have yielded multiple peer-reviewed scientific manuscripts, agency reports, and conference presentations.