College of Natural Resources & Sciences

Fisheries Biology

A student in the river with a King Salmon.The Fisheries Biology program at HSU is designed primarily to produce graduates who can assess, develop, and manage fish populations and their habitats. These populations may be of ecological, commercial or recreational interest. However, our program is broad enough to allow students to prepare themselves for work in additional areas, such as fish population dynamics, aquarium management, systematics, marine and freshwater aquaculture, fish disease management, fish ecology, water quality, and wastewater utilization.

Fisheries students at the river.Within the Fisheries Biology program, students may choose to specialize in one of four options: marine fisheries, freshwater fisheries, aquarium sciences, or aquaculture. Students in all four options take the same basic science courses - biology, chemistry, math, etc. - as well as a core group of fisheries biology classes. In their junior and senior years, students select additional courses that support the option they have chosen. Finally, working closely with a faculty advisor, students have the opportunity to choose three or four elective courses - which may be in fisheries biology, biology, wildlife, oceanography, math, etc. - that focus on their specific area of interest.

A fisheries student.The regular teaching staff consists of full-time and part-time University faculty and two adjunct faculty members from the Cooperative Fishery Research Unit. Our faculty is highly dedicated and accomplished, and includes recipients of HSU's "Outstanding Professor" and "Scholar of the Year" awards, and the American Fisheries Society's "Educator of the Year" award. Most faculty members have individual research interests and grant or contract funds that provide intellectual and financial support for both undergraduate and graduate students.

Recent enrollment in the Fisheries Biology program has been about 100 undergraduate students and about 30 graduate students who are working toward the M.S. degree. Our graduates have consistently had outstanding success seeking jobs in fisheries-related fields.

Humboldt State University