The 2013 American Fisheries Society (AFS) Big River Basins Symposium was held from September 8-12, 2013 in Little Rock, Arkansas. More than 1,200 representatives from the United States, Canada, U.K., China, Japan etc. attended this Symposium. 11 researchers from Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (IHB) were present at this Symposium.  

The 2013 AFS Symposium arranged a special session with the title of “Fishery Resources and Environment of the Mississippi and Yangtze (Changjiang) River Basins: Common Challenges and Shared Perspectives”. IHB Prof. Wang Ding, Prof. Li Zhongjie, Prof. Xie Songguang, Prof. Wang Hongzhu, Prof. Liu Jiashou and doctoral student Liu Chunlong gave oral presentations respectively. Besides, 10 posters were presented by IHB researchers.  

IHB attendees participated in all the programs of this particular session. They also had interaction with scholars from the United States Fish and Wildlife Serve (FWS), United States Geological Survey (USGS) and Arkansas State University on issues of the common challenges in ecological protection and fishery resources utilization in the Mississippi River and Yangtze River. Both sides reached consensus on the establishment of an interactive network between the two Rivers and negotiated on future cooperative opportunities. They also discussed on the topics and date of the next AFS Symposium.  

After the Symposium, IHB researchers visited the monitoring scene of the wetland restoration program conducted by Arkansas State University and learned the status of the environmental and fishery resources of the Mississippi River. Prof. Xie Songguang later visited the College of Natural Resources and Environment at Virginia Tech.