Meet Traci Linder

Greetings!

My name is Traci and I am happy to announce that I am the newest member of the FishWise team. I will be working as a Project Manager in the Traceability Division, aiding in developing tools to improve seafood traceability and combat illegal fishing and human rights violations.

I grew up in California near the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, which has always been surrounded by political controversy as one of California’s major water hubs. Being surrounded by the constant battle over water usage delegation in a river system that is home to many native threatened and endangered species sparked my interest in water resource science and policy.

Desiring to be closer to the ocean, I completed my B.S. in biology at UC San Diego with an emphasis in ecology. In my junior year I took the opportunity to study abroad in Costa Rica, living in a small coastal town where fishing is the largest source of income for most of the community. My involvement in that community illuminated the improvements needed to ensure fishing practices and aquaculture operations are sustainable. While there, I conducted research on using alternative protein sources as fish feed in carnivorous fish farms to reduce the amount of wild fish needed to feed the farmed fish. Collaborating with the local fishermen on this project and seeing the potential to decrease our impact on our ocean’s resources pushed me to pursue a career in aquatic research and management.

Upon completion of my undergraduate degree, I continued directly on to receive my master’s degree in biology with an emphasis in marine ecology at UC San Diego / Scripps Institution of Oceanography. My master’s research focused on a colony of harbor seals that have established a controversial haul-out and breeding site in La Jolla, CA. My scientific research soon became well known in the community surrounding this controversy, which led to interviews in the San Diego Union Tribune and on National Public Radio.

After graduating, I returned full circle and worked in the private sector as a fisheries biologist, focusing primarily on research in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. My research allowed me the opportunities to work in various salmon and steelhead hatcheries, and study migration patterns of hatchery born and wild populations of fish. I had the pleasure of working on a variety of fisheries science projects, one of which was the large scale Bay Delta Conservation Plan, which is a highly controversial project to divert water from the Delta to California’s Central Valley.

My involvement in aquatic resource management issues led me to seek out a career more focused on fisheries advocacy. I could not be more thrilled to now be working at FishWise with such a talented and passionate team. I look forward to aiding FishWise to the best of my ability in our mission to promote the health and recovery of our ocean ecosystems!