The 2024 OTN Symposium was held from Sept. 23-26 in Kjipuktuk (Halifax, N.S.). This year marked OTN’s 11th symposium—its largest to date—with 200 attendees and more than 60 presenters!
The symposium began on the evening of Sept. 23, with two days of presentations and panel discussions at the Atlantica Hotel, followed by an early career researcher (ECR) workshop hosted at Dalhousie University on Sept. 26. This event brought together attendees from across the globe to collaborate, share strategies and seek new opportunities for the sustainable management of aquatic animals in changing ocean environments.
Presentations, posters, panels and workshops covered exciting and innovative research topics under the themes of conservation and management; movement ecology; freshwater and rivers; collaboration, outreach, and engagement; including:
- Advances and innovations in telemetry technology
- International and national telemetry collaborations
- Pairing different ways of knowing and building Indigenous research partnerships
- Cross-project synthesis and publication
- Best practices and lessons learned
Opening day
The symposium opened with behind-the-scenes tours of OTN’s glider space at COVE—where Dalhousie University maintains a waterfront workshop to support programs like OTN—and a tour of the Innovasea facilities. At Innovasea, attendees participated in a two-part telemetry workshop and visited the production and research and development spaces. COVE tour attendees heard stories from the field, received a demonstration of OTN equipment, and visited OTN’s glider bay.
In the evening, attendees met at the Halifax Club for drinks and caught up with colleagues old and new. They had the opportunity to try Tag! You’re It!—OTN and Big Spruce Brewing’s colla’beer’ation that has raised $150,000+ for marine research, conservation and education-based non-profit organizations and charities in Canada since 2017! This year’s reception was also a particularly special one: OTN’s scientific director, Robert Lennox, and OTN’s senior operations manager, Evelien VanderKloet, paid homage to the remarkable careers and contributions of OTN’s executive director, Fred Whoriskey (who is set to retire at the end of 2024), and OTN’s former scientific director, Sara Iverson (who retired at the end of 2023). Colleagues shared memorable moments with Fred and Sara and toasted to the many milestones achieved under their leadership. It was also announced that in recognition of their invaluable contributions to OTN, two awards will be established to continue their legacy of service: Sara’s scholarship will support an OTN symposium attendee, and on alternating years, Fred’s scholarship will support an ECR workshop attendee. More details about both awards will be provided in the coming months.
Day one program
The first full day of programming started with a welcome ceremony from Elder Ann LaBillois—Dalhousie University’s Elder in Residence. Elder Ann provides support and counsel to Indigenous students and helps build cultural understanding and share a Mi’kmaw perspective more broadly within the university community. Self-described as a lifelong student, Elder Ann shared how curiosity and building human connections have shaped her journey to where she is today. Her thoughtful reflections on holistic learning and collaboration set a perfect tone for the rest of the symposium activities.
Elder Ann’s welcome was followed by a memorable keynote address from Sara Iverson, who shared her stories on tracking marine animals and ocean ecosystems and being a woman of wild science. Sara recounted many tales from her illustrious career as a world-renowned scientist and over 15 years as OTN’s scientific director—including disguising herself in a giant box to get closer to territorial sea lions—as well as the novel opportunities that blossomed from her winding and adventurous path—like being selected as a mentor for Barbie x National Geographic’s 50th anniversary campaign!
She also left the audience with several golden nuggets of wisdom to put in their own back pockets, namely:
- Follow your dreams and roll with the punches
- Stay flexible and keep an open mind for new opportunities (sometimes where and when you least expect them)!
- There’s more than one path to a career in science
- You can be what you want to be and have fun doing it—obstacles are only bumps in the road!
Watch the full keynote:
After Sara’s keynote address, the day segued into oral presentations that highlighted international research programs, research in freshwater and estuaries, and collaboration and outreach. The afternoon sessions covered presentations under the themes of management and best practices, movement ecology, and conservation and management. Presentations finished with workshops on using reflexivity for equitable and rigorous science, and relative habitat selection and resource selection functions in aquatic telemetry.
Day one concluded with an evening poster social, where attendees had the chance to learn about a variety of tracking projects and chat with the researchers behind the work.
Day two program
Day two opened with a plenary from Robert and Evelien, who presented on the next five years of OTN, and highlighted key objectives outlined in OTN’s strategic plan. Attendees learned more about OTN’s funding structure and planned activities and operations, as well as opportunities for involvement and collaboration.
Watch the plenary:
Following the plenary, concurrent sessions continued and covered the themes of Canadian research programs, movement ecology, methods and tools, collaboration and outreach, and conservation and management. The day’s programming concluded with presentations from Innovasea and Lotek, and panels on both tagging sensors and ocean-going robots and their applications in aquatic telemetry.
As the day officially drew to a close, Evelien drummed up excitement for the highly anticipated draw for the winners of a two-day-long bingo game. Four names were pulled from a festively wrapped shark-themed cardboard box, with one lucky attendee scoring a special grand prize gifted by Lotek: their new Orca receiver (set to launch next year)!
Fred Whoriskey closed out the symposium by expressing his gratitude for a vibrant and rewarding career with OTN and shared words of hope and optimism for the global telemetry community and for the future of aquatic sciences. He ended with a challenge to the audience to continue to push boundaries in their research and seek new ways to collaborate and innovate together.
ECR workshop
The early career researchers workshop took place on Sept. 26 at Dalhousie University, and featured a full day of interactive, hands-on sessions covering topics including using GAMs for analyzing movement data, machine learning with telemetry data and estimating detection efficiency of acoustic receivers using the GLATOS data package. The workshop concluded with an evening social at the Oxford Taproom, where ECRs had a chance to connect and unwind at the end of the day.
Future symposia
Researchers in all career stages, students, and industry professionals are encouraged to attend future symposia to share their research and foster cross-sectoral collaborations.
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Sponsors and supporters
A big thank you to our sponsors and supporters for making this symposium possible: Innovasea, Dalhousie University’s Faculty of Science, Transport Canada, Emera Newfoundland and Labrador, Teledyne Marine, GLATOS, Lotek, Liquid Robotics, and the Atlantic Groundfish Council.