Atomic Ecology Meets - Dr. Kurt Samways

Atomic Ecology Meets is back with a new webinar, and this time I had the genuine pleasure of sitting down with an old friend and long-time colleague, Kurt Samways. Kurt and I go back a long way to our time in Atlantic Canada, and if you know him, you’ll understand why I was really looking forward to this chat. If you don’t know him yet, you’re about to spend the next hour in very good company.

In this webinar, Kurt walks through some outstanding examples of applied stable isotope work in fisheries management and conservation, with a particular focus on Atlantic salmon. We talk about how isotopes act as natural integrators of diet, habitat, and ecological change — and how that makes them so powerful for answering real management questions, from ecosystem restoration to conservation forensics.

As always with Atomic Ecology Meets, this isn’t just about results and figures. We also dig into the stories behind the science: how these projects came together, what worked (and what didn’t), and why asking the right ecological question matters far more than starting with a particular tool. I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did — and if you stick around to the end, I’ll also point you toward a few new Atomic Ecology resources that build directly on the ideas discussed here.